Poll: Is Darwin's Law failing us??

[Elle-Jai]

(Say what you will, Arts is valid too!!)

Arts are valid. Because they are plural. You can have an art or have many arts.

True.

However a subject called "Arts" while having the "s" to indicate plural is actually a singular noun, and I am referencing it as such. I did consider using "are", but vetoed that idea. If I was bothered, I would possibly include snotty quotation marks around "Arts," but that's about as far as I would go.


And I thought I was an annoying English Nazi lol.

 

[erto101]

Natural slection will always be true. Only the conditions change. Survival of the fittest is now the ones who fit us best. Therefor we have cows who can't give birth without our help but produce more milk and meat. They are therefor the fittest as long as we rule this world

 

[atol]

Natural selection is about strength (in all forms), not intelligence. "Darwin's Law" is basically a quip, but giving it merit, it's not failing us. The stupid will always remove themselves. When they don't, they're just not adequately stupid. (Stupidity is more of a blanket statement, it can range anywhere from disorder to idle curiosity.)

 

[Trebort]

Natural Selection has already failed us.

http://tmcq.co.uk/articles/chavs/

 

[dillirgaf]

yes i blame Jersey Shore and the people who watch it

 

[Deleted]

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.

I've found that more responsible people wait before having kids because wait until they're ready. Lots of people have kids they can't support. So more children in my opinion probably come from people who aren't completely ready financially and intelligently.

 

[Socius]

Survival of the fitest as individuals don't go as far anymore.
however other species feel teh consiquences as they should envolve tosurvive onour greatness!
Iwould prefer a green an peacefull world, but right now Ithink the world is closing in to Nal Hutta.

 

[Trebort]

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.

I've found that more responsible people wait before having kids because wait until they're ready. Lots of people have kids they can't support. So more children in my opinion probably come from people who aren't completely ready financially and intelligently.

I'd prefer in Britain if a licence was required to have children. Also a strict 1 child policy.

 

[Klumpfot]

What you need to consider is that evolution (generally) takes a lot longer than two or three thousand years to take noticeable effect. Give it some time, we'll figure out a way to get extinct! Don't you worry!

 

[The King of Rock and Roll]

Well obviously Darwin's Law is failing because it is not creationism which is obviously correct because the Bible tells me so.

 

[avuFinn]

I had to register here just because of this thread.

There is no such thing as good or bad natural selection, you're mixing moral values and believes to an event that does not contain any. As I understood it, it's the survival of the fittest. I mean those that can make the most out of the current state of their surroundings to reproduce. Humans still adapt. We adapt to these mindfuck of things we create so we can go on thinking we don't.

And those who don't think anything humans do is natural, I have to wonder where the hell did you get that idea? We're humans, we act human. We create things human. We are natural, everything we create comes naturally to us, there is no "unnatural" thing on this planet. Or to say, to us unnatural is natural. And we affect everything around us, the world would be very different place if humans never existed, so if you think humans aren't natural, you come to realize there is nothing natural on this planet.

I think idiocracy is true, but I think that high IQ in an individual is becoming more and more less needed and it's always been overrated by the mediocre people. Same as who runs faster or so. Why do I need to run faster, or have an IQ of 180, when there are smart people that have build me a car that I can use for fast transportation? The power is turning to co-working and very efficient exchange of ideas and resources. One example that has been used before is the computer mouse. There is no one man in this world that can make such a thing from harvesting raw materials from the ground to the finish. It's all done by a million of people.

Someone mentioned that solitary island being some kind of paradise for natural selection. Why? Those people become inbreds that can't compete or survive the change of their surroundings. There is a tribe like that living in indian ocean (http://www.privateislandsblog.com/2007/06/12/fishermen-killed-stone-age-tribe-off-dessert-island/). They're still using bows and arrows and are very hostile to the outsiders. It's been untouched, and natural selection is at work according to you. They lose the roll whenever you feel like dropping a bomb in there or wave runs over their island. So you think they're fit? Fit to survive? No. They're stagnating in stone age. And that's what happens when you live in a place where there's no diversity in ideas, resources or people.

Selection is happening, cultural evolution is happening, it was never about the strongest, not even about the fastest, it was always about the fittest. I just think it's funny when I look all the narcists that masturbate their individuality by running after some super-human, self promoting dream and think how they don't get to the next generation, because no one can fucking stand them.

I think the fittest thing to do in a world like this, is to try to make people trust and respect you, keeping yourself in a good shape physically and mentally, making your money with as little effort as you can to have all the things you need (never mix "need" with "want") and really love someone. Maybe there'll be kids. If there is, do everything you can to protect them while they are vulnerable, but don't be overprotective, it'll make them weak. Show them how you did it, give them values you had, and they might live to reproduce. Then you're doing something right: you're surviving, they're surviving. The rest is trivial, the average will sort it out.

 

[manaman]

people that wouldnt have survived their fifth birthday are having kids, weakening the ace as a whole.

Yeah, but if we are curing those diseases they no longer matter. Extending the lives of those that do have them doesn't exactly result in reproduction as often as you think. Loads of those genetic diseases leave people with decreased reproductive capabilities anyway, and like I said the ones that do allow a normal enough, and long enough life that those people can pop out healthy babies really are not a huge problem anymore.

what I mean is that the point of survival of the fittest is that some babies are born with traits. some of them are very useful and some should kill them off. survival of the fittest makes the gene pool smaller and the traits which should be passed on they only ones that do. we will make our race weaker if this keeps happening. I have very very short vision. I have to wear glasses with 1/2 cm thick lenses. I wouldnt have lasted. it is little things like that which are and will affect us down the line.

Most people have simple myopia where they eye is to long, or optically too powerful for its axial length, and the image is actually focused in front of the retina, it is thought that there are genetic factors that make one predisposed to this condition, but that environmental factors that are not understood and other factors such as excessive close work can exacerbate the condition. Likely had you been born in an era where nearsightedness would be debilitating condition you would not have developed the condition to the severity that it would have caused harm to you. Not that I am an eye expert by any means.

Still like other problems there exists a solution to this issue. Corrective lenses have existed for centuries, and more recently contact lenses and corrective surgery are options as well.

 

[atol]

Well obviously Darwin's Law is failing because it is not creationism which is obviously correct because the Bible tells me so.

I thought you said creationism didn't have anything to do with the Bible?!

I think the fittest thing to do in a world like this, is to try to make people trust and respect you, keeping yourself in a good shape physically and mentally, making your money with as little effort as you can to have all the things you need (never mix "need" with "want") and really love someone. Maybe there'll be kids. If there is, do everything you can to protect them while they are vulnerable, but don't be overprotective, it'll make them weak. Show them how you did it, give them values you had, and they might live to reproduce. Then you're doing something right: you're surviving, they're surviving. The rest is trivial, the average will sort it out.

This paragraph betrays your whole argument.

 

[The King of Rock and Roll]

Well obviously Darwin's Law is failing because it is not creationism which is obviously correct because the Bible tells me so.

I thought you said creationism didn't have anything to do with the Bible?!

Excuse me but what?

 

[Korolev]

Natural selection just selects for adaptability and REPRODUCTIVE fitness.

In the natural world, it still works as it always does. Natural selection is simply: What survives, survives. What doesn't, doesn't. It's a very simple law.

In regards to humans, it still somewhat applies, but our technology has severely relaxed natural selection on our population. Now, humans practice artificial selection, as in we choose who to mate with, rather than nature culling the amount of potential mates.

Darwin's law doesn't "fail" us or help us - it doesn't concern itself with us at all. Natural selection is just a process by which organisms that fail to adapt, die out. Pure and simple. It never helped us, or hindered us. Natural selection does not concern itself with morality or justice - it's just the physical universe doing what it does.

So how can it "fail" us?

 

[DefunctTheory]

Spoiler

I had to register here just because of this thread.

There is no such thing as good or bad natural selection, you're mixing moral values and believes to an event that does not contain any. As I understood it, it's the survival of the fittest. I mean those that can make the most out of the current state of their surroundings to reproduce. Humans still adapt. We adapt to these mindfuck of things we create so we can go on thinking we don't.

And those who don't think anything humans do is natural, I have to wonder where the hell did you get that idea? We're humans, we act human. We create things human. We are natural, everything we create comes naturally to us, there is no "unnatural" thing on this planet. Or to say, to us unnatural is natural. And we affect everything around us, the world would be very different place if humans never existed, so if you think humans aren't natural, you come to realize there is nothing natural on this planet.

I think idiocracy is true, but I think that high IQ in an individual is becoming more and more less needed and it's always been overrated by the mediocre people. Same as who runs faster or so. Why do I need to run faster, or have an IQ of 180, when there are smart people that have build me a car that I can use for fast transportation? The power is turning to co-working and very efficient exchange of ideas and resources. One example that has been used before is the computer mouse. There is no one man in this world that can make such a thing from harvesting raw materials from the ground to the finish. It's all done by a million of people.

Someone mentioned that solitary island being some kind of paradise for natural selection. Why? Those people become inbreds that can't compete or survive the change of their surroundings. There is a tribe like that living in indian ocean (http://www.privateislandsblog.com/2007/06/12/fishermen-killed-stone-age-tribe-off-dessert-island/). They're still using bows and arrows and are very hostile to the outsiders. It's been untouched, and natural selection is at work according to you. They lose the roll whenever you feel like dropping a bomb in there or wave runs over their island. So you think they're fit? Fit to survive? No. They're stagnating in stone age. And that's what happens when you live in a place where there's no diversity in ideas, resources or people.

Selection is happening, cultural evolution is happening, it was never about the strongest, not even about the fastest, it was always about the fittest. I just think it's funny when I look all the narcists that masturbate their individuality by running after some super-human, self promoting dream and think how they don't get to the next generation, because no one can fucking stand them.

I think the fittest thing to do in a world like this, is to try to make people trust and respect you, keeping yourself in a good shape physically and mentally, making your money with as little effort as you can to have all the things you need (never mix "need" with "want") and really love someone. Maybe there'll be kids. If there is, do everything you can to protect them while they are vulnerable, but don't be overprotective, it'll make them weak. Show them how you did it, give them values you had, and they might live to reproduce. Then you're doing something right: you're surviving, they're surviving. The rest is trivial, the average will sort it out.

I read the whole thing, and only found two paragraphs worth the effort.

1. While technically everything humanity does is within the boundries of nature, you're missing the point of what one means when they say 'unnatural.' Unnatural refers to things that only a small portion of a sample group that performs in a such a matter. Humans, one species among billions, can modify our surroundings, split atoms, move mountains and even force genetic change. Because nothing else in nature can do this, it is 'unnatural.'

2. Solitary islands are not paradises of natural selection. They are merely a paradise for observing it.

 

[Korolev]

Only humans possess morality and the sense of justice. The universe does not - nor does it care much about life, given by the fact that millions of species have perished before humanity.

Natural selection does not select for "the strongest". A very strong creature will still die out if it can't reproduce faster than a weaker creature. A very strong creature can still die if conditions change and it can't find enough food. This is why bears and tigers do not dominate the wilderness in vast numbers. Simply put - natural selection helps "select" for those creatures that can survive in an environment long enough to reproduce, by killing those that can't.

But that's nature. Nature is mindless, brutal and chaotic. Humanity doesn't have to be like that at all. We aren't mindless, we don't have to be brutal or chaotic. We can make our own ideals and our own ideas. If the universe is meaningless, that just give us freedom to craft our own meaning, using our minds.

And to those who are "worried" that somehow the species will be "weaker" because of the lack of natural selection in human societies - we can replace that with science. Rather than wait for evolution to work over millions of years to help us adapt, we can just use technology instead. Now that we can manipulate our own genes, who's to say that we can't improve our immunity, and help cure any potential gene-based diseases, like Huntington's or child-hood leukaemia?

To heck with nature and it's brainless, mindless, empty brutality! We can be better, we can escape from the tyranny of that system, and replace it with science!

 

[soliddensity]

"Darwin's law" as you put it, cannot physically "fail", natural selection is an ongoing process (or doesn't even exist depending on what you choose to believe) and it simply 'occurs' and by definition if its occurring then its succeeding (because if natural selection was not succeeding then it would not be occurring).

Some are arguing that medicine and technology are causing evolution to fail and whether or not the progress of science, technology and medicine is in and of itself 'evolution' is a completely separate argument for another time. I personally believe they are products of evolution, we evolved the intelligence and ability to practice medicine and develop technology to aid our survival and isn't that the point of evolution?

Others argue that natural selection cannot occur in our modern society and civilisation because we no longer adapt to our surroundings but instead change our surroundings to suit us. But once again, changing your surroundings to make survival more comfortable is itself, adapting.

So, "darwin's law" is in no way, shape or form "failing" and it never will be, it will just occur to different degrees.

Or, to simplify that barely coherent rant, just because the weak and dumb are able to survive doesn't mean that natural selection is failing, but rather the success of natural selection has allowed the weak and dumb to survive.

 

[Korolev]

Indeed, as avuFinn said, waiting for nature to help you is very risky. The fact of the matter is that nature isn't nice. Floods, diseases, famine, food-shortages, injuries, wild animals.... all of that stuff can kill you.

If nature was such a paradise, why do so few want to live like that? If everything was truly hunky-dory back in the stone-age, why did we bother to invent technology?

If the "natural" life is so good, why was the average age of a stone-age person only 30? Why, I ask you, did the population of this planet ONLY increase dramatically during the 20th century, when antibiotics, vaccines, and modern medical procedures were invented? We went from slightly above 1 billion human lives at the beginning of the 20th century, to nearly 7 billion by the end of it. That increase can ONLY be attributed to technology and medicine and science.

It's statistics - you can't argue that the population of humanity has exploded, due to the fact that more people are surviving than ever before, and you can ONLY attribute it to science and nothing else.

Nature is random and cruel. Only science can save us. Science can also kill us as well, but unlike nature, we humans can use it for good, because only we have the concept of good. Nature has no problems killing a child with fever or injury. Only humans build hospitals and care for the sick regardless of genetic relation.

Technology is everything. If you disagree, you are more than welcome to go live in the jungle. We'll see how nice a life you have.

 

[Altorin]

Evolution in a Darwinian sense takes place over thousands of years. Everyone gets hung up on the wrong thing when it comes to darwin's theories. Natural Selection is just a very small part of it, and his theories have NO bearing on human society. That's not in any way shape or form what he was talking about. Read Carl Jung if you want to understand how a society evolves. Darwin is purely about the physical. The creation of new species by slow acceptance of recessive mutations.

Anyone who says "Stupid People shouldn't be able to breed - it's what Darwin would want for the good of humanity" is just stupid themselves. What you're proposing is Eugenics. The act of Breeding People. It's pretty well considered a horrible thing. Humans, all humans, should be free to procreate however they feel.

Evolution doesn't "stop" either. The idea that evolution has an end point, and we're "stunting" our Evolution in anyway is stupid. That's not how it works. Evolution (true evolution, physical evolution) is a very long drawn out process that happens over the course of thousands of years. It's a reaction to hostile environment issues that make recessive traits valuable. Valuable to the point that many people without those traits die. If they don't die, then there's no need for evolution. That doesn't mean that evolution is stunted or that it's a bad thing. There is no "end point" or "goal" in Evolution. It's a natural process that just happens. If it doesn't happen, then either we (as a species) die, or it didn't need to happen.