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BBC News - 'Survival of fittest' is disputed - 1 views

www.bbc.co.uk/...science-environment-11063939

evolution science survival of the fittest theory

shared by anonymous on 24 Aug 10 - Cached
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 24 Aug 10
       
      Scientific theories are always subject to future questioning.
  • The new study proposes that really big evolutionary changes happen when animals move into empty areas of living space, not occupied by other animals.
  • This concept challenges the idea that intense competition for resources in overcrowded habitats is the major driving force of evolution. Continue reading the main story “Start Quote What is the impetus to occupy new portions of ecological space if not to avoid competition?” End Quote Professor Stephen Stearns Yale University Professor Mike Benton, a co-author on the study, explained that "competition did not play a big role in the overall pattern of evolution".
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • However, Professor Stephen Stearns, an evolutionary biologist at Yale University, US, told BBC News he "found the patterns interesting, but the interpretation problematic".
  • It proposes that Charles Darwin may have been wrong when he argued that competition was the major driving force of evolution.
  • But new research identifies the availability of "living space", rather than competition, as being of key importance for evolution.
  • Max Cheng on 24 Aug 10
     
    Isn't this kind of like the reading we had...with the Uncertainty of Knowledge assignment? It talks about how science theories can be true because we believe them to be true, but because time changes and everything is different all the time, they are always easy to be proven wrong, and subject to change. That is like what you said about scientific theories being subject to future questioning. What we perceive to be an atom may not be what Socrates perceived as an atom, or some scientist from year 3000 perceives it. Science is always changing and therefore I agree that the laws that are made are always "refinable".
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