Survival of the fittest

Survival of the fittest is a famous phrase of Herbert Spencer which describes the idea that, in nature, there is competition to survive and reproduce. It is a metaphor, as are the phrases struggle for existence, and natural selection, both of which were used by Charles Darwin.^[1] Scientists often use such metaphors as shorthand for key ideas.^[2] These metaphors stick in the mind, but they need to be properly understood, or they may be used wrongly.

1. ↑ "I should premise that I use this term [struggle for existence] in a large and metaphorical sense"; "This preservation of favourable individual differences and variations, and the destruction of those which are injurious, I have called Natural Selection, or the Survival of the Fittest." – Charles Darwin., "IV. Natural Selection; or the Survival of the Fittest", The Origin of Species, bartleby.com
2. ↑ "Evolutionary biologists customarily use the metaphor 'survival of the fittest', which has a precise meaning in the context of mathematical population genetics, as a shorthand expression when describing evolutionary processes." Chew, Matthew K.; Laubichler, Manfred D. (July 4, 2003), "Perceptions of science: natural enemies--metaphor or misconception?", Science, 301 (5629): 52–53, doi:10.1126/science.1085274, PMID 12846231, S2CID 9950945, retrieved 2008-03-20