Worse off as a species?

[meatloaf231]

Oh, natural selection, I'm so sorry they killed you.

Aye. Modern society is built to facilitate irresponsible idiots and their idiotic actions instead of punishing or discouraging them. I'm not talking about crime, I'm talking about plain stupidity. They don't want to admit it's their fault, and they can get away with blaming everyone else, and we all suffer for it.

 

[JaredXE]

Imho it's not so much genes but education/upbringing that shapes a human's mind (which is undoubtedly the most important thing nowadays).
People focus too much on genes as it is.
They're a very rough blue-print, guys, not a predestined railtrack.

Agreed, genes can set a rough standard for certain things, provide a bar or cap as it were, but it does come down to upbringing and education. The problem is, at least in America, is the lack of proper education and upbringing due to the permissivness in coddling people. I know it's a joke from the Incredibles, but holding a graduation ceremony for passing the 3rd grade is just celebrating mediocrity, as is the constant lowering of standards for not just education, but responsibility in our society.

 

[Doug]

Humanity is just another form of animal, to classify it as anything else is pure foolishness. Is humanity worse as a species because we don't let survival of the fittest take place?

Absolutely.

Hold on, right here.

Survival of the fitness is a horrible, horrible term that should never have been termed - if it where phrased differently, its possible that the Nazi's might not have had the notion to try and steralize mentally handicapped peoeple, and maybe it would have stopped them thinking to murder as many groups as they did.

More precisely, its "Survival of the best adapted to the environment". If anything, the current peroid of low failure to breed rates is an excellent result for future evolution. The low survival pressure means nature can more easily mess around with the 'model' of humans and see what directions it can be expanded into.

 

[JaredXE]

Civilizations were killing/exiling the handicapped or infirm faaaar before Hitler came to power. It's an old concept, to remove the less useful elements from our society and thereby provide more for everyone else. Hitler was not the source of all the evil, nasty thoughts in the world. They have occured before him, and will continue far into the future.

 

[Oldmanwillow]

OK this is a very precarious subject. As this is entirely dependant on how far you are willing to take this idea. Do you purge those who are disabled who otherwise in the natural world would have been killed and prevented from continuing their genes.

Obviously we don't have natural selection any more simply because those people who as I have said would normally die from various illness. How many people have been saved from death by an operation or intervention by drugs? Human beings are exempt from natural selection from due to these things. On your example of education that's what tests at the end of your studying are for. They separate the people who worked and who are more intelligent, from the people who didn't and aren't.

I do agree that people who are good should be allowed to succeed but not at the total disregard of our fellow man. This is what has generated the problems of the Credit Crunch, out of control capitalism, people with total disregard as to whatever their actions did to the rest of the world, only that they got the best out of the situation.

You can't expect anyone to be perfect as they will always have some fault,to use two famous examples; Einstein couldn't talk properly through some of his childhood(and was appalling at maths and Alexander the Great was epileptic with many other physical faults.

We have benefited from the loss of natural selection because unlike animals we have the ability to improve ourselves along the span of our lives. Evolution really only has short term effecst as it really only applies to genetic characteristics. The skills we value such as intelligence are incredibly difficult to control through natural selection. These are too affected by environmental influences such as upbringing. So rather than exterminating those who aren't as genetically gifted as others we should work on improving everyone else. That is what sets us apart from the rest of the animal kingdom.

Hold it right there when you are saying its out of control capitalism is what caused are problem because that is dead wrong. The credic crunch was created by people who lived outside there means and the banks that were stupid enough to give out the loans. Thats not capitalism its stupidity.

Everything that we do to improve our selves as people comes at the expense at of another. (If i win a concerto competition i win at the expense of the people i beat.) Its is how life works there will always be winners and there will always be losers to try and deny this fact is pure foolishness.

Finally there is no such thing as absolute perfection, but i will spend my whole life trying to achieve it because it is worth a life.

 

[Oldmanwillow]

Again if you read the whole thread I am not saying round them up and kill them. I am simply saying leave them up to there own devices. If you can't survive in our society then you dont have a right to live. It shouldn't be our society obligation to make sure that we safe people from themselves.

 

[Oldmanwillow]

You know what this sounds alot like Natzism. Hmm very similar. Or it can be just me (which i know its not)

Lets go kill the weak and make sure the genes dont get passed down because they are inferior (Jews).

im just saying this sounds alot like he wants an aryan race.

killing off the weaker people is wrong letting them die isnt (ok not so much) what I think he is saying is the best way to improve humanity is to allow the idiots to die off let them fall into to poverty just fall away from the public eye, like what the spartans did if the child is weak deformed well it gets drowned it sucks but there civilization was fairly pure

Im not saying this isnt brutal but if we want a great human culture brutality is key if you cant survive you dont deserve to live..

This says that very well.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

WARNING: May contain nuts. On a bag of peanuts

Peanuts are a legume. They are just handled in a factory that produces bags not nuts, most likely.

Tesco's Finest Jersey Milk : May Contain Milk. Defend that one

As for the OP's original argument, define "fittest". If it's muscular power, then we lose mental ability, which cripples our tool use. If we define it as mental ability, then we lose sexual potency. If we define it as sexual potency, then we lose morality. If we choose morality, then we lose free speech...

With Humanity being one of the few animals that has self-awareness, tool use, moral codes and other developments of "free will", then survival of the fittest is only based on what we perceive to be relevant at a specific point in time. At the moment, the race is for material resources (Capitalism), so moral ambiguity / Machiavellian thought and appearance of wealth are seen to be the "fittest". Which is why we are what we are.

 

[Cocal]

I agree. But it really doesn't matter. Human existence has not been around for dick shit when you look at it in the "big picture" and no species really out lives 4 million years. And if we do happen to abandon all religion and all races and all countries and all prating factors without destroying all of humanity with nuclear bombs and such only then will we be able to improve our species. Plus we are basically shit compared to all other living being the only way we where to survive was to change the environment around us and not evolve. so to evolve would be pointless, unless you want to like be able to run faster, even then it would be like a couple million years before that.

 

[red the fister]

The low survival pressure means nature can more easily mess around with the 'model' of humans and see what directions it can be expanded into.

creatures evolve when there is a need. as far as i know there is no NEED for further evolution in any "First World" country. in my observation (limited though it is) the entirety of Western Civilization is attempting to ensure the continued existence all mutations that make survival impossible - in a less medically/technologically advanced time any way.

 

[CrystalShadow]

Ugh. Survival of the fittest.

What a pointless waste of time. If you live, you live. If you die, you die.

That's all it is.

And there is no predefined 'better' person. It's all entirely down to circumstance.

If the unemployed 'bum' is not contributing, it is because he's in an unsuitable environment.
You could say he's unfit, but that's only a half-truth.
Change the environment, and chances are he may well be better than someone who is really successful in the current situation.

But all of that is pointless, because life really has little meaning.

Who wastes their time worrying about if they are 'better' or 'worse' than someone eles?

Better in what sense? Better for whom?
You're born, you live, you die.
What you do inbetween is called life, but it's such an insignificantly trivial thing in the scheme of things that there really isn't much point putting so much effort into worrying about it.

The species will die eventually too. It's inevitable. And no amount of 'artificial' survival of the fittest nonsense will change that.
You cannot improve something without any idea of what's actually better.
And I don't think you know what's better, to be honest.

 

[Mr_Confuzed]

Natural selection is not dead. It will only stop when death does the same. I don't imagine that will happen any time soon.

Well, then humanity dies.
I don't have a big problem with that, either.

Let me get this straight, you want humanity to improve, but don't care if it dies. Is there some logic there that I'm missing?

 

[Doug]

The low survival pressure means nature can more easily mess around with the 'model' of humans and see what directions it can be expanded into.

creatures evolve when there is a need. as far as i know there is no NEED for further evolution in any "First World" country. in my observation (limited though it is) the entirety of Western Civilization is attempting to ensure the continued existence all mutations that make survival impossible - in a less medically/technologically advanced time any way.

Again, your superimposing conscious ideas onto an emergent behaviour. There is no 'purpose' to evolution, no direction, no plan. It just varies the formula each generation. And if most of a generation survive, the widest genetic variation there is (and we do need that as a species - humans are surprisingly and dangerously low in genetic variation). As such, more and more unique mutations will emerge - THAT is evolution. And if those mutations die out? That is also evolution. The point being, with the low survival pressure, the cost of variation to survival chances is lowered to the point that variations that are harmful to survival may occur, and survive, and end up forming a new 'island' of genetic space in a equal or more successful area of the 'genetic phase space'.

I.e. I doesn't matter if its broken, evolution gets a chance to play around with it.

 

[Marv21]

Oh, natural selection, I'm so sorry they killed you.

QFT.

We've stopped evolving, not because we've reached our pinnacle, but because we are repeatedly diluting the gene pool without correcting it.

A logical answer that is simple and concise....and My GAWD! is True?!?!!?

*salutes Wordsmith*
Its people like you that help me get up every morning!

 

[13lackfriday]

I've actually been thinking on this subject for a while now.

Our continued existence in an unchanging state due to our resistance to evolution has had a lot of negative impacts on the planet.
We pollute, we strip mine, we deforest, and when a disease comes along to kill us off, we have pharmaceuticals to render their effects moot.

This means that the weaker of the species (genetically) are enabled to live.
This may sound brutal, like Eugenics, but there are certainly those in the gene pool who are less fitted to survive in the world, and are only able to do so artificially, with the aid of technology and medications.

Certainly, I don't have the ideal genetic makeup and would probably be one of the casualties if natural selection were allowed its process, but from a cold, scientific standpoint, the human species, should it continue at all, would be better off with the herd thinned out of the weak.
It's hard to wish for the elimination of a significant number of your own kind, but for the environment, the world, and even the universe at large, it would be healthier for the NATURAL balance to be returned.

Thus, I came up with my ideal job: the one true Lifeguard!
It would be my life's calling to deal with idiocy:
*TWEEET!*
*Irish accent* "That's it, outta the gene pool!"
That would be soooooo satisfying.

If only God did his job properly...

 

[j1-2themax]

I have rarely wanted to assault someone more than when I hear of that lady who was suing McDonalds because her coffee was hot.

One thing you may or may not realize about this was the fact that McDonald's coffee caused 3rd degree burns. That's the kind where the skin is dead and ain't coming back, not the mild sunburn kind of thing I'm assuming you're thinking of. And people were drinking this! Something had to be done, and although suing may not have been the most selfless way to get the point across, it sure got the job done.

 

[Neonbob]

I have rarely wanted to assault someone more than when I hear of that lady who was suing McDonalds because her coffee was hot.

One thing you may or may not realize about this was the fact that McDonald's coffee caused 3rd degree burns. That's the kind where the skin is dead and ain't coming back, not the mild sunburn kind of thing I'm assuming you're thinking of. And people were drinking this! Something had to be done, and although suing may not have been the most selfless way to get the point across, it sure got the job done.

No, I didn't think she was sunburned. And yes, people were drinking this. But she was the only one that I've heard of who seemed to forget about the temperature and try to mix it while in her car. Lastly, you seem to be trying to get me to think better of a person I have already deemed dumber than all of Soulja Boi's songs...okay, not quite that bad, but approaching that level. While this is a noble crusade, I'm afraid it's quite in vain.

 

[Kuhkren]

Maybe the "losers" are the base of society, the farmers, the carpenters, the janitors. To say a person doesn't have the right to live due to an their nuture and nature aspects that are outside of their control sounds unfair for the reasoning and feeling organism (empathy?). Those people still perform important tasks for civilizations. They are not poisoning the society that much, and from what I have seen from measurements of intelligence in the past century (when adjusted for the flynn effect), the bell curves for measured intelligence across a population have remained similar.

Yes there are those who take advantage of the system in things like welfare and sueing, but without numbers and data it is pointless to argue the severity. What you think and what reality is can be very different things.

Psychologists still have no exact way of measuring intelligence, and there are theories proposing many different kinds. And even if one managed to create, by some miracle, and completely accurate test, they would be eliminating a valuable resource to human existence. (If you desire to think this way, work horses and cannon fodder). Many in this thread are speaking from a subjective view of how much influence "stupid" people have on society, which of course their own perception is only reinforced by a confirmation bias of what few cases they see and hear in the world around them, which those cases may in fact be the minority.