Question

Why is survival of the fittest misleading?

Answer 1

the phrase "survival of the fittest" is often used to mean "natural selection", it is avoided by modern biologists, because the phrase can be misleading. For example, survival is only one aspect of selection, and not always the most important.

For example, if a very strong lion sires one offspring, he is considered less fit compared to a physically very weak lion that sires ten offspring.

Another example: a cheetah gives birth to three cubs over the course of her lifetime, but none of those animals survive to adulthood and reproduce themselves. Therefore, the fitness of that original cheetah is zero, because her genes were not successfully passed on. The more surviving offspring you have, the more your genes are passed on, the greater your fitness.