Only then can one obtain a truly empirical theory that may indeed turn out to be false or at least incomplete. Again much care is needed to disentangle tautological from testable aspects. Finally, it was argued that in reinforcement learning, a Darwinian process analogous to natural selection, the problem of tautology can be discussed in an analogous way as well. The testable formulations, however, may actually lead to a falsification of natural selection or to restricting its domain of application. Although taking the tautology problem seriously, and pointing out that even the criteria cited are not trivial to operationalize, it was defended that 'survival of the fittest' may be formulated in a testable way. Second, it was argued that one may nonetheless provide testable definitions of natural selection, based explicitly on using the concepts of blind variation (blindness) and environmental selection (external ism) in its definition. ![]() ![]() If natural selection in biology is defined in this circular way it can never be refuted and is at best a metaphysical principle. Simultaneous shifts on the sides of both the explanans and the explanandum were shown to be possible. Conclusion: First, it was shown that tautological interpretations of 'survival of the fittest ', based on defining the explanandum by the explanans, are surprisingly stable against several modifications of the meaning of the term 'fitness'.
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