1 - The Error

. . . who is the "fittest"? . . . huge dinosaur

Blind scientists ⁰¹ write a lot of nonsense about evolution; claiming that nature forces us to "compete for survival".

Most recently they've hyped the "selfish gene" as a supposed `winner' of an evolutionary battle for `success'.

Altruist Survivor Theory says selfish genes are evolution's dead-ends ⁰² because the `successful' bacteria are bacteria today, `successful' fish remained fishes, `successful' reptiles stayed as reptiles, `successful' apes are currently apes.

The `fitness' error started after Darwin wrote "On the Origin of Species", (1859) ⁰³ when he allowed the inaccurate use of Spencer's self-justifying phrase ⁰⁴ "survival of the fittest" - perhaps against his own better judgment.

He probably agreed to the phrase for social and political reasons. The politics of competing empires demands chauvinist, even genocidal ¹⁰ attitudes; scientists of Darwin's day were often racist and nationalistic.

But later in life Darwin wrote that nevertheless "the human race is improving morally". I.e. due to some other evolutionary interaction. ^{11 & 11a}

After all, "survival of the fittest" ¹² - as used by `neo-Darwinists` and `social Darwinists' ¹³ - is scientific nonsense, else house-mice would now be tigers and all human males would be thieves, rapists and murderers. ¹⁴

Even now, racial and sexual chauvinisms permeate the scientific establishment, preventing a logical ^{12 & 16} evaluation of facts.

Evidence for a more realistic theory is now overwhelming. Here is the gist of it:-

At every stage the less aggressive life-form is compelled to adapt, and therefore make progress, while the "successful" form - is left behind, to stagnate or become extinct.

This happened when the earliest ostracoderms - small, fishy ancestors of humans and amphibians - had to subsist at the margins where water and land merged. They became the first recognizable branch of our family tree but were continually terrorized and eaten by much bigger water-scorpions - the eurypterids.

Later, great armoured fish - Dunkleosteus (above) could grow to 30 feet or more - dealt out death for our ancestors and other freshwater and marine animals.

Next in our family line, small, slim reptiles called Pelycosaurs began changing toward mammalian form - their descendant Cynognathus is described as looking like a cross between a lizard and a dog.

Later descendants among the early mammals were small arboreal omnivores, eating fruit and insects, although more recent findings gave science a surprise. ^{17 & 18}

And by this time more "successful" forms - huge reptiles and dinosaurs - ruled the land.

Subsequently we see that at every stage of our development our direct ancestors came from the smaller, weaker forms, physically dominated by more `successful' competitors.

In fact our recently revised family tree shows the distant ape-like ancestor ¹⁹ was very small indeed and even successors such as Australopithecus afarensis - who lived from 4 million to 3 million years ago - were less than 3 foot 6 inches tall, existing as herbivorous / insectivorous gatherers and scavengers. ^{100 & 101}

After A. afarensis came some larger descendants - Australopithecus africanus, A.robustus and A. boisei, ¹⁰² who were all able to make tools - and then one smaller offspring: homo habilis ["homo" because it gave rise to us, "habilis" or handyman due to the conviction of its discoverer - Leakey - that this was the originator of human technology]. ¹⁰³

H. habilis lived alongside bigger cousins for about 500,000 years, surviving when those relatives died out some 1.5 million years ago.

Then another emergence, and of this we have more archeological knowledge.

Recent mtDNA analysis shows the Neanderthals ¹⁰⁴ Homo sapiens neanderthalensis were very different, even from our own ancestors, and so may have diverged around half a million to a million years ago.

Large brained (much bigger than ours), and supremely fit (both male and female were three or four times stronger than modern human) they moved rapidly throughout Europe and to the East, and, with a body plan structured for chilly environments, seemed to prosper. ^{105 & 106}

Their emotional life also now seems brutal and cold. ¹⁰⁷ Females and young were isolated and ignored - except during mating times - perhaps viewed by the males as competing for "their" food. The adult males ¹⁰⁸ ate well, selfishly feeding and sleeping apart; but the females and the young lived on marginal scavenging.

The solid circular shape and thickness of Neanderthal leg-bones tell us that they held their territory close, not walking far nor ranging widely (our own homo sap. leg bones normally have a slimmer teardrop cross-section, a `braced' shape which comes from lots of walking exercise).

And by this time ¹⁰⁹ another human type had evolved in Africa, and this Cro-magnon - named for an area in southern France - was weaker and lighter.

The female in particular differed from all who had gone before her. She was even more `gracile' (graceful) than the male and, from the number of "Venus" figurines ¹¹⁰ - the earliest human statuary art - had an emotional effect on the males.

Cro-magnon males cared for and showed attachment ¹¹¹ to their families - maybe first development of what is humans' strongest drive. ¹¹²

Cro-magnon became Homo sapiens sapiens ¹¹³ - who seems to have been a budding artist from earliest times. ^{114 & 115}

And now we were all one race. That is, able to mate across all of humanity - as we still can today. ¹¹⁶

Fossils show that Homo sapiens sapiens, wide-ranging ¹¹⁷ and cooperative, ¹¹⁸ spread quickly throughout the world; managing to live alongside Neanderthals for more than a hundred thousand years. ^{119 & 120}

"Successful" Neanderthals died out eventually.

Sentimental ¹¹² artistic and weaker humans survived.

* 1: Darwin used the term "natural selection" in his book "On the Origin of Species" but was afterwards persuaded that Spencer's "survival of the fittest" was probably 'more convenient'.

There is evidence of at least six hominid species co-existing during period 3M - 1.5 M years ago.

Note: Dates/timings are only relative estimates. Their accuracy depends on the debatable efficiencies of a variety of 'clocks' or time measurement methods. See history.