Poll: Is Darwin's Law failing us??

[Gardenia]

He's missing the point. Natural selection does not mean "The smartest prevail." It means "First one to figure out how to skullfuck the system wins."
It seems to be failing because your friend misunderstood what it all meant.
[sub][sub][sub][sub][sub][sub][sub][sub][sub]Reading the "Idiot's guide to natural selection" probably didn't help[/sub][/sub][/sub][/sub][/sub][/sub][/sub][/sub][/sub]

 

[Inyssius]

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.

 

[Avaholic03]

Surprised nobody has referenced Idiocracy yet. The first few minutes of that movie are pure gold (and sadly very accurate).

 

[Azure Sky]

Seems I have been picked up on.

It irritates me that many people are unable to logically comprehend so many things in this day and age. When banging ones head on a wall isn't working, the next step is not bang it harder... =/

(Actually, scratch that, much harder please, do it properly now.)

And that is just the tip of the ice burg.

Reading the "Idiot's guide to natural selection" probably didn't help

Cheap shot is bad, m'kay. =3

 

[Velvo]

This post [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.230338-Poll-Has-your-life-made-you-prejudiced?page=5#8027123] 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].)

As though Darwin's theories were meant to do anything for us? If evolution benefits us, great! If not, then whatever. It's physics and it never promised anything (not even making sense! Lookin' at you quantum mechanics!).

It's not like evolution could "fail us." It's simply a process. Human evolution is so mired in crazy complex cultural, behavioral and cognitive stuff that it might as well be called something else, as the processes are so specific.

Cultures and cognition makes it very complicated. These processes we group together and call Evolution have never dealt with cognition on such a scale (at least with any species that has survived) and we'll have to see whether or not such rampant cognition is actually beneficial to a species in the long run (or indeed, beneficial to the Earth). Maybe pure instinct (hereditary logic) is the better tool for survival. Less quick and adaptable, but much less expensive (if you know what I mean).

Besides the big picture "does cognition really make for a better world" stuff, people as a whole are coming out pretty well. Genetic evolution has kinda taken a back seat to cultural (or scientific) evolution, seeing as genetic evolution takes so damn long. At this rate, we'll be modifying our genes DIRECTLY before any actual noticeable evolution occurs.

 

[Velvo]

Surprised nobody has referenced Idiocracy yet. The first few minutes of that movie are pure gold (and sadly very accurate).

Dammit! I finally see this thread just a tiny bit after someone steals my post! ;_;

Anyway, the only thing I have to add to the op is... what makes you so damn sure you are not part of the problem?

Yeah, it would be sad if genetics worked that way. Smart people can come from ANYWHERE. From ANYWOMB.

Changes in culture work so much faster than changes in genetics that in 500 years (or whatever) humans would be (pretty much) IDENTICAL to modern humans. The variation between individuals FAR outweighs variation between groups.

The "smart people never have babies" trend in our culture (not that it's true) would have to go on for thousands of years to make a difference (genetically anyway, sure we could stagnate culturally, but whatever).

 

[Elle-Jai]

Anyway, the only thing I have to add to the op is... what makes you so damn sure you are not part of the problem?

When did I ever say I wasn't part of the problem??! For all I know, I am. Maybe I'm just too stupid to remove myself from the gene pool. *shrug* But that's me, now what about you?

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.

I am aware that in all technicality it is "Darwin's Theory", as in, a THEORY of Charles DARWIN. However "Darwin's Law" is in the current vernacular, hence that is the term I used.

Reading the "Idiot's guide to natural selection" probably didn't help

Did you follow the link? It's actually a "collaborative project" of the University of California Museum of Paleontology and the National Center for Science Education, hosted by the University of California. I refer to it as "the idiots guide" because it takes the concept and simplifies it. Maybe I should refer to it as "the simplified guide" instead. /eyeroll

 

[joshthor]

Darwins law isnt failing cause, well... screw darwin.

 

[SimuLord]

Surprised nobody has referenced Idiocracy yet. The first few minutes of that movie are pure gold (and sadly very accurate).

Sadly very accurate, huh? I guess you missed the XKCD comic earlier in the thread.

I really don't have much patience for self-righteous elitists whining about "only stupid people have lots of babies." One of two things is true. Either on a macrogenetic scale this doesn't matter worth a damn, or (more likely) something in natural selection is selecting for these traits, which is why "those people" (oh, THOSE people...) have so many offspring.

Really. The last panel of the XKCD comic. Read it again.

 

[DefunctTheory]

Socially, natural selection still applies, if the theory can even be applied to such a thing, which is debatable.

As far as natural selection affecting evolution, it no longer applies. We no longer need to physically evolve.

For example, artic wolves evolved to have thicker, more efficient fur to deal with the cold. Humans can no longer do this, because we just skin the wolf and use its fur (Or manufactor synthetic fibers for the same purpose).

Interestingly enough, some claim we will soon begin to back slide and suffer from genetic weakening, as humans who have diseases that would normally make them unsuitable for procreation (Sickle Cell Anemia, Cystic fibrosis, Spinal Muscular Atrophy, etc) can now live long enough to produce children (A dick move, if you think about it).

 

[TheLaofKazi]

Natural selection is just the natural environment indirectly selecting beings through allowing the beings that are best suited for their environment to survive and pass on their genes.

That doesn't mean that natural selection and evolution suddenly stop if the environment isn't constantly killing tons of stupid people off. It's not like they are broken, they are still at play, just perhaps not as much. And it's not like we can really notice how natural selection is affecting us right now. This is a process that takes millions and billions of years, it's a process that's so slow and gradual that we aren't going to notice it as it's happening, and we certainly won't be able to see any significant effects of it during our lifetime.

As a species, the more we learn, the more those things we learn things will become common knowledge. For example: in the 50s, did everyone know basics about genetics? (Maybe, I'm not sure when it started, but if that's the case, just replace 50s with an earlier decade.) Were what we know about AIDs common knowledge in the 60s? Were computers widely used in the 70s? It's a VERY slow process, but we ARE getting smarter. It just gets REALLY hard to beleive sometimes.

I'm pretty sure that's all social evolution, certainly not biological. It's not like our brains grew within the last 60 years or so, we have just gained more useful knowledge and have passed it on to future generations through teaching, writing, ect.

The cool thing about humans is that we don't necessarily need to evolve biologically to progress or adapt, we can do it through social evolution. There really isn't much of a reason for us to survive, because our world is so complex and rapidly changing, that one advantage can be a disadvantage under another set of circumstances. Being born with an immunity to one disease, for example, won't do shit for you if you are born in an environment where you are exposed to another disease that you aren't immune to. Thus that "advantage" you were born with is useless. And even if the set of genetics you were born with gives you an immediate advantage, your genetics might not be useful to future generations. That's where social evolution comes in, we have the power to consciously avoid the source of that disease, make a cure for it, ect.

*Snip*

Quoted for truth, bro!

 

[Eisenfaust]

well i occasionally ponder that modern medicine might have short-circuited several aspects of it, but i don't really think it's failing us, per sey...

 

[Azure Sky]

I really don't have much patience for self-righteous elitists whining about "only stupid people have lots of babies." One of two things is true. Either on a macrogenetic scale this doesn't matter worth a damn, or (more likely) something in natural selection is selecting for these traits, which is why "those people" (oh, THOSE people...) have so many offspring.

Got to agree with you there, particularly seeing as the above mentioned narrow mindedness is one of the things that needs to play in traffic go away.

I am more interested in the here and now as opposed to future generations.

Though, no matter where people come from or how well developed they may be, it is their parents that they teach them how to not think.
Have a child raised by monkeys, he will act like one.

 

[mjc0961]

[HEADING=2]A message to everyone who thinks that natural selection isn't working anymore:[/HEADING]

*standing ovation*

I love that, especially the last panel. Great stuff right there.

Surprised nobody has referenced Idiocracy yet. The first few minutes of that movie are pure gold (and sadly very accurate).

That was also excellent.

 

[Evil Earlgrey]

Darwins Law works fine. It's the humans that just seem not to fit into it anymore.

But we do, because our technology that allows so many people to survive and reproduce that really shouldn't. That is going to kill us in the end, which again makes us the victims of our own weakness.