Alt title: “Survival of the fittest” doesn’t mean what you think it does.

We see it all around us in spaces lovingly referred to as the Manosphere, that many continue to believe that sigma/alpha/beta males and females are a thing.

That victory goes to the strongest. The loudest. The angriest. The one with the fullest beard and most chiseled jawline. The one who downs 16 raw eggs for breakfast then runs up and down Philadelphia. Basically, Rocky meets Gaston from Beauty and the Beast.

But evolution does not necessarily reward such things. Plenty of loud, angry, and exceptionally strong beings are now extinct—beings much stronger and angrier and more aggressive than even our most dominant alpha-bro.

And yet the Grand Canyon remains. Forged by a river quietly doing its unassuming thing for ages.

Darwin saw that evolution didn’t necessarily favor the strongest, but the most adaptable.

We are living in a time of rapid evolution, perhaps the most rapid in the history of our species.

It’s the most adaptable among us that will survive and thrive.

And I know it’s not 1991 anymore, but spoiler alert: Gaston didn’t get the girl.