I think that Darwin would himself acknowledge that “fittest” is a more accurate rendition than “strongest,” but whether the quote can be rendered in this way without breaking the ten words constraint comes down to a question of whether “unfittest” counts as a legit word.
What are the ten words or less in which evolution can be stated?
“Multiply, vary, let the strongest live and the weakest die.”
-Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species
I think that Darwin would himself acknowledge that “fittest” is a more accurate rendition than “strongest,” but whether the quote can be rendered in this way without breaking the ten words constraint comes down to a question of whether “unfittest” counts as a legit word.
I think “fit” has become a free-floating standard rather than meaning “fitting into a particular environment”.
Maladapted, as an adjective? Though I suppose that’s cheating a bit since it’s a sense of adaptation that draws on an evolutionary metaphor.
warped by random change
what replicates stays around
always evolving
(More constraints! More constraints!)
change without motion
the lament of the red queen
coevolution
Natural Selection: the differential survival of replicators with heritable variation.
“We have what replicated better; noise permanently affects replicative ability”?