Survival of the Fittest

Natural selection is the process by which favorable heritable traits become more common in successive generations of a population of reproducing organisms, and unfavorable heritable traits become less common. Charles Darwin argues that there are many reasons as to why this occurs. He explains that there is an intense struggle for life between species as more and more organisms are reproducing and the fact that there have been dramatic changes in the environment overtime. These changes are causing the species to compete for food and resources. It is a process that Darwin explains as survival of the fittest – those species that are more willing and able to adapt to these changes are the ones that will ultimately survive and reproduce offspring in the next generation. This idea of survival of the fittest explains why those species with the heritable traits – the ones being able to adapt and survive – are the ones making it into the next generation. Darwin writes, “Owing to this struggle for life, any variation, however slight and from whatever cause proceeding, if it be in any degree profitable to an individual of any species, in its infinitely complex reaction to other organic beings and to external nature, will tend to the preservation of that individual, and will generally be inherited by its offspring. The offspring, also, will thus have a better chance of survival, for, of the many individuals of any species which are periodically born, but a small number can survive” (85). Another argument for natural selection as Darwin explains is the idea of an unconscious selection in which results from every one trying to possess and breed from the best individual animals so that they have a better chance of reproducing and having offspring in the next generation.