Why is natural selection not the survival of the fittest?

Question

in the anthropological sense?

Answer 1

Natural selection in terms of evolution refers to the passing of specific wanted traits and heritable genes.  Mendel was the first to do this with his pea plants,

As for survival of the fittest, it is important within natural selection, but nature generally chooses the traits to pass.  In natural selection, survival of the fittest is when the species is able to pass on desireable hereditary traits/genes to future generations. Anthropologically (humans) speaking it has to be similar, passing these traits for survival.

I hope this explains what you were asking

Answer 2

natural selection deals with the reproductive quality of a potential mate...good genes make good babies. Survival of the fittest deals with how that good baby survives in the wild...maybe great genes but no common sense when it comes to predators. Hope this helps.

Answer 3

Fittest meaning most capable, adapted,  or fills out its niche to the fullest.

If you factor in resolve, will to live, and the capacity to affect ones own enviornment. It is an easy concept to grasp.

The one that is most fit goes on,  the one that does not fit into this world soon leaves it.

Same concept natural selection just sounds softer, more socially acceptable, and is more PC

Answer 4

In the Biological sense (which is also the Biological sense), survival per se is not the issue, it is reproduction.

Successful individuals are those whose genes make up the largest proportion of the next generation.  (Note this is not including chance, chance is genetic drift).

We tend to look at survival being the important part, but it isn't if that individual doesn't have offspring.

wl

Answer 5

Sometimes, it's survival of the sexiest.

To answer your question: The hint's in the phrase 'natural selection' - nature, or chance, selects things, to put it simply.

Answer 6

Survival of the fittest was a term never used by Darwin. Differential reproductive success, not survival is the result of natural selection.

Answer 7

Because natural selection is the process by which forces of nature randomly chooses which creatures survive and which one's don't.

Survival of the fittest is similar, but its more specific. That has to do with which animals have the best genes. In the wild, the animals that have the best DNA, tend to out last those with inferior ones and pass them on to their offspring.

Natural selection is not limmited to DNA. Sometimes something happens in which the dominate animals in a species dye off and the inferior one's survive. For example some scientists believe that the reason crocadials and alligators still exist today is because at the extiction of the dinosaurs, those with the genes that made them smaller, didn't die off because they were more suited to survive the climate change, whereas their dominate counter parts died off because their size advantage suddenly became a disadvantage.

Another example is an epidemic plague. Diseases generally are indiscrimminate and will infect any host that they can. In theory, those with the domminate genes are better suited to fight off viruses. But when we consider the spread of aids, we see that this virus affects and kills off even the strongest hosts. In the case of the aids virus, DNA doesn't seem to matter. Only those who do not catch the virus survive - natural selection.

Answer 8

They mean the same thing.  Survival of the fittest is what drives natural selection.  It may be a more specific definition of what is the most obvious and accepted mechanism.  When someone comes up with an alternative mechanism for natural selection, then they won't mean the same thing.

Answer 9

Wrong, "Truth".

"Survival of the fittest" is a phrase which is shorthand for a concept relating to competition for survival or predominance.

Although Darwin used the phrase "survival of the fittest" as a synonym for "natural selection", modern biologists prefer the latter phrase.

The popular concept of "survival of the fittest" was originally applied by Herbert Spencer in his Principles of Biology of 1864, Spencer drew parallels to his ideas of economics with Charles Darwin's theories of evolution by what Darwin termed natural selection.

The two terms are not now perceived as synonymous, since natural selection describes the process of genetic adaptation to environmental changes by a species, while "survival of the fittest" has become a sociological justification for a "superior" race or culture to dominate other "weaker" races or cultures.

In essence, the Darwinian theory has been used to justify and  promote racism and militarism as valid scientific "truths"  by distorting Darwin's original concept of natural selection.

Answer 10

Well, scientists prefer, "natural selection" when discussing biology.

Economists may prefer, "survival of the fittest" when discussing economic conditions, in reference to the British Economist, Herbert Spencer.

That may be why!

Answer 11

Because it's survival of the SMARTEST. Even a 97 pound weakling caveman could kill someone the size of Hulk Hogan with a fire sharpened spear...