I began to write not knowing of Frank Walker’s contribution (C98/24: shades of the Japanese monkeys?) It parallels his contribution, adding to it but not duplicating anything so I decided to send it along.
"The survival of the fittest" is an inadequate summary of a theory applied out of context to situations its proposer never considered. It has been warped to support political dogma, and has come to mean for most people, the extermination of the least ‘fit’. (Fitness as decided by man.)
Carried to its conclusion this view would lead to the survival of one individual of only one species and all life would be extinct when that individual died. If life ever got off the ground. (Oops).
Consider the finches so important to Darwin’s thought. Their behaviour was primarily directed towards survival, not extermination. They adapted and fitted into every niche available to them.
Survival of the fittest is a phrase which should not be used of individuals, groups or even species. It does apply to adaptations and modified behaviours whose form is decided in the genes. Survival depends on a large and varied pool of genes.
On a talk-radio programme recently a man advocated the extermination of council estate tenants on the grounds that they have a low Iqs and are criminals. He regarded this as an expression of the survival of the fittest. He was not answered, just insulted and cut off. In the minds of some listeners he must have won his argument.
However, it goes without saying, both of his allegations are false. But if they were true? A person with a low IQ still has the innate potential to produce off-spring of higher intelligence than their own, and has other qualities which, retained, would contribute towards general survival.
Nor should "criminals" be discarded because they are a nuisance. Such persons do make contributions other than the criminal and a change of circumstance could make a disregard for convention valuable to survival.
If it is accepted that council tenants be eliminated on these grounds, what of the people with low IQs, and the criminals, who do not live on council estates? Or people who survive because of inherited wealth? If we go down the extermination road, it leads only to extermination.
Survival is about success in a specie’s environment and preparedness for change. This survival demands not only the preservation and expansion of a species’ own genetic pool but also that of all its supporting species, in particular, its food chain.
Extinction in nature is incidental and accidental. Survival by extermination is not possible. Real survival is no such simple thing.
Bob Cooper
Bob : you are right that the expression "survival of the fittest" is much abused. It is sometimes alleged to be a tautologous idea, because there’s no particular notion of what "fit" is, as far as capabilities go, other than the idea of being able to leave more offspring, that themselves go on to reproduce, than do the opposition. The fit are, by definition, those who survive. As such, it has been said, in certain societies those who reproduce in an uncontrolled manner are more "fit" than the more circumspect. In natural societies, the Malthusian premise of limited resources applies & excessive offspring cannot be supported & hence die before reproduction, having fruitlessly consumed some of these limited resources to the detriment of others. It is this general dearth of resource, brought to a crisis by population growth that, in natural societies, means that the individuals who survive tend to fit whatever niche they have chosen, and that these useful characteristics, where heritable rather than acquired, tend to become increasingly represented in the gene pool. The reason that the expression "the survival of the fittest" is valuable is that it summarises the Darwinian explanation of the driver behind evolutionary change - that it is the pressure of limited resources that allows the environment to select some inheritable characteristics over others. What constitutes "fitness" in a corporeal sense varies from one environment to another, but in general the fit are indeed fitter, in the normal sense of the term, otherwise they wouldn’t be able to survive to reproductive age. Where some people get steamed up is with the thought that a welfare state is an unnatural society where Malthusian correctives are circumvented and society will become increasingly less fit in the normal sense, and hence progressively unstable. I would suggest that, like everything else, this is an exercise in game theory. Clearly, a self-supporting society cannot have all its members sick, on pensions or otherwise supported in an unproductive state. That’s why it’s better, other things being equal and apart from personal considerations, to be young, well and usefully employed. However, since most of us will be ill at some time, old for some time & unemployed for some time, it makes sense for these conditions to be ameliorated as far as possible, without excessively undermining the well-being of those who are making this largesse possible. There will doubtless always be some undeserving cases that benefit where they should not, but hoovering them up too religiously is counter-productive and not worth the effort.
Theo
Bob Cooper’s Mini-CV : In response to Leslie Haddow’s suggestion in C98, Bob has sent in the paragraph below to explain where he’s coming from [Ed.]
Bob has no special qualifications. He left school at 16 and at 18 became a mental nurse. During this service he worked mainly on rehabilitation projects, away from the wards. He has held office in members’ clubs and trades unions. He has always read a lot and thought a bit. Now retired, he still does.