You’ve heard of “red in tooth and claw,” natural selection, and the survival of the fittest. As one evolutionist put it, “The death of unfit individuals is what causes a species to adapt and improve.” This is because evolutionary theory is founded on that Malthusian idea of limited resources. Life is a zero-sum game. And so when a chance mutation happens to confer a reproductive advantage to one individual, he and his descendants survive and propagate at the cost of others, who do not. It is evolution’s version of a final accounting, but in this Darwinian spreadsheet there is no forgiveness, just survival. Of the fittest that is, and death of the unfit. Read more