Social Darwinism: Why?

[Zetatrain]

Nature doesn't really care what we "achieve." It cares what survives to reproduce. To humans, Mother Teresa (sp?) was a wonderful person who took great burdens upon herself to help the needy and unfortunate. A true testament to human willpower and our capability for kindness.

To Evolution she had a fitness of 0. She didn't have any kids, so if her kindness was in any way genetic, it's now gone.

Well that's the thing, ideas such as kindness and altruism aren't exactly genetic. These are traits that must be taught to a child, so I doubt that even if Mother Theresa did have children that they would be like her just simply because they share her genetic material.

 

[Saxnot]

Yes and no. The desire to improve one's lot in life is pretty much universal, and the desire to spread ideas that one likes is nearly universal. Those goals are not however necessarily compatible with what is best for the species. Social Darwinism would for example occasionally require working against one's own self interest for the sake of long term progress elsewhere, a requirement that very few are willing to meet.

As a specific example, the world would be better off if the UN was given the resources and authority it was supposed to have when originally conceived, but few of its member nations are willing to allow it, since that would reduce their own power. As it stands, an organization that might have been able to make strides towards improving the lot of people regardless of nationality, is little more than a running joke, and will remain that way for the foreseeable future.

but doesn't that suggest that social darwinism is nothing but following through on your principles?

if i believe the UN should have more power, but don't want my government to give up sovereignty, then i'm just being inconsistent. following your beliefs even if they are to your own detriment does not seem to imply social darwinism to me. it seems more like being commited to certain opinions.

It also requires more adaptability in ideas than most want to deal with. Once an idea is shown to not work, it needs to be adapted to fit the situation or dropped entirely in favor of something new, instead of the more common situation of it getting dragged around by stubborn people that keep trying the same thing over and over again while expecting different results. (For reference, see US Republican and Democratic parties)

again, this seems more like a practical point than a philosophical one. if i can't convert people to evangelism through sermons and tv - ministry, i might try distributing chick tracts. if my ultimate goal remains the same, changing your methods from time to time is more a practical consideration than a philosophical position.

i don't mean to say that social darwinism is stupid or invalid, but rather the opposite. as i understand it, these principles seem to be an inherent part of being commited to an opinion.

 

[iseko]

Social Darwinism, for those who don't know, is the application of Darwin's "survival of the fittest" idea to everyday life... etc etc snip snip

Short reply: wrong
Long reply: Yes a species can be more adapt to survive. Like the owl and mice thing you propose. But what if there are not enough mice to eat? The best solution would be that half the owl population kills itself so the rest can eat and live. Preferably the oldest and weakest owls first. Yea... That is not going to happen. This is a scenario where the strongest will survive and find food. The weaker ones will die.

What is good for the species is not always the same as what is good for the individual. The individual is always selfish. A truly selfless act is very hard to come by. One of the only examples I could think off:
Someone who has no family, no friends, nobody that he cares for in this world and nobody that cares about him. He can stop the annihilation of the entire human race by killing himself.
If he had friends or family you could say he does it for them. In this way it is completely selfless.

Survival of the fittest is a bad excuse any ways. Modern medicine is screwing that up for humans.

captcha: roast beef

 

[Yopaz]

Sure we would have to replicate earth conditions, but guess what even on earth humans evolved in different directions. I am not saying humans would evolve into a completely different organism straight away. But I still think that any humans that have lived in earth like environments away from earth would evolve differently.

Also what you talk about with regards to peacocks and feathers is what is called "survival of the sexes" and it is also something that happens to a degree in Humans. There are several traits that men and woman find attractive in others, ie "good looking people". It's just that not every woman/man find the same traits desirable, which means we have a lot of traits that go on.

Funny thing about traits. I read an article about how blue eyed men were more attracted to blue eyed women than other colors. The scientists believe this is because it's the man can then tell if the baby he has with this woman is his or not (since the child should most of the time have blue eyes too). Just a funny fact

Really, this discussion is getting really silly. You fail to see the point I was trying to make with the peacock. So let me break this down for you. Men and women mate over attraction (or alcohol), you're correct about that. However what we find attractive isn't like in the case of the peacock where the biggest and most colourful feathers always wins. There's people who likes intelligence, there's people who like certain hair colours, skin colours, eye colours, body types. In short there's a lot of different kinds of looks we are attracted to. Evolution comes from breeding a certain range of traits and not in the seemingly random range of traits we humans go for.

You mentioned human evolution on earth and really? Really? You use that as an example of how we would evolve? We have had a few centuries where we were separated and you know what? The human genome is practically the same worldwide. Centuries of evolution has been pretty uneventful. There are minor differences and that's it.

Now let's go on to break down where you're wrong about evolution. We send a lot of people out on a journey in a spaceship which perfectly emulates life on Earth. Because of that we evolve. To adapt to our new environment. An environment that is basically the Earth? We have to adapt to changes that don't exist? We live like humans in a habitat made for humans and we have to evolve? A habitat most likely made by our current human desires. Given these conditions we have no reason to evolve. Our sexual preferences wont magically change. Our diversity wont change because we need to include enough people to avoid inbreeding and complete extinction within the next 10 generations. Really, take the time to learn the basic principles of evolution before you make brilliant theories like the one you did. Maybe then you'll learn how little sense you are making now.

 

[SciMal]

Nature doesn't really care what we "achieve." It cares what survives to reproduce. To humans, Mother Teresa (sp?) was a wonderful person who took great burdens upon herself to help the needy and unfortunate. A true testament to human willpower and our capability for kindness.

To Evolution she had a fitness of 0. She didn't have any kids, so if her kindness was in any way genetic, it's now gone.

Well that's the thing, ideas such as kindness and altruism aren't exactly genetic. These are traits that must be taught to a child, so I doubt that even if Mother Theresa did have children that they would be like her just simply because they share her genetic material.

There are actually fairly well-studied circumstances when altruism is favored in nature. Humans and primates aren't the only ones who can be altruistic, but the set of circumstances for that type of behavior to be favored is simply small.

Br > C is the equation I can recall related to it, with the (B)enefit to the actor (in genetic terms) and the (r)elatedness of the receiver to the actor outweighing the (C)ost to the actor.

 

[dyre]

I thought Social Darwinism was just something used by European and American imperialists in the 19th century, and is only used nowadays by middle school kids who haven't had a formal course teaching evolution yet, and thus don't have a clue what they're talking about.

To clarify a little, the theory used by Western imperialists was Social Evolution and there is a difference. Social Evolution was the theory touted by early anthropologists (who set us back a century) that cultures (ie societies) followed a linear evolutionary path. Nomadic savages => Barbarism/Chieftains => States => Industrial Nations or in short, "primitive" equals non-industrial chieftains, intermediate equals Rome or China, and fully evolved equals Europe and the US. Thus, "improving" more "primitive" nations was a kind way of speeding up an indigenous population's evolution.

Social Darwinism pretty much boils down to "the economically a/o politically wealthy/powerful are more fit than those with a lesser status." "Fitness" be the ability to breed and reproduce. Of course being born into wealth does not directly equate to being able to maintain wealth or build upon your own and the theory would be more workable if everything one owned (money, capital, holdings...) was not passed on to later generations rather achieved through hard wok/knowledge/dedication, that way people who are actually more adapted and suited for higher ecornomic/political positions could readily achieve them and improve their fitness. But we all know that's not how it works. Making the theory useless. Applies to technology and science too. "We have it so we're just better than you" mentality.

Ah, thanks for that clarification. Funny thing is, I've heard that sort of linear evolutionary path for civilizations crap in the media even during the recent Iraq occupation. At least Social Darwinism isn't used any more these days...it's just "the rich all work hard, and the poor are all lazy" now