Survival of the Fittest: a Brutal Selection Process
The selection process of survival of the fittest — natural selection — is so brutal, merely around one in ten to one in a hundred of those born mature to produce young. This ratio of variations yields abundant scope for the selection of any variation necessary in order to alter the species in such a was as to bring the species into balance with changes in conditions. This will be much more easy and certain if we take into account how slowly land-surfaces and climates undergo permanent changes. These are the type of modifications that initiate and compel changes, first, perhaps, in the distribution, and subsequently in the bodily structure and habits of species.
One can conclude, then, this utterly necessary understanding from the facts: if natural selection can and does keep each continually altering species in close adaptation to a stable environment, that it upholds the fixedness of its average circumstance. Most every dissenter admits this conclusion. In a slowly shifting environment, the same process must necessarily bring about some corresponding modification is needed for the well-being and permanent survival of the different species who are subjected to those changed conditions.
I shall not include any additional critique of the objections alleged by critics of the theory. They have, at this point, been amply covered either by Darwin or myself. Some of the most recent have been discussed in review articles such as the series I am presently posting. The word extinction is a more powerful word than natural selection, but let’s remember that what we really are talking about is the maladapted species who perish while those more adapted survive.
The evolution creationism controversy debate has intensified in recent years, and especially in the last 10. It is placing an unlucky deflection from our undertaking of the further cultivation of knowledge, theory and understanding within the field of evolutionary biology. We in the scientific discipline are no doubt frustrated by this, and perhaps we gain as a release valve for this frustration a healthy enjoyment of evolution humor on the sometimes ridiculous argument regarding evolution, creationism and intelligent design.
