适者生存1864

"Survival of the fittest" 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 "survival of the form that in successive generations will leave most copies of itself."

Herbert Spencer first used the phrase, after reading Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species, in his Principles of Biology (1864), in which he drew parallels between his own economic theories and Darwin's biological ones: "This survival of the fittest, which I have here sought to express in mechanical terms, is that which Mr. Darwin has called 'natural selection', or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life."

Darwin responded positively to Alfred Russel Wallace's suggestion of using Spencer's new phrase "survival of the fittest" as an alternative to "natural selection". He adopted the phrase in The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication published in 1868. In On the Origin of Species, he introduced the phrase in the fifth edition published in 1869, intending it to mean "better designed for an immediate, local environment".

History of the phrase

By his own account, Herbert Spencer described a concept similar to "survival of the fittest" in his 1852 "A Theory of Population". He first used the phrase – after reading Charles Darwin's 1859 book On the Origin of Species – in his Principles of Biology of 1864 in which he drew parallels between his economic theories and Darwin's biological, evolutionary ones, writing, "This survival of the fittest, which I have here sought to express in mechanical terms, is that which Mr. Darwin has called 'natural selection', or the preservation of favored races in the struggle for life."

Critiquing the phrase

While the phrase "survival of the fittest" is often used to mean "natural selection", it is avoided by modern biologists because the phrase can be misleading. For example, survival is only one aspect of selection, and not always the most important. Another problem is that the word "fit" is often conflated with physical fitness. In the evolutionary meaning, "fitness" is the rate of reproductive output among a class of genetic variants.

Interpreted as expressing a biological theory

The phrase can also be interpreted to express a theory or hypothesis: that "fit" as opposed to "unfit" individuals or species, in some sense of "fit", will survive some test. Nevertheless, when extended to individuals, it is a conceptual mistake; the phrase refers to the transgenerational survival of heritable attributes; particular individuals are quite irrelevant. This becomes clearer when referring to Viral quasispecies, in survival of the flattest, which makes it clear that to survive does not refer to the question of even being alive itself; rather, the functional capacity of proteins to carry out work.

Interpreted as expressing a moral theory

Social Darwinists

The use of the term "social Darwinism" as a critique of capitalist ideologies was introduced by Richard Hofstadter in Social Darwinism in American Thought, published in 1944.

Anarchists

Russian zoologist and anarchist Peter Kropotkin viewed the concept of "survival of the fittest" as supporting co-operation rather than competition. In his book Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution, he set out his analysis leading to the conclusion that the fittest was not necessarily the best at competing individually, but often the community made up of those best at working together.

Tautology

"Survival of the fittest" is sometimes claimed to be a tautology. The reasoning is that if one takes the term "fit" to mean "endowed with phenotypic characteristics which improve chances of survival and reproduction" (which is roughly how Spencer understood it), then "survival of the fittest" can be rewritten as "survival of those who are better equipped for surviving". Furthermore, the expression does becomes a tautology if one uses the most widely accepted definition of "fitness" in modern biology, namely, reproductive success itself (rather than any set of characters conducive to this reproductive success).