Did Darwin write that it is not the strongest of the species that survives, but the one that best responds to change?

The quote from the author of the theory of evolution is very popular in literature and on the Internet. We checked to see if Charles Darwin said something similar.

In its canonical form, the statement attributed to Darwin goes like this: “It is not the strongest and the smartest who survive, but the one who best adapts to change.” It can be found on such resources as websites "Izvestia", "Vedomosti", Forbes, St. Petersburg State Economic University, "IBM - Russia», Project Facebook account Think with Google and countless collections of aphorisms. With this quote in 2019, the Russian-language page of the official UN Twitter congratulated Happy 210th birthday to the scientist. The statement is also popular in the West - for example, it is cited by websites Children's Society of Great Britain And University of Arizona.

Some sources claim, that the phrase is taken from Charles Darwin’s famous work “The Origin of Species.” These days, almost everything a British scientist has ever written, including letters and manuscripts, is available on the website Darwin Online. However, this phrase cannot be found either in “The Origin of Species” or in other works of Darwin, although in many works the topic of natural selection is given a key role. Moreover, another authoritative resource maintained by the University of Cambridge website Darwin Correspondence Project, turned on quote among six phrases Darwin never said.

Where did this phrase come from then? According to research, the earliest mention of Darwin in connection with the above thought dates back to 1963, when Louisiana State University management and marketing professor Leon Megginson gave a speech at the convention of the Southwestern Social Science Association. Among other things, Megginson said: “According to Darwin’s Origin of Species, it is not the most intelligent of the species that survives, nor the strongest, but the species that is best able to adapt and adjust to the changing environment in which it finds itself.” Megginson's speech was soon published in the association's quarterly magazine, and the following year the author published it in a slightly modified form in the magazine Petroleum Management (“Oil Management”). And although Megginson did not use quotation marks in an attempt to convey his impression of the classic work, he did use the phrase “as Charles Darwin says.” Most likely, this form of presentation disoriented the readers of the magazine, because already in 1968 Kamal Sayegh made an exact quote from Megginson the epigraph to the first chapter of his book "Oil and Arab Regional Development". But under the quote it said “Charles Darwin.” Already in the 1980s, the use of “Darwinian” quotes became a thing popular, and these days it has not bypassed the most authoritative resources.

How is it that Darwin's pseudo-quote is still around? Apparently, the fact is that it is a little similar to two other famous thoughts attributed to the scientist. Firstly, to the phrase “In the struggle for existence, the fittest win at the expense of their rivals, because they manage to better adapt to the environment.” Darwin never said these words either, but they appear for the first time in the presentation of Darwin’s ideas in the book "Civilization Past and Present" (1962). Secondly, Darwin himself, in the fifth edition of The Origin of Species, used the concept as a synonym for natural selection survival of the fit test (“survival of the fittest”, sometimes translated as “survival of the fittest”), which he borrowed from the work of British philosopher Herbert Spencer "Principles of Biology" (1864). At the same time, leading resources avoid identifying the above three quotes, if only because “adapted” is not necessarily “adapting,” and “changing environment” is not identical to “surrounding,” not counting other differences in statements.

One way or another, Darwin’s “quote” turns out to be a free statement of his views, authored by Louisiana professor of management and marketing Leon Megginson.

Incorrect quote attribution

What do our verdicts mean?

Read on topic:

1. It Is Not the Strongest of the Species that Survives But the Most Adaptable
2. The Evolution of a Misquotation