No, the correct way to phrase it is "survival of the fit". It's very common for limiting factors (water, calories, vitamins, etc) to have a plateau. In the range from starvation to 'enough', more ability to find food is an advantage. In the range from 'enough' to 'excess', there's no payoff. So what evolution creates is a population of surviving individuals who are each 'enough' on all their success parameters, but who embody a diverse range of ways to be 'fit'. This diversity then allows the species to handle change that leaves part of the population 'unfit'.

Very rarely, is there an absolute competition where the 'fittest' survive. That would actually drag down evolution - it would create genetic bottlenecks.

Yeah, my issue wasn't with the mechanism of evolution, more with the phrasing. The word "survive" implies some sort of agency, the inverted phrasing does not. I could alter it to "decline of the weakest attributes as they are less successful and thus less likely to breed and pass their genetics on", but that's quite a mouthful for a tagline to teach schoolkids! ;)

PS: And yes I know there are plenty of situations where even "weak" attributes won't necessarily get weeded out, but then you'd be extending the tagline quite a bit!

Except, a stable population (not currently coping with a change from their evolved circumstances) doesn't really contain "weak" individuals beyond the normal lossage to infection, harmful mutation, violence and old age.

It may well contain groups that biologists project human cultural ideas on and call weak. But the continued presence of those groups shows them to be a useful part of the species diversity.

(I strongly recommend "The Genial Gene" and "Evolution's Rainbow", both by Joan Roughgarden, for further reading.)

I've stated it as 'survival of the fit enough' for a while now.

Evolution doesn't have anything to do with strength or weakness, it's about fitting the current environment. Sometimes smaller organisms are more likely to survive because it's easier for them to hide from predators. Sometimes the most important thing is coloration that allows an organism to blend in to the background. Some of the most successful organisms in history (ie, pigeons) aren't particularly strong or "not weak", they were just the best suited to survive in the world that they lived in.

Philosophers like to attach social messages to evolution, but one of the real lessons is "Adapt to your environment". It's not about working hard, or not being the weakest, it's about being the right organism for the moment. In the evolutionary environment of human society it's not being the smartest or working the hardest, it's being in the right place at the right time.

As all of the other discussion here sort of reveals if you read it right, part of the problem is that the phrase "Survival of the fittest" is tautological. It might as well be "Survival of the survivaliest"; those who have the most "surviving" capabilities survive. On its own, that's meaningless, and indeed, it is often treated as a slogan more than science.

You had to add in genes for this to make any sense, an idea that we so thoroughly take for granted now that we can miss it entirely. Unless the organism has some intrinsic characteristics that contribute to its survival, and there's some sort of variation in the resulting children as it passes on the intrinsic characteristics somehow, you don't have anything like evolution. Then you get a non-tautological theory of how things can trend towards increased "survivalness", as you can demonstrate how constantly producing organisms with a spread of "survivalness" and lopping off the bottom can produce changes over time.

"Death of the weakest" leads to a better understanding of evolution. However, fitness (or its antipode, weakness) is usually measured with average reproductive rate. Averages can be misleading.

Better yet, think of evolution as the loss of strategies that go extinct. Strategies with a low risk of extinction are favored. Importantly, strategies with a high average reproductive rate can sometimes be very risky. Therefore, sometimes the "fittest" strategies are evolutionarily unfavorable, and consequently the "weakest" strategies survive.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8433879

"survival of the fittest" only really applies in a population sense anyway, which is often part of the confusion I suspect.

There's also a matter of motivation. "Survival of the fittest" comes along with the connotation that it's better to aim for the top [let's say 10]% in order to continue to exist. "Death to the weakest" heeds a similar connotation meaning rise above the bottom [let's stick with 10]%. So, just don't slack as terribly as the very worst slackers in your group and you'll do just fine.

All in all, that's not necessarily false, just not a great motivator. I know quite a few people who get by on bare-minimum without completely giving up and they lead very happy lives. It took me a long time in my own life and perspective to appreciate theirs.

Yeah, that's exactly the point I was trying to make at the end. It's far more motivating to believe that hard work will get you to the top, rather than it being an arbitrary "right place, right time" kind of life - and for humans that's probably true, but it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with evolution. That's why I was wondering if people find the "Survival" way of phrasing evolution confusing and might find it easier to deal with the inverted phrase as it implies no agency.

The problem here is '10%' is a human measuring stick. The only measuring stick evolution has is human retrospect. You only get to see which 10% you were in after the outcome is known.

It is not just a spin? "survival of the fittest" is exactly the same as "death to the weakest".

"survival of the fittest" = "not survival of the not-fit"

And also "fit" it is not the same as "strong"

    - Population: XXXOOOOVVV
    - First 3 are the weakest. (X)
    - Last 3 are the fittest. (V)
    - Middle ones are normal. (O)

When you say "survival of the fittest" you mean that only the 3 VVV survives and the other 7 OOOOVVV die.

When you say "death to the weakest" you mean that the 3 XXX die, therefore the other 7 OOOOVVV survive.

When you say "not survival of the not-fit" (I suppose you say the fittest) you mean:

    - Let's take the non-fittest (XXXOOOO)
    - Not survive of them.

Therefore you mean the death of 7 XXXOOOO and the survival of 3 VVV. So you are right that "survival of the fittest" = "not survival of the not-fit".

But "survival of the fittest" (VVV survives) is not equal to "death to the weakest" (OOOOVVV) because VVV != OOOOVVV.

Yes it is spin, but not just spin. "Survive" often implies some sort of agency, that there is some sort of struggle that was overcome and the organism is still alive. We teach survival skills. Whereas if you drop some antibiotics on a bacteria culture, there is no struggle, the bacteria that aren't already resistant just die. That's why I think the inverted phrasing is clearer in meaning (although yes I meant "weakest fit / not fit").

There isnt a struggle?. Do the non-resistant bacteria "try" to survive and fail, then die? or it "just die"?

The inverted phrase will be a PR disaster for Darwin ;)

My point was that the resistant bacteria didn't suddenly evolve the resistance because the antibiotics were placed in the tray, they were already resistant to begin with. Therefore they didn't "struggle" to become anything, they already had the fit attributes for the situation. Hence why I say survival is a poor word choice as it implies struggle. Death of the non-fit on the other hand, has no such implication.

Obviously this is all very black and white edge cases and most of the time we're not talking about absolute death or survival, but decline or success of certain attributes within a given environment.

And yes, it probably is a terrible way of phrasing evolution from a PR standpoint ;)

"survival of the fittest" is closer to "not survival of the not fittest" than "not survival of the not-fit", which is not the same as "death to the weakest".