"It does n't do this , because proponents of natural selection rule out 'ends ' ... other than survival , and survival simply come about because organisms survive ( hence the tautology of `` Survival of the Fittest `` which Darwin himself felt was a superior phrase to `` Natural Selection `` ) ."
"As was pointed out in some of your own quotations , survival is not an 'end ' of natural selection . Natural selection is the differential reproductive success of organisms with more favorable suites of characteristics . It is a statistical tendency . Individual organisms may work to survive , but they also work to reproduce . That 's as close as it gets to `` purpose. `` And as you know , Darwin 's favored term was natural selection . He never used the phrase `` survival of the fittest `` without also making a reference to natural selection . The opposite is not the case . Since Darwin 's time `` survival of the fittest `` has been rejected by evolutionary biologists because it is such a poor representation of the extent of the theory ."
"because proponents of natural selection rule out 'ends ' ... other than survival , and survival simply come about because organisms survive"
"survival is not an 'end ' of natural selection . Natural selection is the differential reproductive success of organisms with more favorable suites of characteristics ."