On Evolution
And the Fundamental Fallacy of Fitness
Many equate “Evolution” with “The Survival of the Fittest”. A process where fit entities survive and unfit ones die out. While “Evolution” often refers to “Biological Evolution”, the principle can be applied to many other systems from markets to organisations.
Evolution works as follows:
- Entities exist in an ecosystem, competing for resources.
- The entities that are more suited to the ecosystem (“fit” entities) compete and utilise resources more efficiently.
- These fit entities, hence, have a higher chance of surviving and reproducing.
The definition of “fit” is “more suited to the ecosystem”. If the ecosystem changes, the definition of “fit” also changes. Hence, “fit” is an emergent property of the ecosystem.
A corollary of things “emergent” nature is that there is no preconceived definition of “fit”. It is whatever the ecosystem deems fit.
Unfortunately, too many people fallaciously believe that there is some absolute type of “fit”. For example, “tall people” or “stronger people” are fitter in some way.
The Homo sapiens who roamed the African Savanah were quite tall — over 6 feet on average. Height was an advantage on the vast planes, to look out for prey or predators. But Homo sapiens weren’t the only humans on earth. The Indonesian Island of Flores was home to Homo floresiensis. The island lacked resources, and so unnecessarily tall or big humans died of starvation. Those that survived were a race of dwarfs, not much more than 3 feet tall.
Hence, while on the African Savanah “tall” was “fit”, on Flores “fit” was “short”.
Within and without biology, taking “fit” for something that is “absolute” leads to all sorts of wrong conclusions. The syntactic form of the fallacy is:
“In Y-like ecosystems, X is a fit property. Therefore, X is a fit property for all ecosystems”.
Often, the “In Y-like ecosystems” is forgotten.
For example,
“On the African Savanah, tall is good. Therefore, tall is good everywhere.”
Or
“Tall is good. Therefore, tall is good everywhere.”
Here are a few other fallacies:
- In developed countries, democracy is good. Therefore, democracy is good everywhere.
- When religions are mutually tolerant, freedom of religion is good. Therefore, freedom of religion is always good.”
- In his first term, he was a good president. Therefore, in his second term, he will be a good president.”
In other words, the fittness falacy is a special case of “politicians logic”:
All cats have four legs. My dog has four legs. Therefore, my dog is a cat.
