This principle shouldn't really be controversial because it's basically a law of nature. It's why small mammals took over from large reptiles after the asteroid hit. It's why New Zealand's flightless birds thrived until the introduction of the cat. Enormous size and cold bloodedness were an advantage until the climate changed. There was no need to waste energy on wings when there was no predator to eat you. Nature doesn't have a concept of strengths and weaknesses, nature has a concept of fittedness for a given environment, and we see the same thing with individual humans.