Survival of the Fittest

Survival of the Fittest
Survival of the fittest, meaning not the strongest but those best suited to a particular environment. This leads to the third point in Darwin’s scheme.

Those individuals whose variations enable them to survive at a higher rate will pass on their traits to a larger proportion of the next generation through the process of inheritance. Thus from one generation to the next the population will change in response to changes in the environment. This is the process by which evolution takes place. It operates on the level of the population, not the individual and it entails the selection of traits and changes in the distribution of those traits in a population over time. It has nothing to do with a plant or animal’s becoming “better” or “higher”. It means becoming better adapted to a particular set of conditions, that is, better able to survive.

You might ask what place Darwin’s theory of biological evolution has in the study of cultural anthropology. The importance lies in the answer to the question: Why do we look the way we do? We might just as well have asked why we behave the way we do. The concept that provides the answer to these questions is natural selection. For million of years there were no humans on earth and there was no such thing as culture. Darwin helps us understand why culture evolved and why our physical appearance and biological make-up are the way they are.

We can assume that the early ancestor of human beings were engaged in a struggle to get a living from their environment, just as all forms of life have been since the beginning of time. In some setting this was fairly easy and there was little pressure to change. In other settings, perhaps as a result of population growth or a change of environment, there was a greater competition for a limited supply of food.
Survival of the Fittest

Darwin Evolutionary Scheme

There are several points in Darwin evolutionary scheme. Two of the main points are:

*There are variations among individual of a given species. Some are obvious, and you can see them if you look around a roomful of people – they differ in height, hair color, facial features, bodily structure and so forth. Other differences are less obvious and may not even be visible. They include differences in blood type, running speed, and eyesight or hearing. Darwin’s point was that variation occurs naturally among all the populations.

*As long as the environment is stable and there is enough food, most variation will not have much meaning for the survival of the individual. But when environmental pressures arise because of population growth, climate change, the disappearance of a major food source, or a number of other things, some of the variations in the population will become more important for the survival of individuals who have those qualities. For example, if we look at a population of birds of the same species, we will note that some have longer beaks than others.

Now, as long as there is enough food for all, the length of the beaks not important, but if food becomes scarce it is possible that those birds with longer beaks will be able to dig deeper into the ground or into the bark of the trees for food, and therefore will have a greater chance and therefore will have a greater chance of survival.

This notion is commonly called survival of the fittest, meaning not the strongest but those best suited to a particular environment. The key to natural selection is not just the fact that individuals with certain variations may survive at a greater rate than the rest of the population, but they will produce a larger proportion of the next generation.
Darwin Evolutionary Scheme