reply to post by randyvs
Survival of the fittest
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' For other uses, see Survival of the fittest (disambiguation).
"Survival of the fittest" is a phrase originating in evolutionary theory, as an alternative description of natural selection. The phrase is today
commonly used in contexts that are incompatible with the original meaning as intended by its first two proponents: British polymath philosopher
Herbert Spencer (who coined the term) and Charles Darwin.
Herbert Spencer first used the phrase – after reading Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species – in his Principles of Biology (1864), in which
he drew parallels between his own economic theories and Darwin's biological ones, writing, "This survival of the fittest, which I have here sought
to express in mechanical terms, is that which Mr. Darwin has called 'natural selection', or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for
life."[1]
Darwin first used Spencer's new phrase "survival of the fittest" as a synonym for natural selection in the fifth edition of On the Origin of
Species, published in 1869.[2][3] Darwin meant it as a metaphor for "better adapted for immediate, local environment", not the common inference of
"in the best physical shape".[4] Hence, it is not a scientific description.[5]
– Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about th'universe! Did Einstein really say that? '
