Alas the game can't be bought, you can only buy a subscription. That's a no-go for me.

Many people take "fittest" as an absolute universal, an objective superiority, while it is extremely contextual. As environment changes, the former "unfit" becomes the "fit", and the other way round.

This matter, for instance when some people (eugenists amongst others) build whole systems of values around a fetichized idea of "fittest", as if it meant a long term progression towards an "ever better". The irony is that it makes them dream of a homogeneous population of übermenschen modelled around their idea of the fittest now-and-ever, while, in terms of evolution, the "fittest" population, if I may say, is the most diverse (in the sense that it will include "fit" subpopulations for all circumstances).

It's all a misunderstanding between "contextually fitter" and "universally better". "Fit" is as fragile as overspecializations are.

No, it's not.
One, what has to survive is not a single organism but the species.
Two, there's no requirement to be the bestest evar at [something], only good enough.

Welp, in that sense it's true. It's the individual organisms that perpetuate a species. And being good enough (at a given problem) is still about being within the "best portion" at it. It can be the "best 80% of the population", it doesn't have to be the best individual one.

Hurl a convoy of trucks through a low ceiling tunnel. On the other side of the mountain, you'll have the individual trucks that did fit in (and they are those who will, hm, make baby trucks, a few of which will be taller again due to, hm, recessive tall truck genes, and, heh, truck mutations). And they will be all the lowest trucks, in the sense that the tallest trucks will have crashed. Even if it's just the lowest majority, like, the 80% lowest.

Words apply (better than my metaphors).

A-haaa! It's Liebig's law of the minimum tranferred to evolution. Or not. :)

But, yeah, seems like survival of the fittest is pretty bogus. What's good for the survival of the species as a whole can be pretty damning for the individual organism. And if that organism as a whole is best adapted to its individual environment, it still isn't necessarily "fit".

...good call. Then again, I guess Dawkins' input is limited to his foto on the Kickstarter page.

A Kickstarter for a smaller scale Zelda type action-adventure game that lets you influence the rise and fall of different tribes up until extinction or top of the food chain can be found here, BTW:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/twirlbound/pine-an-action-adventure-game-that-adapts-to-you?ref=category

Again, you are treating the concept "survival of the fittest" as "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth", when it is nothing of the sort.

If you've seen experiments demonstrating the Leidenfrost effect, you'll know that it is quite easy to make water run uphill. Does that mean that gravity doesn't exist? No, it just means that gravity is not the only force that is in play.

Evolutionary processes are themselves subject to evolution. In other words, evolution itself evolves. Over time, basic mechanisms give rise to more complex mechanisms which partially or wholly subsume the functions of the underlying ones. This does not mean that the basic mechanisms disappear, only that they are no longer the only things guiding the evolution of an organism. Sometimes, different mechanisms end up working in opposite directions.

Additionally, evolution does not work exclusively on one specific level, but rather on all levels at once. Yes, it works on species as a whole, but it also works on individuals. It also works on groups of species, from two specific ones to whole ecosystems. It does all of this simultaneously and without cessation.

A classic (and often completely misunderstood) example is the "female's choice" mechanism. This is often used as an argument against "survival of the fittest", when in fact it is quite the opposite. SOTF seeks to maximize the survivability of both the individual and the species (and the two are tightly connected). One way to ensure that the next generation of a species has the highest possible level of survivability, is to attempt to restrict breeding privileges to the strongest members of the species. As such, from the point of view of the species, there is a clear evolutionary benefit to females being picky about who they breed with. However, this requires that the females use some sort of selection criterion that they are able to gauge with the senses they have available. In the case of many species, this has resulted in females being rather drab-looking, while males have some sort of spectacular coloring or other extreme physical appearance. As long as the survivability of the resulting individuals is good enough, this mechanism can keep pushing the males' appearance to further and further extremes, even to the point of actually lowering their survivability.

However, evolutionary mechanisms are as much effects as they are causes. Evolution is a difficult subject to discuss, because our thought processes and languages are not well equipped to describe the concepts involved. We tend to think in terms of causes and effects, of things happening in a linear fashion, one after the other, and our languages reflect this. In terms of evolution, everything happens at once, and everything affects everything else to a greater or lesser degree. Each element you focus on is not either a cause or an effect, but rather both a cause and an effect.

tl;dr:
One, what has to survive is both.
Two, "survival of the fittest" does not mean "the bestest evar", it does in fact mean "good enough".

tl;dw: They got less than $50 in the last 12 hours or so, only 2 new backers in all that time. This kickstarter isn't going anywhere. </yawn>

From Raven, Johnson, Mason, Losos & Singer ; Biology, 11th edition, p.408:

"Although selection is often characterized as 'survival of the fittest', differences in survival are only one component of fitness.
[...]
Fitness is therefore a combination of survival, mating success, and number of offspring per mating. Selection favours phenotypes with the greatest fitness, but predicting fitness from a single component can be tricky because traits favored for one component of fitness may be at a disadvantage for others."

So, as Starmaker put it with her characteristic candor: ' "survival of the fittest" my ass '

Spore-E AstroBot's Skynautica?

This whole thing reminds me of a mouse that gained super intelligence and dedicated his life to trying to take over the world.

Sounds like a brutally hard roguelike.

That makes no sense. Who said anything about looking at only a single component? Who, in their right mind, would suggest only looking at a single component? Again, SOTF is the primary, most basic mechanism involved. It is not the only mechanism involved. Why do people insist that either SOTF has to be the absolute complete explanation or else it's bollocks? You don't extend this to other fields, do you? Don't you believe gravity exists because of birds and hot-air baloons? After all, for any given phenomenon, only a single physical principle can possibly be involved (apparently).

Please explain a few things to me:
1. Do you actually believe that survival of the individual has no effect on evolution (hence, "survival of the fittest" my ass)?
2. Please provide an alternative. You say SOTF is false. What is true, then?

When I talk about gravity, that's not a byword for gravity, electromagnetism, weak and strong interaction. It's only one of the fundamental interactions. Survival is not a byword for selection or evolution. Some use it as such. It is a mistake.

As for the two things you mention, read the quotation in my previous message, as they pertain to them. (but of course, that textbook "makes no sense") And with that, I'm out.

I agree, which is why I was very adamant in explaining that I do not use it as such, but you seem to have chosen to ignore that.
No, that texbook passage used as an argument against my post makes no sense. Given that I explicitly stated that it is one of many components involved, and you posted a textbook passage stating that it is one of many components involved, you'll have to forgive me for being slightly confused when you claim to be refuting my argument by agreeing with me.