Poll: Is Darwin's Law failing us??

[Elle-Jai]

A post by a friend of mine started me wondering, is Darwin's Law currently seriously failing us, or do you have examples of it working nicely?

Personally, I think it's failing, although I do hear the odd story (like idiots in Sydney deciding to pop down storm water drains for a walk just before a storm, then getting drowned) that appear to demonstrate it trying to work.

(For those of you who aren't sure what Darwin's Law is, look at the idiot's guide to Natural Selection [http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/evo_25] and Wikipedia [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_selection].

For my preferred "interpretation" of Darwin's Law, see the Darwin Awards [http://www.darwinawards.com/])

EDIT: For the sake of clarity, I am referring more to the popular "idea" of this theory than it's practical scientific applications. The science behind it all is another thread entirely, and is probably too science-y for me to follow. While I like science just fine, I'm an Arts major personally. (Say what you will, Arts is/are valid too!!)

ALSO: I am aware (as you should be) that "Darwin's Law" is a misnomer, it is actually a THEORY of Natural Selection, as the links I have kindly provided will demonstrate. The next person who wants to point this out is flogging a dead horse, although I'll still read it and nod my head understandingly.

 

[InfernoJesus]

Nope, people with talent succeed. People that succeed are able to have more sex and support more children. Although this is considerably more evident in less developed countries, it's still in effect everywhere.

 

[Dags90]

To be fair, natural selection is a theory. Laws have to be proven by mathematics. There are laws in things like population genetics, but not natural selection. I'd say natural selection is still at work. Our environment has changed a bunch, so selection pressure have changed. Technology itself is a product of our evolution.

A lot of people seem to mistreat "fitness". Fitness is done by reproductive success. I've had a completely futile argument with someone that bad cholesterol and heart diseases wouldn't be selected for, because they only affect people past reproductive age.

My background is stronger in genetics, though.

 

[ShadowsofHope]

Natural Selection is not only against predators, but also environment, climate change, lack of natural resources, and survival necessities (which.. also ties into the resources aspect, no less). No, Natural Selection still exists all around us, we merely thrive in societies where the effects of inadaptability to one's current surroundings become more obscure in the manner of resisting challenges to survival.

People make stupid choices. That doesn't mean Natural Selection does not occur. It means people aren't thinking things through, and get injured or killed because of it.

 

[dfcrackhead]

We defy Darwins theory of natural selection simply because instead of us adapting to our world, we make it adapt to us, with medicine, technology, and other things. If we were to take all medicine, contraceptives and basic tech away for, say 10 generations, quite a bit of diseases would get cured just by evolution. AID's already has in some people, some are born with a natural immunity(for lack of a better word) to it, they can still pass HIV on to others, but a thing in their bodies prevents the HIV virus from becoming active and becoming AID's.

If I could buy an island, I'd get one, get rid of all traces of civilization, throw an asston of people on it with basic tools and say "get to work, survive and procreate" and leave them there, permanently and have a law that would ban anyone from leaving or coming to the island for centuries.

 

[Swarley]

Can't have "natural" selection in a society like ours.

Oh, and the post in the OP just seems like some angsty teenager with a poor grasp of it, a species like ours can't survive being misanthropic cry babies.

edit: Oh, and in nature it is only failing when we stop it, ie: Pandas.

 

[DaJoW]

A weaker selection within the species is a fully justified price for a very strong selection towards other species (not sure how to put it, hoping you'll get my gist).

 

[Infinatex]

Not really. It's our love of stupid but beautiful people that is causing problems.

 

[Kollega]

[HEADING=2]A message to everyone who thinks that natural selection isn't working anymore:[/HEADING]

As always, XKCD has something to say on the subject. Sorry for the huge image.

Alt text: "People aren't going to change, for better or for worse. Technology's going to be so cool. All in all, the future will be okay! Except climate; we fucked that one up."

***

Now, think about this logically for half a second. Yes, far more people survive due to medicine. But last time i've checked, the existence of civilization also means the ever-rising literacy. Of course there's enough dumbasses, but there always was enough of those.

And oh: most nerds theoretically shouldn't have passed natural selection a few centuries ago because they're not strong and charismatic enough. Nowadays, nerds hold more and more power in the world. And chances are, you (YES, YOU!) are also a nerd. See where i'm going with this?

 

[TheTaco007]

Natural selection is based on a free-for-all idea of reality. While it's true that this is how things have been for a long time, in more recent times (IE, past thousand years) humanity has grown enough that now we have things like medicine, which allow the strong to SAVE the weak, rather than the week dying out. However, the weak MINDED are still preyed upon by the smart. Corporations and businessmen all screw over the less intelligent, and gain more and more of an advantage.

So I'd say natural selection still works, but just in a slightly different way.

 

[sageoftruth]

I think I need an explanation as to what you mean by "failing". Do you mean failing to uphold the rules of natural selection, or do you mean failing because of the rules of natural selection?

 

[CarpathianMuffin]

There's always going to be idiots. The worst of them will die painfully, or at least end up in a gutter somewhere. The ones who knowingly do so and end up in a position of power will wonder how the hell it happened and try to keep it that way, learning from their mistakes.
So no, it's not failing us quite yet. Again, there will always be idiots.

 

[Elle-Jai]

As always, XKCD has something to say on the subject.

I love XKCD. I'd forgotten about that one though!! Thanks for adding it

 

[sageoftruth]

Wow. In the time it took me to get that question out, other posters already answered it for me.

 

[Frozen Donkey Wheel2]

If it is, it's only because we've evolved to the point where the Law no longer applies to us. We've reached a point where, as opposed to the environment shaping us, we have begun to shape our environment.

 

[Elle-Jai]

I think I need an explanation as to what you mean by "failing". Do you mean failing to uphold the rules of natural selection, or do you mean failing because of the rules of natural selection?

I was aiming more for "failing to uphold the rules," ie, "idiots everywhere are flourishing."

This is however an untested hypothesis of mine, put up here for discussions sake rather than for ironclad scientific study.

 

[RUINER ACTUAL]

I don't think it is failing, but I think we are also hurting it. Darwin's Law is helping where it can, but where it can, humans are trying to fill the gaps. Some of these examples include: toy recalls, seat belts, reality tv, and modern medicine.

Each one of these have points that I will explain upon request.

 

[icyneesan]

To be fair, natural selection is a theory. Laws have to be proven by mathematics. There are laws in things like population genetics, but not natural selection. I'd say natural selection is still at work. Our environment has changed a bunch, so selection pressure have changed. Technology itself is a product of our evolution.

A lot of people seem to mistreat "fitness". Fitness is done by reproductive success, I've had completely futile argument with someone that bad cholesterol and heart diseases wouldn't be selected for, because they only affect people past reproductive age.

My background is stronger in genetics, though.

I'm sorry, I can't take anything seriously you say with that avatar. It's just way to funny

 

[Mr. Omega]

Idiots are becoming more popular. Not more sucessful.

We have all these popular people with no talent right now, but in ten years, nobody is going to remember them. It's the inteligent who will have long term sucess, who will leave a legacy.
Of course, in ten years time, there will be new talentless hacks that will seem to acheive great sucess for a few months, just to fall into obscurity.

As a species, the more we learn, the more those things we learn things will become common knowledge. For example: in the 50s, did everyone know basics about genetics? (Maybe, I'm not sure when it started, but if that's the case, just replace 50s with an earlier decade.) Were what we know about AIDs common knowledge in the 60s? Were computers widely used in the 70s? It's a VERY slow process, but we ARE getting smarter. It just gets REALLY hard to beleive sometimes.

What's more, people tend to pay more attention to people doing stupid things for that exact reason: we're smart enough to know not to do these things, and it gives us a sense of slight superiority to see that someone somewhere is dumber than us. Someone doing something smart isn't media worthy in this world: we do smart things all the time (as hard as it is to beleive).

Darwin's Law only looks to be failing, but it works just fine.

More OT: About survival? Yeah, it takes the INCREDIBLY stupid to die from something not natural these days, or circumstances need to be beyond their control. So it's not FAILING, just not as effective. It has to do more with circumstance and knowing how to handle it.