Survival of the fittest - what does it mean ?

I believe that is Cooley’s Anemia that is specific to the Mediterranean, right?

Now, back to the dead horse that is the argument of survival of the fittest is a tautology.
I am not even going to go into explaining how it is not, as it is such a tired argument that has been shown to be false many times. And, from what I have seen from Metari1, I believe he goes around to wacky creationist sites and comes back here and regurgitates what he has read with nothing novel to add. But that is typical of many creationists I’ve heard, and is expected when reason is the enemy of your faith.

Jason Rosenhouse blogged (long ago now) about how to spot a bad argument, and it most certainly applies here.
If you hear someone say that a well supported theory is invalid, not because of some new evidence, but because of a basic flaw in logic, you should dismiss this argument out of hand.
How likely is it that generations of scientists have used a theory extensively and further developed the theory and produced mountains of experimental evidence for the theory, but somehow missed something very basic. Further, it takes someone as brilliant as Metari 1 (or whoever it is that he is parroting) to point out this flaw to the stupid scientists who weren’t clever enough to see it.
The tautological argument is word play. I would say that I can’t believe there is still any discussion on it, but the dishonesty of creationists have taught me that some things that should go away sometimes never do.

Please provide references as to who has showed which individual with his particular intent was false.

Other than noting a particular creature survived how was its fitness measured ?

Other than noting a particular creature survived how was its fitness measured ?

Warmlug already provided a good example of sickle cell disease causing resistance to malaria. Therefore, if you live in a malaria area sickle cell disease makes you fitter to survive.

A simpler example. A lion chases 2 bucks, the one buck is fast and gets away, the slow buck is caught. The faster buck was more fit to survive and got away.

So, to answer your question, fitness is measured in terms of the trait or ability that gives an organism the ability to overcome an adverse condition.

Johan

Johan weet jy wat is die definisie van a tautologie? Ek gaan vir jou Wikipedia kwoteer.

"…In colloquial terms a logical tautology can also be defined as a series of statements that comprise an argument, which statements are constructed in such a way that the truth of the proposition is guaranteed. Consequently the statement conveys no useful information regardless of its length or complexity. Thus, for a simple example, the statement “if you can’t find something (that you lost), you are not looking in the right place” is tautological. It is also true, but conveys no useful information. As a physical example, to play a game of darts where the dart board was full of bullseyes, could be called a “tautological” game. You can’t lose. Any argument containing a tautological statement is thus flawed logically and must be considered erroneous.

A tautological argument is not an argument; a tautological game is not a game. Mathematical equations, such as e = mc2, are not tautologies. The terms on both sides of the equation are defined elsewhere independently, and thus the equal sign does not mean “is defined by” but rather equal to, thus establishing an equivalence…"

So let me ask the question again:

“…fitness is measured in terms of the trait or ability that gives an organism the ability to overcome an adverse condition…”

Other than noting an organism had the ability to overcome an adverse condition, how was its fitness measured ?

Our observation was that an organism indeed had the ability to overcome and adverse condition, how does labeling this “fitness” tell us anything we don’t already know.

Metari1:

The reason these observations of survival of the fittest are not a tautology, is that it refers not to a single population from which the weaker individuals have been removed, but to a replicating gene pool with errors. The conclusion is drawn that heritable traits are selected for and against. Heritable traits that confer superior benefits in survivability, will increase in the gene pool, over generations.

How about this:
A herd of buffalo is only as fit as its weakest individual. Because lions tend to catch the weaker individuals, the net effect of lion predation on a buffalo herd is an increase in its fitness (this is a tautology).
Now, every time a person imbibes alcohol, a great number of neurons are killed off in his brain. BUT! Its those weaker neurons that are killed off. That’s why we feel so clever after a couple of beers (OK, also a tautology, but have a couple of beers, Metar1, and you might see the light).

If the surviving buffalo have a heritable trait that confers upon them superior predator evasion abilities, their offspring will be fitter than those who do not have this inherited trait. The tautology becomes irrelevant, because we’re examining a deeper level of interaction. “Survival of the fittest” refers to the selection of genes that encode for this superior trait, whether it is superior by default (loss of the trait by the weaker ones) or by a fortunate set of mutations in the “fitter” ones. It is the distinction between individuals who by some fortunate nurturing have superior but not heritable traits and those who have superior traits encoded in their genes that elevates “survival of the fittest” above a self-evident theory. The truth of the proposition is not guaranteed. Heritability and gene expression of traits have to be examined in every specific proposition.

Some good examples were provided by Warm Lug and Johan, but natural selection goes beyond the “faster = better” examples. We know that using the predictive power of the theory of evolution, we can describe a scenario which has not happened yet which allows us to view the potential course of a life form’s development. We can look at a herd of antelope who have been shown to develop genes to become faster or more nimble or are hard-wired to “spronk”, but could easily be wiped-out by a new hypothetical disease. We might see that these fast individuals are not going to out run the disease and that a particular sub group of the less-fit-to-survive-lion-attacks group happens to have a blood disorder which causes deformed red blood cells (inhibiting the uptake of oxygen, thus making them unable to use the full potential of their muscles, thus slower). The virus cannot use the deformed red blood cells. This red blood cell deformity can be the “fitness” which the group of antelope is selected on in the future, but right now it is a hindrance, a disadvantage.

If I showed you a slow antelope with the blood cell deformity and said to you that this is a fit individual which will ensure the survival of the species for the next two hundred years, you would laugh; it is clearly not fit and likely to be eaten.

The thing to take from this is that fitness is not an obvious conclusion drawn from observation. We do not say “look at the elephant, it is big and strong and thus it was fit to survive. It’s presence is proof of its fitness”, we say “look at the elephant, it was fitter than the mammoth because of these traits which natural selection acted on to ensure its survival”.

I would say that acinonyx jubatus - the cheetah - is probably a good example, it is my favourite animal and a great example of how fitness is hit-and-miss. Unlike most animals around today which have many hundreds of thousands of years of genetic history, cheetahs were almost extinct ten thousand years ago. There is some disagreement on the number of cheetahs who survived the climate change event (some say it was one small closely-related family, others say it was only one pregnant female) but the shallowness of their gene pool is evident today. We very nearly lost a very “fit” (by today’s standards) animal due to the catastrophic climate change event of 10 000 years ago. How many other “fit” animals did we actually lose? Cheetahs are very well adapted to their environment and nobody can argue that they are not fit to survive, and yet they almost didn’t because they were not fit in the right way at the right time.

Well, metari1 if you insist that “survival of the fittest” is a tautology by asking silly questions, then by extension so is every other empirical observation we make about the world: Other than noting that an oven plate produces a particular variety of physical actions or reactions, how do we measure that it is hot?

So why not do a proper job and criticise all scientific epistemology? You can also add ontology, metaphysics and language while you’re at it. That way at least you might contribute something useful to human knowledge instead of getting to pick the bits that suit and rejecting the bits that don’t.

'Luthon64

Maybe the links in this post is relevant: Re: Myths of Origin and the Theory of Evolution

@metari1:
What do you agree with? Do you agree that traits are heritable in organisms via genes? And do you agree that one organism (collection of genes) will survive better in some environment than another organism?

“Survival of the Fittest” is a sentence a human being uses to project some sort of intent, it is not some formally defined established theory like newton’s theory of gravity or something. The term was coined by Herbert Spencer and adopted by Darwin, where did Spencer have any intent about genes if he didn’t know about genes ?

Lets get back the to the Perry Marshall green light example:
“You have a green light.”

  1. It could mean you are holding a green light bulb.
  2. Or you have a green light to drive your car.
  3. You can go ahead with the project.

Three completely different meanings based on intent. Intent changed but syntax and semantics, grammar didn’t change. What is your intent with “Survival of the Fittest”. Do you for example know that Spencer viewed evolution as a progressive upwards process that will eventually lead to an ideal society? That was his intent with SoF, but his intent differs from Robert Sapolsky who views evolution as non-directional.

Evolution, SoF, Selection - these are the semantics. You need in order syntax, grammar, semantics to finally get to the pragmatics or intent as you signal receiver send info to me signal decoder. I am trying to decode your intent and thus I need to ask you a few questions such as where did you get your interpretation that SoF had anything to do with genes.

For this you would need to tell me who said SoF in relation to genes, where did this person derive a theory with genes and the label SoF. SoF is just a label, not some sort of abstract authority or entity in and of itself, the label SoF can only be used to communicate your intent - what is your intent with SoF and where did you derive your intent.

“…Survival of the Fittest …” Who says so ?

  1. Herbert Spencer - what was his intent. Evolution towards our higher destiny which differs from Robert Sapolsky.

  2. General with Phd in philosophy saying SoF to bolster the morale of his troops in the heat of battle.

  3. John Wilkins - What was his intent ?

  4. Mussolini repeating over and over in his speeches SoF

  5. Charles Darwin quoting Spencer.

  6. Cat walking over somebody’s keyboard typing out - SoF and then pressing print and the paper flies out the window. You pick it up tomorrow a single term SoF on a blank piece of paper. You have no idea who wrote it (the cat unintentionally) thus you don’t know what was the will,motive,intent or pragmatics behind the words “Survival of the Fittest”.

  7. Eight year old kid thinking he is a genius by saying that those that survived are the fittest and those that are the fittest survived. Notice that the term ToE , ToNS are used by eight year olds and professors in quantum physics - are they talking about the same thing ? The very fact that little children can talk about the Theory of Natural Selection with a great sense of intellectual achievement - that alone should tell us that we need to look very carefully at what exactly is the Theory of Natural Selection and Evolution. Is there any other theory in physics, math etc. where everybody can all talk together about such a theory, only with the Theory of Natural Selection is everybody from a six year old to a 60 year old physicist under the illusion that they are talking about the same thing. They all use the same label but is their intent the same.

::slight_smile: Here we go again. What on Earth makes you think that we want to answer your questions when you flat-out refuse to answer our questions?

We have shown you the respect of entering into a civilised discussion for many months now and you have not once reciprocated the patience that we have shown while letting you have your say. Many of the participants here have run out of patience before I have and now I see why.

I will not answer any of your questions until you answer the questions from bluegrayV, Anacoluthon64 (those are the direct questions I can find) and the other statements made by participants here which you have completely ignored, not refuting them or accepting any part of what they said. Here’s a little guidance, try writing a few sentences which read “I agree with the observation that you made that …AAA… but have you considered the conterposition …BBB…”. Or “The reason that I do not accept …AAA… is because …BBB…”. In typical discussion, participants like it if BBB is directly related to the point made in AAA, rather than being a complete change to the focus of the discussion.

As for the theme of this thread, your question “What does survival of the fittest mean?” has been repeatedly answered.

Ask that child what happens when you release a ball … “it falls”. No need to study advanced physics there. Being an eight year old I’m sure s/he can tell you the motion and location of the eight planets without a degree in Astronomy.

A shameless dig - counterexample:
Ask a child (of any speaking age) where fluffy went after he died. “To Heaven?” really? You don’t have a degree in theology, how do you know that?

ummm, okay I answered a question there, but you know what I mean. :smiley:

Good post ArgumentumAdHominem. Unfortunately it seems that they don’t teach you how to answer simple questions in creationism school. Only elaborate statements and arguments that can easily be seen as flawed by even the slightest of real insight into the subject.

Yes, I agree with you here. And I suspect that when you talk about the Theory of Natural Selection, you have much the same comprehension of the term as an eight year old might have.
It does not matter what Darwin or Herbert Spencer or Bart Simpson meant when they used the term NS. What matters is what is understood by the term by scientists that work on the subject today. They might have (and did) get a lot of their ideas from people like Darwin and Mendel and they did indeed shape what we understand today under the term NS. But it is only because their ideas agreed with scientific experiment and evidence collected now for many years. Their work was merely the seed from which the modern theory have grown into a well tested and evidence based theory.

If you really want to learn about evolution and natural selection, you will have to read more recent publications and scholarly articles, which you will find in many of the links and references that we posted. Wikipedia has a long list of references that you can check out as well. We can only give you a short summary of the modern theory here - and of course answer any serious questions you might have, which I think we did numerous times by now.

I can see why you insist on asking what was meant by Darwin and his contemporaries by NS though. Because even though they understood how evolution and NS was supposed to work, they did not completely understand the mechanism by which this all took place. They did not have the evidence or insight or tools or complimentary theories that we have today. By attacking them you will have to ignore a much smaller body of evidence that if you attacked any modern biologist. If you attack Darwin, you only have one or two books to prove wrong. If you attack a modern biologist like Richard Dawkins, you have a whole library to proof wrong.

Uh oh! Presumably in the same essential way that “Vertical Falling of Apples” is a sentence (phrase, actually) a human being uses to project some sort of intent – an intent maybe to formulate a theory of gravity, one surmises…

Correct, that is, in and of itself: it is a bidirectional observation of great generality, a rule of thumb, concerning the progression of life forms over time. It is bidirectional because wherever a particular organism is seen to thrive, that organism is with much certainty well-suited to its environment, and vice versa. The phrase’s real value lies in guiding us in our examination of those factors that are relevant to the survival and/or proliferation of various organisms, including interactions with other organisms. This is in stark contrast to any explanations that would invoke some form of magic or miracle. The phrase is shorthand for a formally defined established theory (actually, a collection thereof), namely Evolution with Natural Selection. It is, as already pointed out earlier in these pages, a statistical, a probabilistic theory, unlike General Relativity which is wholly deterministic.

But, as the saying goes, “the proof of the pudding…” Numerous computer-based simulators have been prepared that – please note – do not rely on unsustainable sleight-of-mind. Such simulators are in use for scenario modelling, chiefly with a view towards environmental and ecological management. Like all good science, these simulators are continually being improved and updated for reliability, accuracy and flexibility as new knowledge emerges, and they provide results which have in many cases been validated through further observation and measurement.

Elsewhere, the manifest success of applying so-called “genetic algorithms” (actually, a family of algorithms) in the relatively efficient computerised solution of many-dimensional problems characterised by some combination of non-linearity, chaotic or quasi-chaotic solution spaces and/or complex boundary conditions attests to the great usefulness of “survival of the fittest” as a guiding principle.

Not at all a bad record of success for a mere “tautology,” should you actually bother to ask me. Thus, it is blandly thoughtless to engage in some trumped-up sophistry concerning the finer points of language use. On similar grounds you could make an equally compelling case for dismissing pretty much the whole of economics because “the rule of supply and demand” is a “tautology.” Or, for that matter, the utility of any other broad probabilistic principle drawn from empirical observations.

But please feel free to persist in such foolish notions.

'Luthon64

“Rule of supply and demand” - who says so ? Lets presume a 12 year old posting on this forum and some professor in economics, now the question is what is the background knowledge of each and how does it impact what we should understand each motive,will,intent or pragmatics and even his aphobetics in Gitt information theory when each of them says “…rule of supply and demand …”

The professor would know about the “survivalist, data snooping and forward looking” biases that plague stock market technical analysis and the statistical techniques such as bootstrapping used to counter the data snooping bias. This professor would be thinking in a much higher analytical dimension then a 12 year old merely parroting a phrase he heard somewhere.

In the same vane using the term SoF means what ? It depends on who says so what is your background knowledge. What is it that we know today that Spencer didn’t know back then. SoF is not a theory it is just semantics, grammar and syntax - there is no intent or pragmatics behind it unless somebody says “SoF”, thus who says so ? The same with “Rule of supply and demand” - who says so.

There is no such thing as a formal theory of SoF or theory of rule of supply and demand, these are just colloquial labels which are used to project some sort of intent of the individual using it. Newtons’ theory of gravity is formally defined.

Why, you yourself do! It’s an unavoidable consequence of extending your argument concerning “survival of the fittest” to any other rule abstracted from empirical observations: How else do we measure supply/demand dynamics except by noting that the one drives the other? By the way, your argument now seems surreptitiously to have changed from “‘survival of the fittest’ is a tautology” to “there is no consistent intent behind usage of the phrase ‘survival of the fittest’ because the intent depends on who says it.” So, which is it?

Of course. But I am hard pressed to think of anything more trivially obvious – trivially obvious, that is, than the observation that one’s understanding of a term depends on the level of one’s expertise in the pertinent field(s) of study. As an irreverent and almost irrelevant aside, for someone who appears to care so deeply about ensuring that language adequately meets reality, you yourself certainly stretch the rules of spelling and grammar with considerable abandon.

I, along with several others here, have repeatedly explained the essential differences to you in several distinct ways. Newton’s theory of gravity is deterministic, hence relatively straightforward, hence rather concisely expressible. Ditto many other physical theories. In contrast, evolution deals with aggregates of already significantly complex entities dynamically interacting – that is, changing others and themselves being changed in the process – with many others of a comparable kind, hence stochastic analyses are called for, hence elaborate illustration by means of multifarious examples is necessary to convey the theory’s quintessence, hence the need for mnemonics like “survival of the fittest.” Just like economics, in fact.

'Luthon64

The word “evolution” which is derived from the Latin word for “change” doesn’t deal with anything. The word evolution is just semantics not pragmatics, there can only be pragmatics by an individual to communicate his motive using semantics. What is your intent in telling
us that the word “change” deals with complex entities, how is it possible for the word “change” to deal with entities if the word “change” is not a conscious being ?

Obviously your intent is not that the word change as some sort of abstract authority deals with things, thus I need to ask you what is your intent because I have no idea.

Okay, my fault for not being consummately diligent in my wording. Imagine then, if you will, that in the cited excerpt the word “evolution” is spelled with a capital letter “e” and think instead of it as a term denoting a multifaceted area of active scientific inquiry. That should, I expect, clear up for you any remaining semantic and intent issues, n’est-ce pas?

The latter is lavishly clear, and, if I may venture a guess, the direct result of a microscopic attention span.

'Luthon64

Definitive proof that one unit of Planck Time is not actually the shortest timespan in the Universe. :stuck_out_tongue:

Anacoluthon64
“… think instead of Evolution as a term denoting a multifaceted area of inquiry…” ?

What has the word “change” or “evolution” got to do with making inquiries ?

I presume you are refering to the ToE and ToNS. Would you mind showing me where is formally established Theory of Natural Selection on Wikipedia or anywhere else for that matter? (hint - you find it on Wikipedia).