A simple guide to natural selection. (and how it applies to you)

Disclaimer: This is not meant to be a technical explanation. Instead, it is meant to serve as a useful practical idea. Don’t focus on the word definitions, rather ponder the overall meaning.

What is natural selection?

Natural selection is essentially the process of continuously proposing ideas, then being tested to see if they persist. (To persist meaning to continue to exist)

Natural selection is most commonly referenced in biological evolution. Let’s take the long neck of a giraffe for example.

1. A giraffe with short necks will be unable to reach the leaves of trees for food.
2. Because of this, giraffes with short necks are more likely to die.
3. Giraffes that die can’t reproduce.
4. The “short neck” gene doesn’t get passed down. Hence, giraffes increasingly have longer necks.

On the other hand, because longer neck giraffes get more food, they survive longer. Since they survive longer they are more likely to reproduce and pass on their genes. As there are more long neck giraffes, short neck giraffes get less food. Repeat this over thousands of years and short neck giraffes go extinct.

Let’s break this example down from our previous definition:

Continuously proposing ideas: Each genetic variation is a new idea. There are useful, harmful and neutral variations. There are giraffes with genes that “propose” the idea of having a short neck, and those that propose the idea of a long neck.

Seeing if it persists: Giraffes with the gene of short necks gets selected out of the gene pool because they are unable to reproduce. Therefore the gene did not persist. Meanwhile long neck giraffes are able to reproduce and hence the long neck gene persists.

This constant natural selection process across time is broadly defined as evolution. (or more precisely evolution through natural selection)

Conditions for natural selection

The following are conditions that are required for natural selection.

1. The ability to produce new ideas.
2. The ability for ideas to persist to the future.
3. Selection pressure that selects which ideas persist and which doesn’t.

In the previous example

1. Producing new ideas: Variability of genes.
2. Persisting to the future: Genes being passed down through reproduction.
3. Selection pressure: Which giraffe gets food to survive.

So far, we’ve only talked about natural selection in biology. However, a secret is natural selection applies everywhere from human interactions to building startups and physics.

Natural selection outside biological evolution.

Let’s take science as an example.

1. Producing new ideas: Different ideas from individuals.
2. Persisting to the future: Ideas that work continue to be used.
3. Selection pressure: Wrong ideas are disproven by the scientific method.

Here is a startup example. (also explains why great founders always have a lot of ideas)

1. Producing new ideas: New product ideas from founders.
2. Persisting to the future: Markets adopt the product in a sustainable way.
3. Selection pressure: Products that are not viable die. (from nonsense unit economics, no customer adoption, etc)

Phrases like “survival of the fittest”, “iterate fast” or “scientific method” are restatements of natural selection in different domains.

Try a lot of things and see what works. We do not have to understand everything to be successful. Natural selection can work for us.

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MarvelG