In a message dated 2/3/2003 8:27:36 PM Central Standard Time, anschau.ez@terra.com.br writes:

Give me an example where fitness is not survival.(not necessarily of an organism, but also of a neuron, or even a meme)

[]'s

Woody

[Jake] Excuse me while I split hairs, but splitting hairs does indeed come in handy in dealing with issues like this.  First of all, fitness really deals more with a statistical tendency toward survival, given the characteristics and organisms whose fitness we happen to discuss.  But survival stands more as something the individual organism negotiates given the variable fitness of all its characteristics.  You can die accidentally anyway despite the proven fitness of your genes.  Sometimes by a freak of situation, the dullest one may indeed survive.  So while fitness and survival necessarily relate positively they don't equate absolutely and that makes all the difference when discussing tautologies.  Probably not the end of the issue, but certainly a good start as to why we do not have a tautology.

-Jake