Re:We Are All Confident Idiots
by Real_S on Tuesday October 28, 2014 @02:17PM
(#8522519)
"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.
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