Wallace Letter to Darwin on natural selection

Category:TauTology
Wallace: 
"....My dear Darwin,— I have been so repeatedly struck by the utter 
inability of number of intelligent persons to see clearly, or at all, 
the self-acting and necessary effects of Natural Selection, that I am 
led to conclude that the term itself, and your mode of illustrating it 
however beautiful to many of us, are yet not the best adapted to 
impress it on the general naturalistic public...I think [the 
difficulty in understanding] arises almost entirely from your choice 
of the term Natural Selection, and so constantly comparing it in its 
effects to man's selection, and also to your so frequently 
personifying nature as 'selecting', as 'preferring', 'as seeking only 
the good of the species', etc., etc. To the few this is as clear as 
daylight, and beautifully suggestive, but to many it is evidently a 
stumbling block....I wish, therefore to suggest to you the possibility 
of entirely avoiding this source of misconception in your great work 
(if now not too late)...by adopting Spencer's term viz. 'Survival of 
the Fittest'. This term is a plain expression of the fact; 'Natural 
Selection' is a metaphorical expression of it, and to a certain degree 
indirect and incorrect, since, even personifying Nature, she does not 
so much select special variations as exterminate the most unfavourable 
ones. ..." 
"....even personifying Nature, she does not so much select special 
variations as exterminate the most unfavourable ones. ..." 
=== Notes ===
Other than noting that certain variations were exterminated how was 
their unfavorability measured by Wallace ?
Category:SoF
Category:Metaphor