The detailed responses to Ann Coulter's silliness about evolution are now coming in. P.Z Myers illustrates the insanity of claiming that there is no evidence for evolution. See also this post for further examples of Coulterian insanity.
Over at the Panda's Thumb, Ian Musgrave deals with the peppered moths issue, showing that Coulter, to put it kindly, doesn't have the faintest idea what she is talking about.
Coulter also raises the tautology objection in her screed. This is the idea that natural selection is a meaningless tuatology because it is described by the phrase “Survival of the fittest,” but then we define the fittest as “those who survive”. As it happens, a few months ago I wrote two lengthy posts about this argument when it was raised by the equally cluesless right-wing know-nothing Tom Bethell. You can find those posts here and here. Enjoy!
Comments
"Survival of the fittest" is shorthand for natural selection. Natural selection is the generalization from observations that there exist heritable traits which make reproduction easier or harder for those that possess these traits in a given environment. For example, there is a non-random component in the probability that a short-haired versus a long-haired mammal will reproduce[*] in an very cold environment -- and to the extent that being short-haired and long-haired are heritable features, this will have a non-random effect on the make up of the population in that very cold environment over time. Thus, the measure of fitness for the shorthand phrase "survival of the fittest" is not merely survival; it also implies heritable features interacting in some not entirely random way with an environment. "Survival of the fittest" is therefore not tautological.
[*] A necessary but not sufficient condition for reproduction is survival.
Posted by: Craig Pennington | June 19, 2006 05:59 PM
Craig-
Well said. One small quibble, though. I wouldn't say that natural selection is a generalization from observations. Rather, it is the conclusion that the prolonged action of natural selection acting on chance variations can lead to profound change in the average characteristics of a species that is a generalization from empirical observation. Technically, natural selection is just something that inevitably occurs as soon as certain conditions are met. Specifically: a population of organisms with heritable variation competing for scarce resources.
Posted by: Jason Rosenhouse | June 19, 2006 06:17 PM
Wasn't "survival of the fittest" a phrase coined by Herbert Spencer, of "Social Darwinism" infamy? I seem to recall Gould or some other popularizer saying that Darwin never used that phrase, preferring something to the effect of "elimination of the weakest".
Posted by: Pierce R. Butler![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://scienceblogs.com/evolutionblog/nav-commenters.gif)
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June 19, 2006 09:05 PM
My response to the tautology objection is more basic (following Sober): natural selection is only tautologous in the sense that the whole of mathematics and logic is tautologous. I'm quite happy with that charge.
Posted by: Ricardo Azevedo | June 19, 2006 10:48 PM
Darwin was talked into using "survival of the fittest," which was coined by Spencer, in later editions of the Origin by Wallace. See the letter by Darwin to Wallace of July 5, 1866 [p. 229-31].
Ironically, Wallace recommended Spencer's phrase and Darwin accepted it because they thought that "natural selection" was too teleological.
Posted by: John Pieret | June 20, 2006 07:23 AM