Poll: Is Darwin's Law failing us??

[soliddensity]

"why are the stupid still here?", well that depends on many things. For starters what would you specifically define as "stupid"? And why do you feel that they shouldn't be here? We are all here because of millions of years of evolution taking place at the genetic level. Why would your degree of intelligence make a difference so long as you find a way to survive? I don't understand why so many of you are treating this theory as some sort of subjective force that chooses who/what can evolve or can differentiate between something that is "stupid" or something that is intelligent. It is just something that happens, it is not a "law", it was not created and cannot be controlled or stopped or hindered, it is just an objective explanation for a series of scientific observations.

More to the point, intelligence itself is more based on nurture than nature. The dumbest idiot can have a genius child and the most genius of men can have an idiot for a son. The "stupid" are still here because after millions of years of evolution, their biological systems have developed the capacity to survive in this world, whether or not they maximise their potential is irrelevant to survival because evolution has already granted them with the ability to survive.

What I'm trying to say is, it's not that the "stupid" are stupid, the stupid are normal and fit to survive, its just that others are relatively smarter.

 

[fix-the-spade]

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

It's not that Darwin's law is failing us, it's that, being humans, we have found many ways to bend the rule.

Survival of the best fitted becomes irrelevant when you have an animal that can alter both it's environment and body to fit the situation it wants rather than than the situation nature dictates. So we're a subversion, survival of the best fitters.

 

[AngryMongoose]

Errr... you've put this question about as confusingly as you can. Are you refering to social dawinism which... can't be failing us because we don't use it; or natural selection which... for humans at least is a past event?

Whatever; we aren't evolving, but cultural and extelligent advances are still going to be bringing humanity forward for a long time.

 

[MikailCaboose]

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.

Well, one could argue that our medicinal tools and other stuff that we have created would be our form of adapting. We are still utilizing and bettering our abilities to survive, its just that our physical abilities are not necessarily the thing being bettered.

 

[Feystar]

Darwin's law is working as intended, so much so there's even awards:
http://www.darwinawards.com/

 

[WanderingFool]

SHIT!!! I clicked option yes by accident...

Anyways, I think its still working, its just less observible in heavily populated, first world countries. I beleive its a common fact, that when a situation presents itself, a stupid person will die and the world will be better for it.

Also I hated Idiocracy...

 

[marurder]

Any law can be broken, as such is the nature with all scientific laws (ALL of them) otherwise they are classes as theories. (I typed that before reading the whole thread sorry )
As for is it failing?
No, it stands to be correct until some people try to apply it to very specific circumstances or to circumstances it wasn't intended for. Case in point - there was an article stating that "Darwins' Law" was false because it had too heavy a emphasis on location and supply (competition). And they based this on the fact that people had technology to take them into space..
I was thinking WTF, give ants technology and we'll see who is dominant in a year. Technology removes the limitations, but it doesn't automatically mean you win. We may be dominant on this planet due to increased brain capacity and conscious reasoning, but that doesn't mean Americans are going to evolve into another race... bad example, Canadians are going to be a super race or whatever, the laws/theories still apply.

 

[Assassin Xaero]

I live in the Ozarks, so... YES.

 

[LandoCristo]

Low-brow hill billys who need manual labor will have dozens of children, while the higher class know of birth control. But that only serves to give us upper-class citizens more need to hang on to our power base, lest the unwashed masses attempt to wrest control away from the rightful rulers.

So yes, those who need to be the lower class will breed, while the upper echelons of society can remained untainted by menial folk.

 

[oranger]

Often the simplest life forms are the most successful. So yeah, natural selection is working great!

 

[deadmandancin]

It is, because as a race humans have stopped having as many children as they normally would, but they are surviving better. That is a good thing for individuals and family's but the survival of the fittest is being lost, think about all the idiots who have children way to young, how many of them have more children that your average family? I am not saying this is a bad thing some people great people come form terrible backgrounds. But biologically it means that more of a family's gene pool is going out than that of an others. It means that there will be less diversity, but not in a hugely detrimental way, we're not in the "survival of the fittest" anymore, anyone can live happily now and that's a good thing we don't need it as much anymore.

 

[SilverUchiha]

Not every story can be a success story. For every good example of Darwin's Theory/law/whatever, there will probably be an example that shows the opposite.

All we can do is hope this phase of global warming ends and the ice age gets here soon. Those who adapted the best will survive and those who didn't (like your fellows in the storm drain) won't.

 

[the-kitchen-slayer]

I say natural selection is happily at work... But Darwin's law isn't. How do i say this? Simple: Natural selection is saying "Hey, look, I managed to reproduce, and I managed to raise my child (or children) to the age where they can reproduce as well. I have succeeded at life.", while Darwin's law would say we'd be getting smarter, the idiots of life would be dying out, we should have colonized at least the moon, if not mars by now... yadda yadda yadda.

Now, here's the thing. Alot of people we know, we could consider dumb. But, Intelligence is also relative to the beholder. An "Idiot" could think your stupid too, and could be much smarter than you... In other area's. I mean, cmon, just cuse my IQ is in the 120-130 range does not make me smart, it just means I did well on a test. Hell, I dropped out of grade 12, so I can't say I'm all that smart, just specialized in my knowledge. (Go ahead, ask me about the Space Wolves from Warhammer 40K)

So yes, Natural selection is at work because we're managing to survive long enough to reproduce, and get our offspring to the age where they can reproduce as well, thus furthering the species.

As for Murphy's law... Yeah, that one's working overtime.

 

[the-kitchen-slayer]

All we can do is hope this phase of global warming ends and the ice age gets here soon. Those who adapted the best will survive and those who didn't (like your fellows in the storm drain) won't.

I'm sure glad I'm canadian with experience in both winter camping and scouts canada

 

[Something Amyss]

When people like Sarah Palin can hunt wolves rather than be eaten by them, yeah.

 

[Kair]

We humans no longer abide by the laws of nature.

 

[ajofflight]

No, while there are a lot of stupid people around getting themselves hurt or killed, Darwin's law has not failed us. It never can, as long as there is a human race to prove it.