What do you think about survival of the fittest and its absence today?

Question

I thought about this today - its just a generalization and there are exceptions:

A lot of wealthy people in this world tend to be thinner and weaker, mainly because it is the smart people in our society that are financially succesful. I know a lot of physically strong guys that have low brainpower, but fit the image of the men that were the "fittest" in the early days of man. Today, many of them do not succeed because survival of the fittest has almost become survival of the smartest. It's unnatural to me and kind of scares me. What do you guys think about this?

Answer 1

The definition of "fitness" also evolves, just as our bodies do. What was fit before is not necessarily the same as what is fit now. As for those with low brainpower, that does not appear to affect their reproductive success adversely. Fitness is all about reproductive success, and the smarter among us probably don't reproduce as much, because they think about things like overpopulation, global warming, and all the other things that make the world a less wonderful place to raise kids, and restrict their reproduction. Be cautious in how you define success, at least in evolutionary terms.

Answer 2

I think we have jumped ahead of natural selection/evolution with modern technology and medicine. We let inferior genes survive.

I think in ancient times the strong were also the powerful and "rich" Since he could get the most game and thus get the most women/children. Now however the rich are the smart/intelligent but women are still atracted to the strong (a relic of our past). The smart/rich however shoot themselves in the foot by helping the big/strong survive (social security, philanthropy, aid etc). Women hold the key to the equation, because they choose who to have kids with...

Answer 3

Paris Hilton is a great example of wealth and privilege and what it does to character.

She was almost having a nervous breakdown having to go to jail.

When it came to needed strength and responsibility stemming from correct thinking to go to jail and pay her due, instead of these things appearing for her, she almost collapsed in fear and denial.

There are others who are poor and possess great character.

Survival of the fittest is not survival of the smartest but survival of the wise.

Answer 4

When times are easy even the weakest survive, and things have been quite easy for years.

But who says the smartest are not the fittest, huh?

Answer 5

Survival doesn't mean the survival of one person, it's the survival of that person long enough to reproduce. Given the differential reproductive rates of the smart and the not-smart, I don't think you have anything to worry about.

Answer 6

Well if you think about it, we don't have the absolute need to be so physically strong because of the convenience modern technology has brought us and the protection it provides. Now don't underestimate early man either. It took more than brawn to come up with solutions for their everyday problems and beginning the foundations of life as we know it. That certainly isn't a job I would've wanted compared to now. Since we have solutions to the outside concerns, it seems as if what we deal with more is the internal struggles and emotional health. The "fittest" survive financially because they are able and willing to go through college and stick to a job without letting emotional factors affect them to the point of quitting. So yes, I would say they're stronger in mind and have good control of their emotions. I can't see early man leaving his cave to go hunt for food and the woman nagging that she doesn't get to see him that much and that she needs help doing laundry. They did what they had to do to survive even if it meant that the workload disfigured their bodies. It was a completely different mindset. I think if we today were put in those same situations we would also do what we could to survive. But today, we're sitting so fat and happy that we have nothing left to do but complain about what we don't have, while the "fittest" are getting off their can's and doing something to better the situation instead of just commenting on it. The evolution of what is now considered "fittest" is appropriate to this day and age and what we are faced with and shouldn't be compared to the days of early man. I hope that made sense.....

Answer 7

I still think that it is survival of the fittest.  Only you need to broaden you definition of what is deamed fittest.  I think that the requirements for "the fittest" are always in flux and dependent upon their surroundings. It just means the people that have the qualities needed to survive in their own world.  In the case of today's world in America, that is not just smart people, but people that hold a certain charisma.  I know a great deal of people that are incredibly intelligent, but don't know how to use it to sell themselves to take advantage of it.

However, like I said this is always changing.  After the forties, a high school diploma was enough.  By the eighties and nineties it was a degree.  Now, it is a masters or a more specialized degree.  This scenario is getting tougher and tougher.  It will be interesting to see what will become of this.

Answer 8

"Fittest" doesnt' necessarily mean strongest.  If that were true, humans wouldn't be this intelligent.  It wouldn't make evolutionary sense to become this smart.  Instead, though, we've gained a lot of brainpower and lost a lot of muscle.  We're a fairly weak, slow animal, and we've still managed to get pretty d@mned far.

Intelligence has been selected for in humans for a very long time now.  Brute strength can usually be bested with sufficient intelligence.  I wouldn't take on a tiger alone, but give me a gun, or better yet a tank, and I'd do just fine, thanks.

Answer 9

Today, as always, "survival of the fitest" is expressed through reproductive success.  Ones survival, and their reproductive success, used to be more a measure of being able to deal with more extreme environments, but even in the past this never ultimately meant that dealing with harsh environments was best done by the physically strongest individuals.  Craftiness has been a mainstay of Homo sapiens for a long time, otherwise it becomes questionable that Homo sapien could ever have replaced neanderthalensis in Europe if robust charateristics were the only benefit in past times.  So, no, physically strong individuals were rarely the best fit image in the early days of men, in fact these large bodies would have had higher energy demands and would have been selected against heavily in times of food scarcity.

But, at the same time, to imply that more intelligent people have more sucess with regard to "survival of the fittest" today is also a mistaken conclussion.  These same individuals who use their intelligence to find financial success also seem to lean towards a tendancy to have smaller families (less children).  In fact these people who found financial success through education and the application of intelligence show the lowest birth rates in society, quite frequently only having 1 or 2 children.  Based on "survival of the fittest" they are actually proving to be quite unfit.  Meanwhile everyone else in society represents a slightly higher birth rate and, in the strictess darwinian terms, they have proven to be the most fit.  (NOTE - this relies that each group will have children of a similiar reproductive sucess as their parents because reproductive healthiness is actually based on grandchildren, not children.  This is because children could die before reaching a reproductive age or could be sterile)  

My conclussion is that in past times, because of food scarcity, food availability would have been the dividing line of who was or who wasn't reproductively successful.  Crafty thin people would have found a greater success in this environment and would have converted this success into reproductive success.  In modern times, however, the dividing line of reproductive success is more acutely economical in that people of lower economic strata are proving to be more reproductively fit because their health is good enough, and their stomaches are full enough such that they are proving to have the most children (overall and per capita) and most of their children survive to become reproductive as well.

Answer 10

Hi Jonaskizal; let me answer your question.

As to "What do you think about survival of the fittest and its absence today?", well this is not best looked at through a psychological perspective but rather a cultural one.

It seems everyone is trying to survive western culture everyday for instance. It has laws, and requirements that if one does not follow or catch up to, then they fall from house and home onto the curb, quickly giving away every last dollar from their pocket until their faces are dirty, hair scraggly, clothes torn and smelling and trying to sleep under the stars until the laws change so they could afford to live in their home, or until their no longer exists money, and ten laws regarding every street and alphabet letter.  

When psychology narrows this survival of the fittest idea down to the individual, you will get the supposition that it is for all persons before they can reproduce which implies that many may not make it past adolescence and child bearing age... of course not realistic. So instead it is better to look at the cultural influences that affect why men, women and youth fall out of the 'mainstream' into the streets or into highschool dropout and so forth.

It is as you realize, a survival of the smartest but in how many people are acquiring all the intelligence available to them in an appropriate timeline, and not so much man and woman against neighbor.

The environment; whether someone has fallen from their granted lifestyle into the streets and under the stars, or for the middle and upper classes spending money to vacation in it, is important to protect, which will in either case, nurture the survival of the fittest or the fallen ' potential fittest' in all situations.

Answer 11

Darwin never thought of "survival of the fittest" as a way of explaining modern social behavior. Social darwinism is a faux-science. Your question is predicated on wrong premises.

Answer 12

Reproductive success, regardless of who's, is the " survival of the fittest ".

Answer 13

I answered your other question and it applies to this one also, except for the factor:

Ever seen a fat or bigger then usual guy with a thin and pretty woman and usually it's because he's got money (which most of the time he smartly worked for.) Or the old dude with the same half his age.

The difference of monetary free will and the most powerful animals in the jungle that wouldn't think twice before you became lunch, each knows where there domain is and how to control it.