That’s probably because you don’t understand what ‘survival of the fittest’ means. Not that ‘survival of the fittest’ is a term I’ve ever seen an evolutionary biologist used to describe natural selection.
‘Survival of the fittest’ is not a great description of selection, but it isn’t contradicted by the quotation you provided.
By the way, here’s what I think is a reasonable terse description of natural selection, in particular positive selection (selection for a new trait): ‘positive selection is the principle that beneficial traits—those that make it more likely that their carriers will survive and reproduce—tend to become more frequent in populations over time.’ (From here.)
Did you see who all the authors are?! 
Bro. Steve, thank you for your response. What does survival of the fittest?
What phrase do evolutionary biologists use to describe natural selection?
In my humble opinion the description which National Geographic uses to describe natural selection is a great one, and it does contradict Survival of the Fittest as it has been used by Darwin and evolutionists in that it is not about struggle but working together…
It means the (likely) survival of those that fit their environment the best. That environment includes other members of their species, other species in their ecosystem, and everything else they are exposed to.
“Natural selection”. Or sometimes just ‘selection’. If they have a particular kind of selection in mind, they might refer to it, e.g. positive selection or balancing selection.
Sometimes being fittest involves cooperating with conspecifics. Sometimes it involves biting their heads off. Whatever works – evolution doesn’t care.
Something a rabbi & scholar I met at St. Louis University applies, I think:
“Insofar as He is not in control He is not God.”
But then the Jews have long been far more willing to uphold God’s sovereignty despite whatever dismay it may cause. One rabbi said of Auschwitz that God singled them out for that horrible fate, since if He hadn’t they wouldn’t have been the ones there.
And He does say, “I create calamity”, and given that the corollary is “I make wholeness (shalom)”, that is an assertion not about this calamity or that but about all calamity.
And this is of course true since God is the Creator of all things, so if there is an erupting volcano it is because He created that eruption. That He did so in accordance with the laws and constants He selected from the beginning does not allow us to “rescue” God from responsibility (a thought shred, interestingly, by a couple of Orthodox theologians in the East and a certain British university lay theologian.
It’s worth noting that Hebrew אֶרֶץ when used to mean “earth” as in “all the earth” never refers to a globe (since they didn’t know it was one) and in the phrase “all the אֶרֶץ” it refers to a specific region, e.g. Israel or Judah or on the other end the world known to the person in the story (or, possibly, to the writer, though it’s unlikely the Genesis writer(s) would have seen any difference)/
Just as a matter of interest, describing old things in terms of places contemporary to the writer is fairly common in ancient Hebrew. A notable bit of confusion resulting from this has to do with the names given the cities that the Israelites are recorded as having worked on in Egypt, a situation that seems to have thrown off Old Testament chronology by centuries.
Quite the contrary: no exception has ever been observed. Species die out because they were not fit enough to deal with a changed environment.
All you have to do is watch a nature channel on TV: every time a cheetah brings down a springbok survival of the fittest is happening – and I don’t mean that the cheetah is fitter than the springbok, but that the springbok just caught was less fit than those that didn’t get caught.
It seems to me you don’t know what the term means.
Speaking of getting caught, isn’t there one about two guys being chased by a bear and the one says to the other, “I don’t have to run faster than the bear, I just have to run faster than you!”
He created the storm on Galilee, he calmed the storm on Galilee. He ‘gave’ me kidney cancer (and I’m okay with that), he rescued me from it (and more significantly, he rescued my wife from losing me). À la Job,
“Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?”
Job 2:10
And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.
Romans 8:28
In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith – of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire – may result in praise, glory and honor [to Jesus] when Jesus Christ is revealed.
1 Peter 1:6-7
I prefer to avoid the suggestion that I’ve misunderstood the authors.
“Impossibilities are exceptions to the normal.” That seems to be false on its face. If a thing is impossible, it can’t exist, it is not a thing and can’t be an exception cuz if it was an exception, it would have to exist.
Ha, We Alaskans are familiar with that quip.
A U S National Park ranger was heard to give this advice when asked about hiking in bear territory: “Take someone slower than you.”
Then to feel safe, people bring their dogs. Go figure.
The issue here is I am the one that insists that evolution must be connected to the environment. Darwin said that they died out because they were not FIT Period. NO connection to the environmental change which is not random, only to random genetic change,
[quote=“St.Roymond, post:192, topic:51640”]
d I don’t mean that the cheetah is fitter than the springbok, but that the springbok just caught was less fit than those that didn’t get caught.
[/quote
According to Darwinian theory being fit means not passing one’s genes on, so if the springbok had successfully mated an\d had offspring before dying, she or he is fit.
Evolution does not care, because evolution does not think or feel, but nature and science do care because they are rational, which means that they are not arbitrary, but consistent.in how they work. Evolutionary change is triggered by environmental change. The way that organisms adapt to changes can take many forms, some better than others.
Fit means fitting to an environment. You continue to misunderstand what evolutionary biologists are actually saying.
Evolution is part of nature. Science is an abstraction and doesn’t care about anything. Individual scientists may care but don’t mistake their emotional reactions for descriptions of natural processes.
‘Nature’ as a collective noun certainly is not personal. It has no mind to be rational with, nor does it have feelings with which to care.
Thank you for that clarification. I gave waited a long time to hear it.
In 1975 Richard Dawkins published his block buster bestseller The Selfish Gene. It is clear from reading this book that Dawkins did not think that “fit means fitting to an environment.” However, there was no criticism of Dawkins over this basic error, which originated with Darwin.
I am criticizing Dawkins and thosewhosupport him,and not you ifyou donot. If I assumed that the silence of people over the error of Dawkins, mean agreement with him, when they did not, that is my mistake. If I thought the silence of members of BioLogos when outsiders attacked me on these pages for criticizing Dawkins on these pages meant agreement with Dawkins, that is my mistake…
Evolution is a part of nature, so it has rational structure. When we abuse nature, we pay the price as we can see by the wild weather that is occurring today in the USA.
If Science does not care about Truth, then it is good for nothing.
It’s implicit. How could it be otherwise?
Science is impersonal, capital T truth or otherwise.
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” -Colossians 4:6
This is a place for gracious dialogue about science and faith. Please read our FAQ/Guidelines before posting.