“Survival of the fittest”, a term coined by Herbert Spencer, with its origins back to Charles Darwin’s journey in the Galapagos Islands. Darwin could admit that Spencer’s idea of “survival of the fittest” did have its birth and some of the ideas were similar. However, there are several main differences in Spencer’s side street of Darwin’s evolutionary theory.
Spencer being more of a philosopher than scientist coined “survival of the fittest” using Darwin’s ideas on evolution, gearing his studies on humans thus his theories becoming known as Social Darwinism. Spencer believed that humans adapted to situations and competed with others and those who did not adapt or could not compete would die. Spencer’s ideas on Social Darwinism were considerably more Lamarckian than Darwinist. Darwin on the other hand, believed that over many generations new characteristics developed that caused an effect he called natural selection.
Similarity in the Spencer’s and Darwin’s theories came with the basic concept of their ideas. The root of their theories was the same. Change. Both saw the changes that occurred were because of changes in environments and the need to adapt to the organisms in environment. Darwin and Spencer both agreed that the “fittest” organism of the species would survive and reproduce in order to carry on their of genus. The differences in their ideas were how and how long it took for the change to occur and their ideas of the word “fit.”
Charles Darwin fully believed in change over a long period of time through mutations of species. These mutations changed the appearance or internal organs to give the species that mutated either an advantage or disadvantage in survival. If the mutation was beneficial that genre of species would survive or survive better eventually causing the other to go extinct, natural selection. An example of Darwin’s natural selection could be a group of beetles. There is a black beetle, a black and orange beetle, and an entirely orange beetle. The predators of the beetle can spot the orange on their bodies the best hence those beetles all die and are unable to reproduce. The same situation happens to the black and orange beetles because they are easily seen by their predators. The black beetles however are capable of hiding and remaining undiscovered allowing them to reproduce. Darwin would consider the black beetles in this case “fit.” Darwin saw species as “fit” as those who’s mutations helped them survive and thrive in its environment and reproduce to pass on its genes to continue survival of the species. This is the area of natural selection where Spencer derived his term “the survival of the fittest.”
Spencer on the other hand took Darwin’s ideas of natural selection and twisted them with Lamarckian ideas. Spencer deters natural selection to a human basis with his philosophical base. His ideas form Social Darwinism and he coins “survival of the fittest.” Spencer believed that people adapt to their environments similar to animals and are forced to adapt quicker. His ideas of adapting are different than Darwin’s theory of evolution. Darwin claims that evolution takes generations for animals to adapt to their environments while Spencer’s ideas are almost instantaneous adaptations in order for survival. People who adapt to these changes in order to survive are what Spencer calls “fit.” Whether the reason for the survival of those who are deemed “fit” is due to them being bigger, stronger, smarter, or smaller, dumber, and slower, they are “fitter” and can carry on the future generations. Those who can not quickly adapt are deemed unfit or weak and die, unable to reproduce and continue an unfit generation.
Darwin and Spencer’s thoughts may have differed in the respect of how change occurred, but they both agreed on why change occurred. With changes in environment, species much change and adapt in order to survive and continue their species. The species each man deemed differently as “fit” would survive and continue to reproduce. The final outcome is the same, and “survival of the fittest” will continue and the “fit” will survive.
All information on Charles Darwin found at http://darwin-online.org.uk/
this site has all of his completed works and the one mostly used in this text was Voyage Aboard the Beagle
All information found on Herbert Spencer was from http://www.iep.utm.edu/s/spencer.htm
This link brings you to the Herbert Spencer page of the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy page
