“Darwin’s ‘survival of the fittest’ is really a special case of a more general law of survival of the stable. The universe is populated by stable things.”

Source: The Selfish Gene (1976, 1989), Ch. 2. The replicators

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Darwin’s ‘survival of the fittest’ is really a special case of a more general law of survival of the stable. The univer…" by Richard Dawkins?
Richard Dawkins photo
Richard Dawkins 322
English ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author 1941

Related quotes

Charles Fort photo
Bob Marley photo

“They say: only the fittest of the fittest shall survive, stay alive!”

Bob Marley (1945–1981) Jamaican singer, songwriter, musician

Could You Be Loved
Uprising (1979)

Alfred Russel Wallace photo
Charles Darwin photo

“The expression often used by Mr. Herbert Spencer of the Survival of the Fittest is more accurate, and is sometimes equally convenient.”

Compare: "This survival of the fittest, which I have here sought to express in mechanical terms, is that which Mr Darwin has called 'natural selection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life.' ", Herbert Spencer, The Principles of Biology (1864) volume 1, part III: "The Evolution of Life", chapter XII, "Indirect Equilibration", pages 444-445.
Source: On the Origin of Species (1859), chapter III: "Struggle For Existence", page 72 http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=101&itemID=F387&viewtype=image, in the fifth (1869) and sixth (1872) editions

Alexander McCall Smith photo

“Special things have a way of surviving.”

Alexander McCall Smith (1948) British writer

Source: The World According to Bertie

Alfred Korzybski photo

“How many a genius has perished inarticulate because unable to stand the strain of social conditions where animal standards prevail and "survival of the fittest" means, not survival of the "fittest in time-binding capacity," but survival of the strongest in ruthlessness and guile — in space-binding competition!”

Alfred Korzybski (1879–1950) Polish scientist and philosopher

Source: Manhood of Humanity (1921), p. 136. Chapter: Capitalistic Era.
Context: Such as contribute most to human progress and human enlightenment — men like Gutenberg, Copernicus, Newton, Leibnitz, Watts, Franklin, Mendeleieff, Pasteur, Sklodowska-Curie, Edison, Steinmetz, Loeb, Dewey, Keyser, Whitehead, Russell, Poincaré, William Benjamin Smith, Gibbs, Einstein, and many others — consume no more bread than the simplest of their fellow mortals. Indeed such men are often in want. How many a genius has perished inarticulate because unable to stand the strain of social conditions where animal standards prevail and "survival of the fittest" means, not survival of the "fittest in time-binding capacity," but survival of the strongest in ruthlessness and guile — in space-binding competition!

Anton Mauve photo

“I've got a special liking for stables. I find them so very suitable for creating an artistique feeling, and then those stables from Oosterbeek!”

Anton Mauve (1838–1888) Dutch painter (1838–1888)

translation from original Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018

(version in original Dutch / origineel citaat van Anton Mauve, in het Nederlands:) Ik heb er bijzondere voorliefde voor stallen gekregen. Ik vind ze zoo heel geschikt om een artistique gevoel te [te?] komen, en dan die Oosterbeeksche stallen.

In a letter to Willem Maris, 1863; as cited Anton Mauve, exhibition catalog of Teylers Museum, Haarlem / Laren, Singer, ed. De Bodt en Plomp, 2009, p. 43
1860's

George Reisman photo
Wally Lamb photo

“Science progresses by trial and error, by conjectures and refutations. Only the fittest theories survive.”

Source: What Is This Thing Called Science? (Third Edition; 1999), Chapter 5, Introducing falsification, p. 60.

Related topics