Wednesday, February 16, 2005

Survival of the fittest


When Charles Darwin had proposed the theory of survival of fittest, it is highly unlikely that he might had thought about its implications in philosophy. When he proposed the theory the only thing he intended was to study the anthropology but that theory not only solved the mistery of human evolution but the behaviour of human. The human was more apt for the conditions of that time so he survived the challanges amongst all those species of that time but i don't know if we can call the success of some human being in the society where as the failure of others as the sequel to the same theory. In the present day world just see around, the only thing you will find is the immense competition amongst the same species homosapiens over the others. Take the case of anything from day to day life to something very specific like education or business, it seems the only aim of the man is to prove himself superior over the others. He will do almost anything to prove that, I have always had a doubt that if a person can perform well at a specific time that proves that he is a better huaman being. If human survived the drastic changes of climate at that time where as few reptiles could not, does that make huaman being a superior species. I do have some reservations about that conclusion because that only indicates that man was good enough to face the changes of climate but that doesn't prove that he is superior in every aspect. So coming back to competitions prevailing in the society I will say that the better performance of a man in a perticular moment only indicates that he is better in that particular field at that particular instant but saying that he is better than the others who could not perform equally well in that test will be wrong. So we do need to change the notion " survival of fittest". Its not correct to say that only fittest survives because we can't define fittest without taking one more dimension i.e. time into accout. So if we want to apply Darwin's theory in the real world, we will have to remember great Albert Einstein also, to reach at any conclusion. So the more apt version would be to say that only those who are fittest at a particular time when they are tested will determine their survival not their absolute strengths.