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Assuming life exists throughout the universe, may we reasonably assume that Survival of the Fittest and other evolutionary principles are, in fact, universals? (Saluting Darwin Day)

racocn8 9 Feb 15
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2

First off most people have a basic misunderstanding of Evolutionary Princilpes, and "survival of the fittest" in paricular. Survival of the fittest is the Elementary school understanding that most people have regarding how evolution works.

Survival of the fittest does not imply a that all organisms are predatory and prone to organismic gladiators games. The battle is not necessarily against other organisms, rather a competition within one's species to remain viable under stress conditions and changing environmental conditions in order to perpetuate the species ad infinitum into the future.

It is a battle and competition against one's own genome. As major environmental changes occur around a species, can that species adapt quickly enough to remain viable. Can genetic drift, mutation, or natural selection step in to rescue that species soon enough to avoid that species becoming extinct?

With most organisms this process may take generations or multiple millennium. For organisms like viruses, mutations occur every three days. Most mutations do not effectively improve an organisms viability, so they either do not become "expressed" or disappear over time.

So to address the posts original question, I would postulate that, yes indeed evolutionary principles would operate in an alien world. It's the Laws of Probilities "all things move to maximize their chances of survival and perpetuation, or they go extinct."

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Evolution is not "survival of the fittest". Evolution is survival of those able to adapt to change.

Actually Darwin never actually said that evolution was "survival of the fittest". It's been misattributed to Darwin.

Is there a difference between fitness and the ability to adapt to change? is that change in the organism or change in the environment?

Yes, there's a difference. I'm not very fit but I can adapt to change. And its environmental change.

Fittest implies most powerful/strongest. Dinosaurs, mastodons, wooly mammoths, and saber toothed cats were all powerful and strong but they didn't survive.

imagine how ecstatic hed be if he knew about DNA

fittest subsumes adaption to change. .... class dismissed.

@holdenc98 No... not really. Fittest implies biggest, strongest, most powerful. Adaptation frequently has nothing to do with that. Frequently its being smaller, hiding better, finding new food sources, acclimating to changes in the environment, etc.

Thanks for playing. Better luck next time.

1

I would assume so because of mutation. Take disease germs, for example. They mutate in order to survive. It is survival of the fittest.

Do they mutate to survive, or do they mutate and the fittest results survive?

@racocn8 The ones that do not mutate are gone. It works that way with us too.

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I'd presume so. It is evolutionary competition which I believe is why "intelligent life" is so rare.

Is there a reason intelligent life is rare other than the need for a large and differentiated neural net? Can you elaborate on your statement?

@racocn8 The more intelligent competitors wipe each other out. Just consider how humans create more and more deadly weapons, and how we are destroying the only planet we have in the name of competing with each other. A large number of people claim nuclear energy is safe even thoug nuclear waste remains dangerous for more than 100,000 years, an dwe have had several nuclear plant accidents which left areas uninhabitable. We have biological weapons that if released coudl wipe out all human life.

Just because intelligent life is capable of rational thought, does not mean it is rational all of the time. Rational thought also means rationalization away of unpleasant facts.

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wadr i struggle to see much diff in assuming aliens v assuming a conscious God

5

I’m sure the mechanics of evolution are almost universal, but we don’t know all of them to be honest.
For example linear gene transfer wasn’t something we knew about before mapping genes.
About 8% of our genome comes from viruses.
Then there’s sexual attraction.
Like being attracted to the cool stupid people instead of the clever nerds.
There should be a discipline of science dedicated to charting all the crap we don’t know yet, but primate hubris is pretty extreme.

2

Depending on what one means by "survival of th fittest." That does not mean just the strongest and most vicious. Social skills and tendencies, as well as intelligence, also aid survival.

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Maybe ony until a species evolves to the point where it can engineer its own progeny?

Would there be general principles that guide self-engineering principles? Would some seek overall enhancement while others create slave-sub-species? Would other opt to create the best-possible artificial intelligence?

have humans stopped evolving?

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" Survival of the fittest is a phrase the originated from Darwinian evolutionary theory as a way of describing the mechanism of natural selection. The biological concept of fitness is defined as reproductive success. In Darwinian terms the phrase is best understood as "survival of the form that will leave the most copies of itself in successive generations."

Therefore, given that line of thought it would seem that a married couple who are living on state welfare benefits and who have ten children, are to be classed as successful, according to the above definition, right? After all, they have left ten copies of themselves.

The term applies to physical, not social attributes.

@Alienbeing You might want to read Herbert Spencer.

“The 19th century liberal economists missappropriated the works of Charles Darwin to cloak and justify what would have otherwise deemed reprehensbile economic practice by by use of the phrase, ‘survival of the fittest.” Arnold Arnold – Winners and Other Losers in War and Peace.

@ASTRALMAX Sounds boring

I don't see why any organism, human or otherwise, should be applauded for being more fit than any another. Fitness is an attribute defined scientifically to help explain the theory of evolution. It carries no moral weight, and though we might admire an organism that displays extraordinary fitness (e.g., an ancient oak tree that has left many offspring when the overwhelming majority of its siblings became squirrel food), our admiration has absolutely no meaning where evolution is concerned. Personally, I'll save my applause for those humans who take the welfare of all humanity into consideration when they choose whether or not to reproduce (and no, I won't insist they make the same choice I did).

@Behind-the-dog Evidently, my sense of humour is not appreciated by everyone nor do I expect everyone to like it. I see your point and broadly speaking, agree with it. .

@Behind-the-dog Nothing you typed indicated you knew survival of the fittest was the topic because it explains evolution, which was the opening posting.

Everything you typed indicates you are consumed with social commentary.

@Alienbeing "Assuming life exists throughout the universe, may we reasonably assume that Survival of the Fittest and other evolutionary principles are, in fact, universals? (Saluting Darwin Day" You remind me of a courtroom judge who said to the counsel for the defense, 'my mind is made up do not confuse me with the evidence.'

@ASTRALMAX As I said, boring. The answer is obvious and tortureous dissertations are boring.

@Alienbeing ... dopes frequently find bright people boring

@holdenc98 How would you know?

@Alienbeing Well, well, a reply from you. Of course, there could be any number of reasons or excuses considering how long it took you to reply.

I do not know nor do I need to know what branch of law you practiced, I am glad that I never had to engage your services. It has been part of my experience in this life to learn that those who like to use the word 'boring' as a reaction/reply are usually boring people, I have no reason to think otherwise with regard to you.

@holdenc98 Some people remind me of a close friend's grandfather. He told me that his grandfather played the piano in the basement of a whorehouse and he never knew what was going on upstairs.

@ASTRALMAX .... me? i never met a whorehouse, or any woman's house, i didnt like, basement to roof. and upstairs was my forte. but its all theoretical now. these days ii just play the viola de gamba, an occasional solo sonata, where ever theres a chair

@ASTRALMAX Your last reply is not boring it is pointless. You don't exhibit much life experience, and that is why other than your last reply, the others were boring.

As for my legal expertise, I am positive you could never have affored it, and you even commenting on same is obviously nothing except a poor attempt at insult. How childish.

@Alienbeing Do everyone a favour and crawl back into your little narrow world. Also check your spelling.

@ASTRALMAX Do yourelf a favor and stop playing moron.

@Alienbeing This is the last reply that you will ever receive from me because I would rather watch paint dry than reply to your drivel.

@astralmax rant on

3

If there is replication, variation and selection then the rest follows logically. Given that "fit" in that context is defined as having qualities increasing the frequency of survival then "survival of the fittest" is an unavoidable tautology.
We may find exceptions where life does not exhibit variation and selection. Without replication I would have trouble recognising the entity as being alive. There may of course be other factors that dominate survival of the fittest. These may be factors known to us for example sexual selection or factors as yet unknown to us.

3

I have grown leery of assumptions in all such matters. I would regard it as a useful working hypothesis for observing extraterrestrial life, but until it is backed by observational data I would go nowhere near assuming that it is a universal.

Exactly, evolution by natural selection is a powerful theory that serves us well but assuming it is the last, best or only explanation everywhere flies in the face of open minded enquirey. We may have a situation like relativity replacing Newtonian physics where we may be forced to reexamine our basic premises.

@Buttercup Premises, basic or not, are open to be re-thought as we learn more and more imo.
But, imo, where ever life evolves it would ALL most likely have the same urges/impulses, i.e S.A.R. S. ( Sustenance, Adaption, Reproduction and Survival) .

@Triphid "Most likely" being the operative phrase, I don't have any reason to doubt but pre Maxwell I would have thought Newton had the last word. Reproduction as we know it may not be necessary, It's not unthinkable that a single or fixed number of organisms could modify themselves on an ongoing basis and supplanted those that had to replace themselves.

@Buttercup Yes there are a FEW cases of single organisms being capable of self-reproduction, worms being one of them btw, but there are also documented cases of those self-same organisms REQUIRING a type/types of Sexual Reproduction to stop their Gene pool/s from becoming stagnant.

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Yes certainly. In fact I have often thought that biology would benefit, if someone could invent an populist and iconic formula to express it, like E=mc'2' in physics. Something like 'R' for reproduction, plus 'V' for variation and minus 'S' for selection equals 'Su' for survivablility. But that is not neat and does not work well, so it is not likely to become popular. A challenge for you if you like.

1

More than likely imo they are.
Pretty much like the " Law of the Jungle" which says, " Eat or be eaten."
Or, as my Dad would often tell us kids at Meal-times, " IF you don't eat, you don't Poop, IF you don't Poop you die."

3

If life exists then survival is a concomitant.

For survival, would life require an ability to reproduce?

3

Seems a reasonable assumption.

skado Level 9 Feb 15, 2021

I disagree for the reason I state above. (But that's what scientific debate is all about, isn't it?)

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