Re: CHAT: Religion, Philosophy & Politics

On Thu, 4 May 2000, John Cowan wrote:

> bjm10@CORNELL.EDU wrote:
>
> > That means "survival of those who survive"--that is all that "fit" means.
>
> Actually, no.  "Fitness" in this sense means "well-designed, by engineering
> criteria".  Darwin did not discover a tautology!
>
> See http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/evolphil/tautology.html for a detailed
> explanation.

Gee, silly me!  And here it is all that professional study I've
undertaken to avoid ANY AND ALL TELEOLOGICAL LANGUAGE means diddly-do!!!

Real biologists cringe at the very idea of using the word "design" when
talking about evolution, I can assure you.  "Survival of the fittest" was
relegated to the venue of popularizers and their ilk in my studies, not
at all appropriate for scientific discussion.  While "fitness" was used,
the only measure of "fitness" is OBVIOUSLY _post hoc_.  That is, the
ONLY way to tell if something is "fit" is to count its offspring (or
grand-offspring).  Therefore, since the only measure of "fitness" is
survival (or the results thereof), speaking of "fitness" as a quality
separate from survival (or the results thereof) is ultimately
meaningless.


Can an organism that is "fit" fail to survive?  That is, is it possible
for organisms to fail to reproduce due to circumstances that have nothing
at all to do with a "design"?