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>we should be happy that there's some form of survival of the fittest still impacting the breeding of homo-sapiens. This is a terrible line of thought. Evoluti

by Retra 12y ago

>we should be happy that there's some form of survival of the fittest still impacting the breeding of homo-sapiens. This is a terrible line of thought. Evolutionary fitness is not measured by us, and we have no obligation to support it. This is a massive fallacy. It is classic rationalization. Those that survive are fit by evolutionary terms. It doesn't matter who survives or why you think they should. It is perfectly acceptable for unsuccessful people to reproduce, since that is the very adaptation that ensures their survival and guarantees their fitness. Flies survive by reproducing en mass. Thus they are fit. It doesn't matter if they are only flies; they fill their niche and evolve just the same. You cannot control evolution by choosing whether or not to reproduce. Evolution doesn't have a 'plan' for you to interfere with: it is simply what happens. It is the outcome.

brd 12y ago
It's not a terrible line of thought, simply an unpopular/controversial one. We've effectively eliminated selective pressures that would otherwise create a trend towards increased fitness. The most successful members of our society are increasingly the ones that are having the least children, this is irrefutable. I would never imply that its unacceptable for unsuccessful people to reproduce, I'm simply stating that the trend within the opposite group is a bit unsettling.
- Retra 12y ago
  You cannot eliminate selective pressures, you just change the niche. Changing from a circle peg to a square peg doesn't eliminate the requirements for a peg to fill a hole or die. You just fill different holes. This is not preventing survival of the fittest from working, it is just changing the meaning of 'fittest.' Edit: There is an analogous claim you could make to highlight the absurdity of this: Say we are talking about a plane crash and you said "We should be glad the plane crashed: it means that gravity is still affecting humans, as it should!" Flying planes doesn't invalidate gravity. Gravity is a law of nature, and it works whether we fly or not. You are still bound by gravity even if you leave the ground. Survival of the fittest is a law of nature. You are still bound by it, even if you find it easy to survive. Nature doesn't care if you are successful by human social standards; that is simply not a consideration the laws of nature take into account.
- TheOtherHobbes 12y ago
  I don't think you understand what fitness is. You seem to be confusing it with some imaginary social, financial, and cultural definition of human merit. It doesn't mean that at all. As you say, poor people are often much better breeders than rich people. They're more likely to have kids younger, and those kids in turn are more likely to breed earlier than the middle classes and the aristocracy. This actually makes them fitter in a Darwinian sense - because 'fit' just means 'more likely to breed successfully in a given environment.' It doesn't mean any more than that, and there's certainly no moral implication about 'quality' there. Defining who is and isn't successful is a huge social problem - possibly the biggest problem of all. Naive definitions of success won't cut it in either direction, because in the long term you have to consider species survival, and today's definitions of 'successful' may not be best for avoiding long-term extinction.
gaius 12y ago
Demanding that someone else feed you has proven to be a very successful strategy for cats, it remains to be seen if it is a long term strategy for humans.
lmm 12y ago
> You cannot control evolution by choosing whether or not to reproduce. Yes you can; you're changing the environment, changing which genetics have higher fitness. You are technically correct, but to express what the grandparent meant: we should be happy that our culture is such that traits that are positive for humanity (increased intelligence) do increase evolutionarily fitness.

by Retra 12y ago

brd 12y ago

It's not a terrible line of thought, simply an unpopular/controversial one. We've effectively eliminated selective pressures that would otherwise create a trend towards increased fitness. The most successful members of our society are increasingly the ones that are having the least children, this is irrefutable. I would never imply that its unacceptable for unsuccessful people to reproduce, I'm simply stating that the trend within the opposite group is a bit unsettling.

Retra 12y ago
You cannot eliminate selective pressures, you just change the niche. Changing from a circle peg to a square peg doesn't eliminate the requirements for a peg to fill a hole or die. You just fill different holes. This is not preventing survival of the fittest from working, it is just changing the meaning of 'fittest.' Edit: There is an analogous claim you could make to highlight the absurdity of this: Say we are talking about a plane crash and you said "We should be glad the plane crashed: it means that gravity is still affecting humans, as it should!" Flying planes doesn't invalidate gravity. Gravity is a law of nature, and it works whether we fly or not. You are still bound by gravity even if you leave the ground. Survival of the fittest is a law of nature. You are still bound by it, even if you find it easy to survive. Nature doesn't care if you are successful by human social standards; that is simply not a consideration the laws of nature take into account.
TheOtherHobbes 12y ago
I don't think you understand what fitness is. You seem to be confusing it with some imaginary social, financial, and cultural definition of human merit. It doesn't mean that at all. As you say, poor people are often much better breeders than rich people. They're more likely to have kids younger, and those kids in turn are more likely to breed earlier than the middle classes and the aristocracy. This actually makes them fitter in a Darwinian sense - because 'fit' just means 'more likely to breed successfully in a given environment.' It doesn't mean any more than that, and there's certainly no moral implication about 'quality' there. Defining who is and isn't successful is a huge social problem - possibly the biggest problem of all. Naive definitions of success won't cut it in either direction, because in the long term you have to consider species survival, and today's definitions of 'successful' may not be best for avoiding long-term extinction.

gaius 12y ago

Demanding that someone else feed you has proven to be a very successful strategy for cats, it remains to be seen if it is a long term strategy for humans.

lmm 12y ago

> You cannot control evolution by choosing whether or not to reproduce. Yes you can; you're changing the environment, changing which genetics have higher fitness. You are technically correct, but to express what the grandparent meant: we should be happy that our culture is such that traits that are positive for humanity (increased intelligence) do increase evolutionarily fitness.