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A “Fit” Individual Is One That Reproduces
When you think of someone being strong and having a good level of fitness, you might equate that with living a long time. To be “fit” by Darwin’s definition however, means to be an organism that reproduces. The expression “survival of the fittest” does not reference the survival of the individual, but the continuation of their familial line, when looking at modern evolutionary theory. Someone might not live a long time, but if they have many children, their genes have a better chance of becoming more common in the generations to come. The individual may still die young by our standards, but their genes have been passed on, and as such, they are therefore “fit”.
