“Survival of the fittest” is often taken as the mantra of evolution. It conjures images of ruthless competition, muscular predators dominating prey, and organisms scheming to outwit each other.
Charming — but profoundly misleading.
The Metaphor Problem
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Fitness is treated as a measurable quality or virtue, like strength or cunning.
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Survival is framed as an active, intentional struggle.
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Reality: “fitness” is a statistical measure of reproductive success relative to context, not a trait with agency.
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The metaphor encourages teleology, as if evolution aims for optimisation, rather than being a pattern of relational interactions actualising over time.
Why This Is Misleading
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Anthropomorphises organisms — they are not scheming to survive.
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Obscures relational dynamics — survival depends on networks of ecological and genetic interactions, not isolated contest.
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Encourages simplistic interpretations — evolution is not a ladder to perfection, but a web of relational possibilities fluctuating with context.
“Survival of the fittest” turns a probabilistic outcome into a moralised, agent-like story.
Relational Ontology Footnote
From a relational ontology standpoint, fitness is an emergent property of interactions among organisms, genes, and environment. There is no intention, only the actualisation of potentialities under specific relational constraints. Survival is not an achievement; it is a relationally instantiated outcome.
Closing Joke (Because Parody)
If organisms really “fought to be the fittest,” squirrels would be attending motivational seminars, lions would have lawyers, and dandelions would hire PR consultants to improve their reproductive success.
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