Question
Write in what context did Darwin use the terms 'fitness', 'survival' and 'selection', while elaborating on the mechanism of evolution.
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Answer
- Fitness' according to Darwin refers ultimately and only to reproductive fitness; those who are better fit in a given environment, will leave more progeny than others.
- Those individuals with characteristics that enable them to survive better in the natural conditions, will outbreed others who are less-endowed to survive under such conditions.
- The better-fit individuals will survive more and get selected by nature, i.e. natural selection, which according to Darwin, is the mechanism of evolution.
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