Natalie Kyriacou on Survival of the Fittest misunderstandings

Added: 2026-05-18

[00:00:00]We have misunderstood or misinterpreted survival of the fittest and we've used it to justify atrocities.

[00:00:06]Charles Darwin popularized the concept of survival of the fittest, which we now think of it like this dominant gym bro, who's the toughest guy or the fastest.

[00:00:15]Most people when I talk to them they think of it like a big masculine guy and that's not what survival of the fittest is. It is more like a puzzle piece fitting perfectly into a larger puzzle.

[00:00:24]It is how well a species can can adapt in their own ecological niche. Because we have misunderstood or misinterpreted survival of the fittest and we've used it to justify atrocities in our history.

[00:00:37]So, we have used it to justify mastery and for one species over another or one racial group over another or one sex over another. After World War I we started talking about this mastery in the context of survival of the fittest and this came to fuel theories and policies on eugenics, white supremacy and ultimately came to be brandished by Hitler that was all with this thinking of dominance, of mastery, of one over another and is based off a misinterpretation of survival of the fittest. Now, the way that we talk about nature, it often is reminiscent of this mastery language. We talk about we can dominate nature and really we we are nature. We are a part of nature. We do not exist without nature and so I think it's really important that we address some of these misinterpretations of of science so that we can have a more cohesive society.