Stupid Malthus

February 6th, 2007 Fred McVittie

The law of the ’survival of the fittest’ applies to genes, not to individuals. Bearing in mind that the ‘body’ of a gene is distributed across a large number of individuals and is extended over eons of time, the survival or otherwise of a gene according to its fitness does not correspond to survival or otherwise of any particular human being. Also, bearing in mind that, in evolutionary terms, ’survival’ means staying alive long enough to reproduce, the difference in the survival potential of the fittest and the least fit individuals in a population is likely to be extremely small, far smaller than the variability in risk (and hence survival) shown by one individual within their lifetime. Malthus was completely wrong; when applied to individual human beings, or indeed any other creature, the survival of the fittest makes no sense whatsoever.

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