Survival Of The Survivors
Survival Of The SurvivorsSurvivalOfTheSurvivors is really the better description of evolution than SurvivalOfTheFittest - only it's trivially true - but better than being wrong. Evolution doesn't look at fitness. Fitness or adaptation helps (statistically) but guaratees nothing.
A small difference in fitness will matter over the long run (generations). Sure, luck matters to the individuals, but the group changes as the ones most fit are more likely to breed, making their traits the majority for the next set of breeders.
The statistical help is what matters. A 2% survival and breeding advantage is a million:one population advantage after just 700 generations (presuming this advantage is present in all offspring of each generation).
A statistical advantage that is present in a single individual will only take hold and be taken over in the whole population if the individual (or its descendants) don't die for whatever reasons. And there is a very good chance that they do in the first generations - especially for prey.
Few advantages are things that will exist in only one individual of a group. Most are variations in color, limb length, sesnory acuteness, etc. There will be a range of values in the population, and those that have the advantageous values will survive longer, and have more offspring, leading to the next generation having more individuals with those traits. "Survival of the fittest" doesn't mean that only those few with the absolute best traits survive, rather that those who in aggregate have the better traits do.
Of course. We can't agree more (ViolentAgreement). But all the statistical qualifications present in your explanation disappear in the short phrase SurvivalOfTheFittest. Interpreted in the NearestFittingContext of the average reader it is plain wrong. But SurvivalOfTheSurvivors is correct in that context even though it doesn't help much either.
'SurvivalOfTheSurvivors' may be correct, but it's also vacuous. Calling it StatisticallySignificantSurvivalBasedOnInheritedTraitsCompoundingAcrossGenerations would be better, but that just doesn't have the same marketing ring to it as 'SurvivalOfTheFittest'. As a memetic vector for initiating an education about the underlying principles of evolution, SurvivalOfTheFittest is likely a better choice.
With that purpose in mind I fully agree.
Alternate suggestions for WikiNames that are less tautological:
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(last edited June 5, 2008)
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