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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

by 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.

by brd 12y ago

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.