First of all, I would like to say this is not a creationist website. The title of this page is only to get your attention. I am an agnostic, and an antitheist toward many religions (an even stronger position than pathetic weak atheism). I support evolution, but not the over simplified versions of it such as dumb phrases like "only the strongest survive". I choose to improve our current theories and understandings of nature instead of just denying them without an alternative. Most people who argue against Darwin theory have nothing constructive to add to it, and they just (try to) replace it with some nonsensical mysticism (God - a vague meaningless word).
This article actually explains nature with an improved theory to Darwin's and Spencer's oversimplified nonsense. I call Darwin and Spencer's theories nonsense tongue in cheek, because it is a silly recursive tautology: the people who survive, are the ones who survive. No kidding, really? I'd rather a theory that tells us something important, not one that circularly confirms "nature is nature".
It is to be noted that Herbert Spencer coined the phrase survival of the fittest. However many people defend Darwin with the quote "the strongest survive" and unintentionally attribute the quote to him.
This page therefore is more of a criticism of Spencer than it is Darwin. Darwin provided us with the evidence for evolution but many people are confused about what evolution really means. It most definitely does not mean the strongest survive or the smartest survive. On the contrary we are full of weak animals and we need these weak animals to survive.
Convenience A More Important Factor
A wolf is not a very strong animal. A wolf has the built in intelligence to bite the hamstring and then the neck of the animal. A cow is much stronger than a wolf if you look at how much muscle is packed into a cow. So why would wolves eat cows, if cows are stronger than wolves? Because evolution is not so simple as silly statements like "the strongest survive" which is equivalent to the tautology "the survivors survive".
A wolf can survive by eating convenient mice (who are everywhere and anywhere) as a major portion of their diet. The mice are eaten because they are convenient. There is not a grand conspiracy that the wolf knows, in which he purposely goes around eating "weak" diseased mice to strengthen the mice species. If he did this, and strengthened the mice, they'd end up defeating the wolf and the wolf wouldn't have a meal, because the mice would be too smart and strong and would run away before being caught. i.e. the simplified natural selection/Darwin theory is insulting to our intelligence. It's a recursive impossibility, if you just think about it carefully.
A wolf eats whatever mice are available conveniently - some are strong, some are weak, some are babies, some are adults. Since mice are everywhere, even in colder climates, they are convenient - and that is why they are eaten. There is no grand conspiracy theory. Just convenience of what is available.
Weak, diseased, and rotten mice are not something a strong and fit animal should aim to eat!
I will repeat: animals do not have some intelligence of the conspiracy theory "kill the weak animals so the strong survive". They just eat what is convenient. Sometimes it so happens that a weak animal is more convenient - obviously it is easier to kill an animal with a broken leg. But that animal with a broken leg could have passed on the strongest genes since he broke his leg by pure luck when a small flying meteor randomly hit the leg. A strong and fit animal is very capable of eating other strong and fit animals.
Wolves can also eat small baby animal that is fit and strong for its size. The fact that a small and fit baby animal can still be killed by a wolf is a matter of convenience - even the fittest strongest babies and eggs in the world can be eaten. Eggs can't move! Some children and babies may have the potential to be fit, and strong, but they are still helpless - and are killed. Not just the weak ones are killed - whatever is convenient for the predator to kill, is killed. In many cases the most convenient animal to kill is a strong animal stuck inside an egg shell that can't move not because it isn't strong, but because it's stuck in a hard calcium egg shell. Doesn't matter how thick and strong the egg shell is since it's only so thick to bite through and can't be too thick for the baby to never get out when it hatches.
Animals that eat eggs do not have a grand conspiracy going on, where they pick weak eggs to eat, instead of strong ones. They also wouldn't pick an egg that is going to develop versus one that isn't. They aren't intelligent enough to do that. They don't even have the ability to decipher what is in side the eggs since it is hidden. Plus, a cracked rotten egg (the really weak one) is not healthy and not picked by strong and intelligent fit animals anyway. In fact the bigger, stronger eggs offer a bigger healthier meal for an animal, and therefore may be eaten more. This means "survival of strongest" theory falls down, because the strong big eggs are weeded out (eaten), not the weak cracked rotten unfit ones!
Who's to say that the developing egg which was picked to eat by some predator wasn't the egg that had the strongest baby inside it developing?
Simplified versions of evolution claim that weak things get weeded out over time, and animals continually tune themselves to be smarter and stronger. My theory is that weak and stupid things actually are here to stay and they are continually being added to the table! Cows are an example of a dumb animal surviving and being one of the most successful animals in history.. because smart people need to eat dumb animals (and dumb people need to eat dumb animals). So it can't possibly be that the smartest survive, when in fact we are full of stupid weak things. How about a house fly? strongest survive? smartest survive? really. All you are saying is that house flies managed to survive, therefore they are survivors and survived (tautology). To explain why they are strong or superior is much more difficult.
Why would an animal risk eating diseased bacteria infested (weak unfit) meat, when it could eat healthy meat from a strong but still relatively helpless baby animal, or even a healthy (strong and fit) berry, vegetable, or egg? Would you eat a bruised moldy banana or a rotten egg? If you had the choice of eating a healthier stronger and fitter banana or egg, would you choose it? Most people eat the strongest biggest fruit in the pile, and the strongest healthy meat that isn't full of disease... But I thought evolution was about weeding out the bad stuff by eating it? Hmm so the theory breaks down when it is oversimplified.
People buy meat that is healthy - not the diseased meat. People buy the strong and healthy fruits - not the bruised, diseased, weak ones. Hunters don't hunt animals with moldy rotten diseases - they hunt big fit animals for more food.
Darwin's and Spencer's theory was over-simplified at the time and is constantly being improved.
During the Betamax and VHS (video tape) wars, which was the strongest format? Beta. VHS was weak. Betamax lost to VHS. The convenient format was VHS (convenient on the wallet, convenient access in stores). The strong and high quality format was Beta. Beta lost.
"Sony believed that having better quality recordings was the key to success, whereas it soon became clear that consumer desire was focused more intensly on recording time and compatibility for easy transfer of information (Besen, 1994)." --Wikipedia
Jimmy Page is skinny, weak, and rich.
Eric Clapton is a scron.
Bill Gates is a weakling, yet his children will be placed in the best schools.
If the strongest and fittest survived even discounting human beings (since humans are more complex) then all animals would become more superiour, stronger, and more perfected over time. This is not the case. DNA and genes have glitches, weak points, failures, typos, and errs in even the strongest, fittest, and smartest folks. This is why if two strong, fit, and intelligent people mate together - they get a handicapped or weak child with good hands and bad feet.
The Darwin/Spencer quotes of "only the strong survive" are vague, over-simplified, and lacks science and critical thought. The theories lack simple math too. The simple math is that once weak food is killed off, the food becomes harder and harder to obtain instead of easier (i.e. a gazelle should develop thorns on it and poison in its blood so a cheetah cannot eat any more gazelles). Counter productive! If plenty of weaklings are in place on the other hand, it makes food easier to obtain. Evolution is full of continual weaklings that are fairly easy to kill, not strong animals!
Shouldn't a real strong, clever, and fit wolf have caribou or moose for dinner every night? After all, if they are strong and fit, why bother killing little mice weaklings? They choose what is convenient - it has less to do with overall strength and fitness. Why do we put things in the fridge, wouldn't a strong human just travel to Antarctica every time he wanted ice cubes?
Survival is a much much more complicated science than a one line statement "the strongest and fittest survive".
Lions lay around sleeping/relaxing for 20 hours a day. They are not strengthening their bodies and tuning their hunting tactics each day. They hunt using dirty tactics like having the women lions kill the animal while the male sits around looking "big", as a figurehead maine-ly (pun intended).
The Z505 theory states the following:
The most convenient route (usually) wins over strength or quality.
I add the "usually" in there because there are exceptions in some cases, of course.
People are not worried too much about long term strength or long term quality. This is why so many people buy items on the cheap. Price is important - more important than quality. It's also why people get married to folks they don't necessarily have that much in common with. Convenience. People fear that time is ticking and they had better jump on whatever is convenient, since they might not get another chance. That's a good price - let's buy it while it is convenient!
Strong and fit Men
A strong man who is fit and muscular, should be picked for a mate, right. After all, women are looking for the strongest and fittest men? No, women are not looking for apes. Arnold Schwarzenegger look-a-likes are actually a turn off to most women, because those people tend to look aggressive and more like an ape. Yes I'll need to cite references here in the future. In the mean time look it up on google. A woman will pick a cuter and less muscular and masculine man, in fact (such as Brad Pitt who is not muscular at all - although people may think so just because he has small but visible abs).
Also, in the Bonobo species, the females dominate, not the stronger more aggressive and fit man.
Darwin Theory Has Justified Exceptions?
Some feel that Darwin/Spencer theories no longer apply as much as they did in the animal days (whatever those are.. we are animals, and we are part of nature!). Some believe that now it is a case of the "smartest survive" instead of the "strongest survive". This isn't true, though. For one, smart is a vague term - everyone is what I call pargent (intelligent in certain aspects but not others).
We need a lot of non-smart people to do our mundane jobs for us in order to survive. If everyone was smart and breeding more smart people, we'd all end up having aspergers and severe depression (see DNA and the Brain Google Talks video with James Watson about how two smart people breeding causes Autism and Aspergers).
Bonobos, Chimpanzees, Humans
Humans are not as fit or strong as Bonobos and Chimpanzees. We outnumber them though. Why? Because we are stronger and fitter? Or have we adapted a body that is more convenient? We definitely are not fitter or stronger than bonobos or chimpanzees - therefore humans are walking evidence that the strongest and fittest do not win ("survive"). Some could argue that "winning" is different than "surviving". Those arguers have not thought through! Winning is a metaphor for surviving, because the species that wins will outnumbers the other species to the left or right.
Consider humans have the same ancestor as Chimps and Bonobos: humans have won, evidenced by a greater population of us than them (more survival). So, why?
Why do humans outnumber bonobos and chimps, even though humans have adapted to be very weak and unfit compared to bonobos and chimps? Bonobos and chimps could even go extinct if we decided to hunt them, whereas humans would not go extinct if they tried to attack us! They would lose quickly. Even with their extremely strong and fit arms and legs, Chimps and Bonobos do not "out survive" a weaker (more convenience oriented) species called the human.
There are those who argue that well no, technology, hunting with guns, and hospitals that keep sick people alive is not "natural" and therefore distorts Darwin theory. Rubbish. Actually technology is very natural - we are part of nature and nothing is "outside" of nature. The entire world is natural. A bonobo picking up a stick or rock is natural, just as a human picking up a more sophisticated tool made of iron is also natural. The arguers usually try to defend Darwin's theory by bringing up "exceptions" about nature, when in fact nature is nature - there are no excuses or exceptions. (But, if, but, and, but.. but but if... if you could just except this one case here and.. that case there, and because if but and but but but).
Functional Algorithm
Convenience is a function - functions are compromises. Convenience is based on compromises.
Do some math.
If the strongest and fittest survive, and you keep filling strong and fit parameters into the function, the result of the function recursively gets better and better - it is an infinite impossibility (the stack is blown and the recursive function runs out of memory!). If we fill the function parameters in with strength and quality, we'd all be huge strong monsters walking around with huge (but fit) muscles - and eventually there would only be two people left on the earth because they ended up being the strongest. It doesn't work that way, since these two strong folks need other people around who aren't strong in order to survive - it is essential that weak things exist (like fragile fruits and plants) in order for strong beings to exist - it is a compromise.
If we fill the function values in with compromises, we can call the function 'convenience' which produces a result called 'compromise'. Sometimes the convenient compromise has some qualities and strengths, but in no way is it a recursive infinite function where strength and quality continue to improve.
The "strongest and fittest survive" theory from Spencer/Darwin is a recursive impossibility. If everything is strong, no one is strong. Because of our natural built in "convenience" cravings, we end up not getting stronger and stronger over time - since we aren't worried just about strength and fitness. Take for example the typical marriage between a man and a woman (humans are modern animals)... do people marry the strongest man or the prettiest woman? No.
If we are the strongest that survived, why is all our technology about laziness? Why do you think the fridge was invented? Wouldn't we be better off if we were strong and fit enough to haul our ice from the arctic each time we wanted to cool down a drink? It has more to do with convenience than strength or fitness as priority. The lazy survive?
Microsoft
...is successful because it is the highest quality and strongest product? Nope. I say this because I know a lot of BSD/Linux folks view my wiki. This, proves my point. Windows is convenient, not the fittest or strongest. Installing Linux/BSD is not convenient at this time (it is getting better, but doesn't necessarily have to since making it more convenient might degrade its power).
CPanel Web Hosting
Cpanel is convenient. The strongest/powerful/fittest solution would be a shell terminal or a telnet session. Why do people choose to use CPanel, and not the fittest strongest solution? Only the strongest people could use SSH/Telnet to modify their hosting account. But the most convenient solution, like VHS was, is Cpanel.
Disease
Cancer affects a large amount of people at an older age, after they have already had children. Even people with cancer earlier in their life generally could have already had plenty of children (being 30 or 40 years old is getting cancer at a young age but one could have kids in their 20's). To think that cancerous genes are weeded out due to some over simplified form of natural selection is insulting.
If people get cancer after they have children, then people are able to spread the cancer genes without being "weeded out". They'd have to have cancer before having kids, and die before giving birth, if they were to be weeded out. This also applies to plenty other diseases (probably almost all of them actually), many of which come after the person has already had children - not before.
One could argue that once the person has had children, they may not bring the children up as well if the parent has a disease. However, again this is oversimplified and is not the case at all. Many (most?) people get early stages of cancer after they've already brought up the kids! Not only that - it is insulting to imply that someone with a disease that started, cannot bring up a kid well.
Money
Money creates lots of complications and greed. But it is more convenient to use money than to do fur trading and ammunition trading in huts and forts. Why has money won? Is it due to strength, or convenience?
It is also more convenient for someone to whip out their credit card and purchase a gadget than it is to send a cheque/check by mail. Certified Cheque by Mail may be more secure, more fit, and stronger. But what is more convenient? Credit card.
Related
I-Get-What-I-Research:-Not-What-I-Pay-For
Song
There was a Radiohead song called "fitter, stronger, happier" and at the end of the song he says: "tied to a stick, in a cage, on antibiotics".
|
