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Apologies if someone has already answered this. "Survival of the fittest," in the evolutionary sense, refers to one thing only, and that is the relative success of an organism to pass on its genes to future generations. In other words, if you're an organism that produces offspring who produce offspring who produce offspring, etc., etc., you're a fit organism. Some organisms are much more fit than others. Bacteria, for example, are about the fittest organisms on the planet, having passed on their genetic material for some 3.8 billion years. Most insects also are very fit. When confronted with climate and habitat change, small mammals proved to be more fit than gigantic dinosaurs, and so on. Scott Antes >----- Original Message ----- >From: "Joe Ryan" <[log in to unmask]> >To: <[log in to unmask]> >Sent: Tuesday, October 18, 2005 10:29 PM >Subject: Scientific Method etc > > >> Hi Mary Ann >> >> >> >> I don't know what to think about the term "survival of the fittest". My >> first impression was like yours, that it had to do with strength, but then >> what about the survival of the swiftest or smartest or smallest or >> hundreds of other 'survival mechanisms"? Does it mean those who fit their >> particular environment the best survive the best? Scott E. Antes Department of Anthropology Northern Arizona University Flagstaff, AZ 86011-5200 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn