[Omedalus]

Aye. I used to have two rabbits. They're ridiculously fragile little beasts. Of course, they compensate for their individual frailty by breeding like... well, you know.

A lot of people who don't really understand evolution get really hung up on the idea of "survival of the fittest" - which is a nice slogan, but not really a statement of scientific principle. The trick is to look past the fitness of the individual and look instead at the fitness of any particular gene. And since a gene's "fitness" is defined pretty much exclusively by its rate of self-propagation, the gene that replicates itself the fastest wins - even if that gene produces individual organisms that die faster than their brethren who lack said gene.

Another slogan in biology, less well-known than "survival of the fittest", puts it well: A man is simply a sperm's way of making more sperm.

[Vroomfondel]

Another slogan in biology, less well-known than "survival of the fittest", puts it well: A man is simply a sperm's way of making more sperm.

I once patiently explained to my son that a cat was merely a device for turning cat food into cat poo. He was not amused.

[cripplecreek]

The trick is to look past the fitness of the individual and look instead at the fitness of any particular gene.

Well said.