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- DictionarySurvival of the fittest
- ▪ the continued existence of organisms which are best adapted to their environment, with the extinction of others, as a concept in the Darwinian theory of evolution
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Jun 24, 2024 · The meaning of SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST is the natural process by which organisms best adjusted to their environment are most successful in surviving and reproducing : natural selection —often used figuratively to describe a situation, attitude, etc., of fierce or ruthless competition.
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- Overview
- Use in evolutionary theory
- Application to economics
- Eugenics
survival of the fittest, term made famous in the fifth edition (published in 1869) of On the Origin of Species by British naturalist Charles Darwin, which suggested that organisms best adjusted to their environment are the most successful in surviving and reproducing. Darwin borrowed the term from English sociologist and philosopher Herbert Spencer, who first used it in his 1864 book Principles of Biology. (Spencer came up with the phrase only after reading Darwin’s work.)
(Read T. H. Huxley’s 1875 Britannica essay on evolution & biology.)
Darwin did not consider the process of evolution as the survival of the fittest; he regarded it as survival of the fitter, because the “struggle for existence” (a term he took from English economist and demographer Thomas Malthus) is relative and thus not absolute. Instead, the winners with respect to species within ecosystems could become losers with a change of circumstances. For example, fossil evidence supports the notion that the mammoth (Mammuthus) was more fit during the most recent ice age (which ended roughly 11,700 years ago), but it became less fit as humans hunted it and the world’s climate warmed; fossil evidence suggests that the mammoth succumbed to extinction a few thousand years later.
(Read Thomas Malthus’s 1824 Britannica essay on population.)
Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection entailed three crucial elements: variation, reproduction, and heritability. Variations in the physical features of organisms that tend to benefit an individual (or a species) in the struggle for existence are preserved and passed on (or selected), because the individuals (or species) that have them tend to survive. The success or failure of a given variation is not known when it emerges; it is known only retrospectively, after organisms that possess it either grow and mature and pass it to their own offspring or fail to mature and reproduce.
Importantly, Darwin was influenced by the thinking of English physicist and mathematician Isaac Newton, whose system emphasized experimentation, mathematics, and logic over subjective sense experience. During Darwin’s time, his evolutionary theory was an attempt to construct a similar system for the living world, a frontier not yet crossed in the biological sciences.
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Darwin was also influenced by Scottish philosopher Adam Smith, whose An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations was published in 1776. In this work, Smith venerated self-interest: “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.” Such self-interest was based on a philosophical view of the world that posited that only individuals, and not groups, were the important elements. In so doing, Smith was aligning himself with a nominalist worldview (which held that reality is only made up of concrete and individual items). According to Smith, what he termed the “invisible hand”—a metaphor in which beneficial social and economic outcomes arose from the accumulated self-interested actions of individuals—would settle matters between people, bringing a sense of balance to their performance. Smith’s worldview was associated with the doctrine of laissez-faire economics (the policy of minimum governmental interference in the economic affairs of individuals and society), and it is reflected in Darwin’s own account of evolution by natural selection:
It may be said that natural selection is daily and hourly scrutinizing throughout the world, every variation, even the slightest; rejecting that which is bad, preserving and adding up all that is good; silently and insensibly working, whenever and wherever opportunity offers, at the improvement of each organic being in relation to its organic and inorganic conditions of life.
The logic of survival of the fittest and natural selection was thought to be transferable to humanity. Within the context of the ascendancy of Victorian England (1820–1914), a perspective arose that the more intelligent would rule the less intelligent, or those who were less fit. To realize this perspective, Darwin’s cousin, British scientist Francis Galton, who coined the term eugenics (derived from the Greek for “well-born”), established the Eugenics Education Society of London in 1907. Galton, along with many others among the educated classes, hoped to actively discourage the overbreeding of the less fit and so preserve what was best in Victorian society.
As it related to the concept of survival of the fittest, eugenics was divided into positive and negative forms, with positive eugenics actively encouraging good breeding and negative eugenics preventing bad breeding. A pertinent example of negative eugenics appeared in the work of American psychologist Robert Yerkes. During World War I Yerkes analyzed the intelligence of U.S. Army recruits, and he concluded that heritable traits accounted for differences in intelligence between races, despite his use of culturally biased intelligence tests. U.S. Pres. Calvin Coolidge, who was influenced by Yerkes’s findings, signed the 1924 Immigration Act, a law that prevented people from immigrating to the United States by virtue of their nationality or race. In 1907 Indiana became the first U.S. state to pass laws that allowed for compulsory sterilization of those who had been classified as “unfit.” More than 29 other states would follow, passing their own compulsory sterilization laws; however, the eugenics movement in the U.S. declined in popularity after the 1920s.
Herbert Spencer coined the phrase "survival of the fittest". " Survival of the fittest " [1] is a phrase that originated from Darwinian evolutionary theory as a way of describing the mechanism of natural selection. The biological concept of fitness is defined as reproductive success. In Darwinian terms, the phrase is best understood as ...
May 5, 2022 · Survival of the Fittest Definition. In biology, the definition of survival of the fittest is this, “a natural process resulting in the evolution of organisms best adapted to the environment”. The origin of this phrase is from the evolutionary theory proposed by Charles Darwin, an English naturalist and evolutionary biologist.
SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST meaning: 1. the principle that animals and plants suited to the conditions they live in are more likely to…. Learn more.
SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST definition: 1. the principle that animals and plants suited to the conditions they live in are more likely to…. Learn more.
Survival of the fittest definition: (not in technical use) natural selection.. See examples of SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST used in a sentence.
