Re: Modeling the origins of life: New evidence for an 'RNA World'

FromTheRafters <FTR@nomail.afraid.org> writes:

Richmond used his keyboard to write : > j.nobel.daggett@gmail.com
(LDagget) writes:

>

Richmond wrote:
 

John Harshman <john.harshman@gmail.com> writes: > JTEM has his own
vocabulary. By "evolution" he means the modern > synthesis, also
called (which JTEM would detest) neoDarwinism. What he > seeks to
attach Darwin's name to is Lysenkoism or neoLamarckism. If > you
make all those switches what he says is more or less correct.  > Not
sure whether Mao or the CCP adopted Lysenkoism, but it > doesn't >
seem out of the question.

 

 

The phrase "survival of the fittest" has always seemed suspect to
me. We hear it repeated to justify capitalism. But there isn't any
requirement to be 'fit' as far as I can see. There is only a
requirement (for genes) to survive. For example the camel which
sits on the calf of its rival and crushes it to death, or the
chimpanzee which kills and eats the infant offspring of its
rivals. In what way is it 'fit'? A biologist would define it as
merely fit to survive, but then the phrase becomes redundant as
survival of the survivor. And we see the same results in captialism
with corporations swallowing up rivals rather than competing with
them.  >>> You want to argue against a metaphor by considering it
literally.

>
It's not a metaphor.

>
It's a misquote, or rather a misattribution.

Misquote of whom? Darwin uses the phrase in the 1872 edition (it is even
a chapter title) although he attributes it to Herbert Spencer. Darwin
says "But the expression often used by Mr. Herbert Spencer, of the
Survival of the Fittest, is more accurate, and is sometimes equally
convenient"