Poll: Is Darwin's Law failing us??

[Canadamus Prime]

I think Yahtzee described the situation quite accurately in his Skate 2 review.

 

[the_maestro_sartori]

I love my socialist UK, but natural selection is given a swift kick in the nuts by the NHS- people that do stupid and moronic things, and should be taken out of the gene-pool as a result, are saved, nursed back to health and allowed to breed.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

I prefer the long view, and that is that humanity isn't fit to survive, bigger bombs, dumber people behind the button. End of story so enjoy it while you can.

 

[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.

OT: It's a common belief these days that the vast majority of people are stupid. There is a simple reason for it. Confirmation bias. Chances are mopey teens that the world is not stupid, and you are not exceptional, or an exception to the rule. You make mistakes like everyone else. Grades in school are a reflection of effort more then intelligence, but being intelligent doesn't hurt things.

What I am getting at is that, even while you sit there with smug feeling of superiority over one person, they have the same feeling over you becasue they watched you make a stupid mistake because of a momentary lapse of judgment. That being smart has more to do with the effort you are willing to put into learning then some genetic predisposition to smart genes, and that the only way you can be special is working towards it, because only in very rare cases to people start out with solid genetic lead over others. Average is average, and like it implies most of us are just that. Average.

 

[GRoXERs]

What? No.

...what?

 

[KEM10]

The term "Darwin's Law" is, at best, meaningless nonsense. At worst it works to directly undermine the understanding of those who use and/or hear it. If I had to guess the circumstances of its coinage, I would have to suspect either deliberate distortion by some sort of creationist or the wildly-inaccurate babblings of a tenth-grader who failed Introduction to Biology but who is pretending otherwise to impress "the ladies".

I would recommend you read some actual literature on the subject--stuff written by actual scientists, not religious zealots pretending to be scientists--but I appreciate that this would take a lot of effort, so I'll close by merely begging you one more time to, if you don't feel like spending the effort on exposing and crushing this sort of fuzzy-minded pseudoscientist woo where you find it, at least restrain yourself from spreading it around the population at large.

So please, I beg of you: never ever use the nonsense-phrase "Darwin's Law" ever again.

Seriously. You're not helping.

Not bad for a first post.
However, theory of evolution is limited for human usage in developed countries because of science and monogamous relationships. The weaker are kept alive, and the "higher bred" are stuck with the limited offspring that you can obtain with one spouse (and maybe two mistresses).

A more thought provoking question is a twist of Hobbes's Leviathan (no, not that Hobbes). If returned back to the state of nature, would we be subject to evolution by force or would we revert back to cunning because of our weakened state and utter need for some form of government?

 

[Agayek]

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].)

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 valid too!!)

http://www.darwinawards.com/

All you really need as proof that Natural Selection has not quite yet abandoned the homo sapiens sapiens.

 

[C95J]

I would have to say no...

 

[sgwee]

lol, we're all still human, what are you getting at. what is a 'fail'? do you think there are lesser humans that don't deserve to survive? flame away

 

[Squiggles]

Natural selection works fine... Unfortunately humans are now so evolved we are aware of natural selection so there for it turns into Selective Selection. Natural selection ensures that the best (in this case the 'best' being those who have the best chance of reproduction) survives and carries on its genes, Selective selection is choosing a reproductive partner for a trait that may not be beneficial to the survival process. Ei it is only through selective selection that many dog breeds continue to exist, like hand-bag dogs.

 

[sgwee]

oh and you want a true picture of humans using this thought process to excess just look at hitler and his use. yeah, his war machines and technology and evil intent was far from natural. yes it still happened... you can justify and so oh well he failed at his attempt, just ask, what if he had succeeded? like its been stated before. natural selection is a theory, not a law.

 

[Chewster]

And here I thought it merely meant that those best suited to their environments survive, not the strongest survive, as is commonly held. As such, look at the environments in which stupid people thrive.

I'm hardly an expert though.

 

[soliddensity]

Arts is not valid.

That is all.

 

[derelict]

Nope, people with money 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.

Corrected this for you, and you're quite welcome.

 

[[guys_its_ok]]

Spoiler: That xkcd comic again

Spoiler: Part of what xkcd sucks said on it.

From xkcdsucks.blogspot.com [http://xkcdsucks.blogspot.com/2009/06/603-idiots.html]

..."But onto the argument of the comic! Because this is a comic which makes an argument, a very political one.

First off, Stick Figure #1 (no hat) starts with a simple statement: "Idiocracy is true". Nothing too objectionable there. Now I don't know what it means for a movie to be "true" but based on the Wikipedia page, it looks like the movie is a comment on the state of advertising, corporate control, and general stupidity in our society (obviously, taken to extremes for comedic purposes, but clearly meant to show us about ourselves today). That's what I assume #1 means and he is perfectly logical to say so. So then, still in panel 1, Mr. Line Through Head reinterprets the meaning of the movie to be "stupid people have more children, though this didn't used to be the case." Now there is a little about that in the wikipedia page, and maybe it's all over the movie and I should just see it, but given that this is not, by any account, a popular movie, you have to imagine that most readers are in my position. OK - so we've twisted what the movie means. On to panel 2!

Mr. Line Through Head further elaborates, putting words into #1's mouth that he doesn't necessarily believe. Perhaps to continue the conversation, perhaps because he is not thinking clearly, or perhaps just to not be a dick, he agrees with Mr. Line. Fool! You fell into his trap!

Panel 3! The Great Reveal! Mr. Line says "HA HA FUCK YOU" and that #1 is wrong! And then when #1 says "Huh?" as in, "why did you lie to me? What does this mean? why are you such a dick" Mr. Line treats him like a stupid little ***** as though he had said "huh? what does the word 'wrong' mean?" which is pretty clearly not what he meant. Seriously, read that panel again. Doesn't it come off as douchey to the max??

Panel 4 contains perhaps the most morally superior sentence ever created about moral superiority. When I read that sentence, all I could think was, "huh, you sure sound pretty goddamn sure of yourself there, mr. line through your head." For a guy who claims to be decrying those who decry "obvious moral decay" you sure do seem to think that this is an example of moral decay.

in Panel 5 we get the lovely claim that "More harm has been done by people panicked over societal decline than societal decline ever did." That's an interesting one. How on earth do you measure such a thing? If one is in favor, say, of affirmative action, because I think that current non-affirmative action university admissions are racist, does that make me "panicked over societal decline"? Does it do harm, by hurting white people, or does it help the world by stopping racism? Whether you think that person is "panicking over societal decline" or not depends on where you are on the issue and how much you agree with them. So the idea that you can just go about proving a statement like Mr. Line Through Head's is absurd.

In Panel 6 I was hoping for one of those "As the author, I don't actually agree with this" endings that some comics have. Like the sarcastic last panel of 589, where Randall makes fun of the sort of people who act like the characters in the first panels. But alas, no. All we get is "ha ha you are UGLY, man who looks just like me but without a line through your head!" And it's so forced in there, too - what does that even mean? Stupid people have to choose between #1 and sex with stupid people? So does that make #1...smart? Does that make him the only smart person anywhere? but Mr. Line Through Head just finished bitching him out for being stupid. I don't get it.

And then the overarching problem with this whole shit storm of a comic is that no where is there any proof or evidence offered for the claim Mr. Line Through Head makes. Ordinarily claims made in comics don't need them, but in this case, since his whole point is about one guy being too sure with no evidence, I would have like to see something. In the alt-text, on the blog, somewhere. So why should I believe Mr. Line Through Head? He has no better evidence than #1 or anyone else, so who gives a shit what he says?"

Someone had to, might as well have been me. By the way, I am stupid and uncreative, and I probably am gonna get some boring job and just be average for my whole life. Should I be dead?

 

[RatRace123]

Well, since Natural selection is really more about genetics and physical health rather than intelligence (no matter how smart you are, if you're born weak... you die, that's how it was back then.)

I can't really say anything, if natural selection had its way, I'd be dead, so would a lot of people, actually.

I guess one could argue that we've overcome natural evolution with a medical one. We can't grow into stronger, faster and healthier humans any more, so we instead make ourselves into them. By that logic, I don't think Darwin's law's failed. Too many stupid people are allowed to live, yes, but overall I think it's still working.