Читать книгу The Handy Psychology Answer Book - Lisa J. Cohen - Страница 188

Survival of the fittest means that those individuals of a species with genetic traits that are best adapted to the particular environment are most likely to mate and pass those traits on to the next generation. Importantly, survival of the fittest does not mean that the most aggressive and dominant will pass their genes on to the next generation. Dominance is one evolutionary strategy, but it is not the only one. For example, in some fish species, male fish can disguise themselves as females and then sneak into the dominant male’s territory to mate with his females. In this case, fish that are not the most dominant nevertheless reproduce successfully. Moreover, in many circumstances, cooperation and altruism can be useful evolutionary strategies—as effective, if not more effective, than competition and aggression.

Does evolution have a goal?

It’s important to recognize that natural selection is not goal oriented. Traits are favored that improve an organism’s adaptation to the environment. If the environment changes, the traits that were once an advantage may turn into a liability. In our own times of rapid climate change, many species are going extinct because they cannot adapt quickly enough to the new climate. Likewise, it is believed that mammals only began to thrive many millions of years ago after a giant meteorite wiped out the dinosaurs that had previously dominated the ecosystem. In this way evolution is greatly influenced by chance. That said, there does seem to be a trend for organisms to evolve from general simplicity to greater complexity, although this is not always the case.