Peer Review and Darwinian Selection

Abstract

Charles Darwin is known for developing one of the first well-documented evolutionary theories in his book On the Origin of Species, published in 1859. Although Darwin’s ‘‘long argument’’ included several conceptual advances, most notably natural selection and the tree of life, his theory came to be widely known as ‘‘the theory of evolution by natural selection.’’ Darwin continually revised On the Origin of Species in consecutive editions, and as he did so he eventually adopted a conceptualization of selection that was significantly different from his initial one. Darwin initially thought of natural selection as a creative process that produced organisms adapted to their local environment through the accumulation of slight variations over many generations. However, he later adopted the conceptualization of the ‘‘survival of the fittest,’’ according to which natural selection was an eliminative process that only allowed the most well-suited individuals (the ‘‘fittest’’) to survive and reproduce. Therefore, whereas Darwin began with a conceptualization of a process of selection for traits, he continued with a conceptualization of selection against traits. If we manage to overlook this oversimplified and anthropomorphized synopsis of a rich body of work, these two distinct conceptualizations of selection have important differences between them. The first conceptualization describes a gradual selection process through which several variable members of a population coexist; those that eventually survive and reproduce are those that for whatever reason come to have a beneficial combination of characters through selection over consecutive generations. This is selection for traits, as the emphasis here is on those beneficial traits that eventually become prevalent in the population. In contrast, the second conceptualization describes a relatively fast selection process through which all but a few exceptional members of a population, already possessing a