You’ve Heard of Survival of the Fittest — What of Arrival of the Fittest?

It is one of the biggest puzzles of evolution, and I have a solution for it

I discovered the book while reading an article, one I can’t recall.

I long-pressed the link and opened it in a new tab so I could finish the article. The book was written by Andreas Wagner.

The title was: Arrival of the Fittest: Solving Evolution’s Greatest Puzzle.

Greatest?

Arrival of the Fittest?

It was my next read.

It did not disappoint.

For a concept that looked so difficult to distill, he managed to relay it with astounding lucidity. I also knew that I had to publish my book soon enough before someone also wrote a similar idea to mine.

Darwin faced a similar problem when he discovered that Alfred Wallace had developed an idea similar to his. He could not wait any longer. He had to publish his work.

Luckily for him, his idea spread fast. He was identified as a co-discoverer of the theory of Natural Selection. But if we’re to use the same theory to explain who is remembered most for the theory, it is definitely Darwin.

Wallace got lost somewhere in the stories. Maybe because he did not have a book to explain his findings.

Darwin appeared to be the fittest. This story explains the survival of the fittest. But what about the arrival of the fittest?

I was like the young Simba I couldn’t wait to be the King — But maybe Simba could not have become King

Fitness explains the survival of individuals who eventually mate and reproduce viable offspring.

Imagine two types of flies. One with black spots on its wings and another without. The one with spots then reproduces more than the one without. All the offspring are viable.

By definition, the black spotted fly has a higher fitness.

It had to survive from the point it hatched into adulthood, find a mate, and then out-reproduce the other fly. In short, it needed to survive for a long enough period for us to establish if it was the fittest or not.

Even then, a single generation is usually not enough to speak with certainty about the fittest group.

Similarly, young Simba had to survive throughout childhood, and into adulthood, and find a suitable mate. If Scar had killed him, there would be no movie.

This highlights one of the problems of the theory of Natural Selection. It’s a problem that many have struggled with because it only explains the final state of the organism. It does not explain the genesis.

Natural Selection is good at describing the survival of the fittest. It is, however, not good at describing the arrival of the fittest. In his book, Andreas Wagner describes a fantastic process to help solve this problem.

His focus, however, is solely on the genes and genetic networks. But It still does not conclusively solve the problem that lies at the core of evolution as a field. That is, there is no popular theory of evolution, to my knowledge, which can describe the first organism.

My analysis of the other known theories of evolution shows how each fails at this point. I call it the singularity point.

In physics, singularity is the point where all known laws of physics do not apply. Similarly, when it comes to the first organism, the known theories of evolution do not have a hold on it. To understand this problem, I need to dissect the idea of fitness.

Can’t tell you where I’m going — there’s little we can say about the first organism

Two things — first, three components to fitness. Survival, mate selection, and reproduction.

These three components happen in populations. Survival means that at the very least, there are two groups with different traits. One out-competes the other.

The rest, mate selection and reproduction follow. In some organisms such as bacteria, mate selection is not necessary.

There are three problems with this concept. The first is, survival is predicated on existence. You have to have physical existence before you can even think of survival. It brings up the second problem.

If you exist, why should you strive to survive? If organisms are formed from elements found all over the world, why should this special combination strive to survive? We know it survives, but why?

The popular answer is to leave more offspring.

But this answer is only dependent on the theory that dominates the field, that is, Natural Selection. So maybe the second problem gets solved by the theory.

But the third one is insoluble. Natural selection works in populations. Survival is dependent on out-competing another group of individuals. The first organism has no such setting.

It has nobody to compete with.

It is not a group of individuals, it is only a single organism. It is not a population in the collective sense as seen in evolution. I know of no other theory that can explain this concept besides mine.

The name of the theory? Organismal Selection.

’Cause my sh*t is unheard of like curses on the radio — J. Cole

Not so many people have heard of my theory. It’s like curses on the radio. But I’d want to show you how it can explain the first organism.

With this yardstick, it can explain the arrival of the fittest.

Andreas Wagner talks of robust concepts and settings that allow for easy and fast innovation.

I love the idea.

But it also falls victim to the problem of the first organism — it works with gene networks. For you to have a network, you need at least two items.

The first organism is the only organism. No network there. If it’s about genes, you’d need at least two.

So this bit of his solution remains unsolved.

Enter Organismal Selection. This theory states that physical existence and probability are sufficient to describe evolution.

Physical existence is extremely crucial before you even consider survival. It’s the first problem Natural Selection dismisses. It jumps straight into survival.

But my theory stresses the need for existence.

The second is probability. I use probability to explain the need for survival. If your probability of dying is ¼ then the probability of not dying is 1 minus ¼. It is ¾ — this is the baseline needed for you to strive to not die.

It is the baseline requirement to survive.

Thus, the probability of not dying becomes a tendency to avoid dying.

These two components, physical existence and the calculus of probability, then explain the other fitness concepts. First, it explains survival through probability. The remaining processes, reproduction, and viability of offspring only highlight a need to avoid dying.

They follow logically from the theory of Organismal Selection.

Can’t tell you where I’m going, just know I won’t stop

I also use the principle of the law of large numbers to explain the arrival of the fittest. It will be the subject of the next article.

It has to do with variation.

We can’t tell whether a trait is beneficial or not, hence the need for populations to continue existing for long to establish the fittest group.

My theory uses another trick. It borrows a leaf from mathematics and physics to show how, yet again, the first organism can be described by Organismal Selection.

All of this will be featured in the next article.

For now, I hope you understand how Natural Selection is ill-equipped to explain the first organism. It arrived but does not gain an explanation from the strongest theory in the field.

But I know what can.

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