Survival of the Fittest and Evolution

Because most of the attention to Darwinism has focused on the data that has served as the basis of the theory, the lack of rigor in the interpretation of it has gone relatively unnoticed.  Thus, for example, taking the phrase 'survival of the fittest' at face value glosses over its double vagueness.  To begin with, while 'fittest' connotes the success of an Organism in adapting to an Environment, it does not distinguish between submission to the latter, mastery of it, or some relation in between--examples of submission as a survival strategy include camouflaging and following orders.  Hence, 'fitness' connotes nothing more than 'survival'. Likewise, the phrase 'survival of the fittest' means nothing more than the, if not trivial, at minimum, uninformative, 'survival of those that outlive others', which could apply to a cockroach in a nuclear holocaust, or a thief with a gun, as has been previously discussed.  Still, the deeper problem with the phrase is that it leaves undefined 'to live'.  Now, a fundamental problem for Darwinism is that it has introduced a definition of 'to live'--'to evolve', meaning 'to increase in complexity', without considering the possible inconsistencies between the two concepts, as has been previously discussed.  Thus, 'survival of the fittest' could connote 'the continuing to increase in complexity of the most greatly complex', but Darwin leaves that possibility undeveloped, as do most of his followers, including Social Darwinists.