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Darwin didn't actually use this phrase - Herbert Spencer did. It means simply that traits which allow individual organisms to reproduce successfully will appear disproportionatly in successive generations.
Darwin meant nothing by this phrase because it is the work of one Herbert Spencer. Darwin did incooperate it into later editions of the Origin and many think the phrase is misleading.

The fit is the organism that enjoys the greatest reproductive success in contrast to it's fellow organisms against the immediate environment. So, their descendents survive and propagate better that the descendents of conspecifics. That is the part that is hincky as the descendents are the beneficiaries of the " survival of the fittest. "

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12y ago

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