If you’re at all familiar with the Theory of Evolution, you’ll know that one of the key ideas in that origins story is the notion of “survival of the fittest.” The simple concept is that when things reproduce, variations occur in the offspring. Some of those offspring are more fit to the environment, which means more capable of surviving until they reproduce offspring of their own. Some are less fit, which means they either die prior to reproduction or fail to reproduce for other reasons. Thus, fitness means staying alive long enough to produce offspring.
But this raises a pretty obvious question. If the “fittest” are all those who survive to parentage, then what’s the difference between fitness and survival to parentage? Well, none. Any evolutionist will tell you that the concept of fitness is defined by reproductive survival. So, things survive because they are fit, and things are fit because they survive. In other words, “survival of the fittest” is really just “survival of the survivors,” which isn’t quite as catchy.
Now I don’t generally mind how any theory defines its terms, and it’s not as though this is any deeply hidden secret of Evolutionary Theory. But “fittest” does encourage people to think that survival is always a matter of genetic “betterness” rather than, say, luck. I mean, after all, even the fastest gazelles sometimes just happen to be on the wrong side of the herd or stumble on an ill-placed twig. But most evolutionists are so enamored of their theory that they are driven to explain every structure in terms of its advantage, explanations whose compulsive ingenuity often make me chuckle.
I guess I just believe that when someone says, “The most expensive dress was the one that took the most money to buy,” it’s important for people to not think he’s actually giving them new information.
3 comments:
I think perhaps the more plausible evolutionary concept is that the more adapted an organism is to a given set of circumstances increases the probability that the organism will survive and perhaps reproduce. Survival and reproductive fitness are different. Reproduction can occur among those who do not survive long. Circumstances change and an evolutionary advantage may not hold up well in new circumstances. Genetic fitness is not a guarantee of survival or reproduction (and visa versa).
Thanks for listening.
Diane in AJ
Thanks for posting! =)
I think that what we normally want to say about fitness is things like "longer legs mean better fleeing ability means better fitness for a predator-rich environment" or something like that. But the orthodox evolutionist will say that fitness can't be known that way until after you've seen what survives and then you try to piece together retrospectively why it worked out this way. It's that ad hoc post facto nature of defining fitness that makes it a non-predictive theory with an embedded tautological definition, in my observation.
This, of course, doesn't make it false. It just means we have to be aware of when the desire to feel like something has been explained can leap beyond what the theory really even claims to be accomplishing. I just get tired of reading all these stories about why this or that development explain something living (and how human traits get reduced to evolutionary fitness explanations) over and over again with no awareness of the issue I'm raising in this TOD. So what do I do? I write a TOD about it. =)
Thanks for the chance to vent/discuss. =)
Hi Andrew,
No vent here. Just evolution vs. God weariness. I'm still holding out on the argument that for Christians to elevate evolution (just a physiological process) in a God vs. evolution debate is fruitless and places evolutionary process theory and study in an awkward and incorrect place, i.e. in the belief and faith zone, instead of where it should be, just a scientific study of another God-given elegant creation. Really, humans could never have come up with a system of adaptation as complicated and far-reaching as genetic change over time and in response to changing conditions. Of course, there are flaws, but that is for another discussion.
Ultimately, we (people) would never have considered gravitational theory substantive unless we noticed that objects reliably fell when we dropped them:). Pretty much we can predict from observing this that most objects dropped will fall, unless they are lighter than their environment. The same observation/prediction system holds for evolution, but for some reason there is an emotional response in the discussion of evolution between religious and scientific circles.
It's a little hard for me to understand why people argue over evolution vs. creation. I'm not sure why evolutionary theory is such a perceived threat (for some, not to others) to Christian belief. The arguments pro and con evolutionary theory don't affect God or what He's done in anyway, so why do we place so much emphasis on this one thing?
Mostly, I am just saddened by the debate and its consequences.
Thanks for listening and responding.
Diane in AJ
Post a Comment