I would also add that 'fittest' doesn't mean 'physically fitter' i.e. "stronger, faster, smarter", but "better adapted" (i.e. "a better fit for the environment an organism finds itself in"). It's a subtle but important point, not least because Creationists make a big deal out of the misplaced notion that evolution somehow justifies mistreating "the weak". Sure, there are plenty of occasions where "stronger, faster, smarter" will improve an organism's chances of surviving, but it isn't the prerequisite for evolution... mere survival is what determines the path that evolution takes. Whereas man may select for "desirable" traits in domesticated animals such as sheep, dairy cows, race horses etc.,
natural selection has no pre-determined ideas about what it wants... selection is automatic, based purely on the basis of what "fits" best. Things like camouflage and mimicry are good examples of ways in which "weaker, slower, dumber" creatures can easily survive despite being in an environment chock full of things "stronger, faster and smarter" than they are, and that would quite like them for breakfast.
As such, I would argue that viewing evolution as a continual path of "improvement" is slightly incorrect - "change" definitely, but improvement? Not necessarily...
homeforsummer
Stronger, more intelligent, quicker etc survive, the weaker don't. And because the stronger etc survive, they advance and the stronger of those advance again, with the weaker being left behind
The problem with this is that it implies that modern lifeforms are, by the logic of this argument, superior to their ancestors at all levels - that lifeforms are in a constant arms race and that "improvement" is the goal of evolution, but I don't think that it is. "Improvement" may well be one possible consequence of evolution, but it is not the only one. There is a common belief that humans represent the "pinnacle of evolution", not merely due to pride or bias, but because of the fact that we
really are the cleverest animals ever to have existed - but this doesn't mean that we represent the pinnacle of what evolution is capable of, or even the pinnacle of what evolution has achieved thus far... it only means that our own evolutionary path is
unique - but you can say the same for everything that has ever lived!
But the idea that "more intelligent" will out-survive "less intelligent" is not certain... we already know that our intelligence is a curse as well as a blessing. We are the first species to have lived on this planet with the ability to wipe itself off the face of that planet in a matter of months - not only that, but we also know that there is a good chance that we might just do it too. Given that our species, remarkable and unique as it is, has existed in its present form for only a couple of million years at the very most, I would say that the argument that humans are the "pinnacle of evolution" was pretty far off the mark.
The key point is that evolution, although capable of improvement, or capable of producing complexity from simplicity, is not uniquely concerned with "progress" or "improvement", but is merely the method by which adaptation allows species to fit into the myriad environmental niches that come and go over time. "Better adapted" is better for the current time and place, but not necessarily "better" full stop... our human mental ability may give us a uniquely time-independent advantage, but we are the exception rather than the rule. Put modern day lions in the Savannahs of the late Cretaceous and see how much evolution has improved their survival chances!
Perhaps the true pinnacle of evolution was the first free-living bacterium from which all life today evolved...?
But we've already done it so much that it's obvious that the combination of good genes tend to create good, and sometimes even better, genes.
)
It gets better though. The bit about the car? Here's what the metaphor relates to:
