Survival of the fittest?

[hyphenate]

This is a question that interests me in a purely academic way. I am not advocating anything, nor am I curious beyond the intellectual level. It's a "what if" question to me, as a lover of science fiction and fantasy, and I'm just curious to hear the opinions of others based solely on speculation and imagination.

The question is this: have we passed a point in our evolution where we are threatening our own existence by not heeding the "survival of the fittest" mandate?

We help to feed, clothe and shelter a great portion of our own population here in the U.S., but we also help aid many millions around the world. If we stopped doing that, as the human race, not just as U.S. citizens, these millions of people would die from starvation, lack of medical help, or some other natural cause.

Here in the U.S. it's the same thing--many people are dependent on the services of the government to live even in the smallest of ways. The same things that would kill those in other nations would take the lives of our fellow citizens, and probably already have in many cases.

By the natural laws of evolution, those who are strongest are the ones who will live to fight another day. Our roots as natural hunters keep those alive who were most capable and those who would perish because of weak constitutions and problems were gradually eliminated from the gene pool.

While many of us consider ourselves above that basic level of survival, who possess a higher consciousness and such things as kindness, compassion and sensitivity, in a war completely based on strength of will and power, we would be wiped out quickly.

I know, for instance, in my own life, I certainly would be dead on that criteria: my health is not good, I can barely see without glasses, and I have no real will to survive otherwise.

So the question is, if we are supposed to survive based on the "fittest" of our race, have we gotten to a point where we are helping many to survive who will, in some future time, be the cause of the destruction of our species?

There are many who physically might not be among the fittest, but whose keen intellect make them survivors based on a different criteria. It sounds completely melodramatic to think of it in this way, but the Eloi and Morlocks of Time Machine fame are part of a possible scenario in the future by the parameters of Natural Law.

Are we simply beyond the simplest interpretation of evolution? Are we at a point in our lifeline where "fittest" is not a value based on strength and brilliance, but on characteristics such as wisdom, fair-mindedness, kindness and love? And if so, how do we exhibit, in a scientific fashion, these traits of humanity which still prove we are moving ahead on the evolutionary scale? Science is not famous for its compassion, but as a purportedly logical, objective line of work. It's difficult to graph emotions on a scale, so scientists have to sort out the ethereal from the solidly concrete manifestations.

If we, meaning the human race, had not made major leaps and bounds in our medical knowledge or in any one of a dozen other scientific fields, we might not have so many people who are dependent on the rest. These people would have never gotten to a point where they might breed, where their lines would have died out in the end. Even now, some families have roadblocks in their lines which are supposed to cull them from further reproduction, but who, because of medical advances alone, continue to live and reproduce. If it were a dog, a cat, or some other domesticated animal who presented with such a hereditary problem, we would not allow the line to continue, but we would sterilize the animal and possibly euthanize those who were living, depending on the severity of the problem.

So I'm curious to hear how others look at this paradox in human existence. I have to wonder at what point the human race figures out how to really manipulate the genes we were born with, and how some unscrupulous scientist somewhere starts deciding the criteria he/she chooses to represent the human race, and starts to eradicate the "less desirable" traits which are supposed to separate us from our more belligerent forebears. It sounds like science fiction, but it's not without the realm of possibility in the real world.

[DS1]

1. the entire prologue of Idiocracy is this theory

once man's natural enemies disappeared, the morons were free to reproduce as much as they could

[SteppingRazor]

2. Because we have the capacity for higher thought...

hence the capacity for morality, hence the desire to help others less fortunate.

As for the rest, we've already had people who tried to manipulate the gene pool. They were called Nazis.


And besides which, there's a huge difference between evolution and "social darwinism." In your OP, you suggest that the "weakest" are a subset of the poverty stricken: "We help to feed, clothe and shelter a great portion of our own population here in the U.S., but we also help aid many millions around the world."

But this actually works against evolution in some ways. After all, the poorest people in the world are actually some of the most adept at survival. In purely evolutionary terms, who would have a better chance at survival -- you or me sitting on our couches watching TV, or a hunter-gatherer from Borneo?

So, if one rejects social darwinism (as one should -- it's morally reprehensible) and looks solely at survival of human beings in evolutionary terms, the poorest people on the planet are actually among the fittest.

[ColbertWatcher]

3. Not a paradox

You seem to be talking about societies, not genes. Evolution says dominant characteristics survive to be passed on to the next generation (via the genes). But selfishness in a society is the weakness, not cooperation.

Also, you say:

By the natural laws of evolution, those who are strongest are the ones who will live to fight another day.

If by "strong" you also mean "selfish" then, no. Those who are the strongest (most selfish) are not necessarily the ones who will live to fight another day.

There have been way too many studies showing that not only does cooperation help a given population, but that selfishness is destructive.

[Birthmark]

4. Here's the thing:

We have no idea what will constitute "fitness" in the future. So, by assisting as many people as possible we are probably *ensuring* our survival. Today's birth defect might be tomorrow's definition of "fitness."

The End. :)

[Speck Tater]

5. It pays to play nice, Harvard study says

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080319/ap_on_sc/nice_guys;_ylt=Aj_NehGCT8M3.udB9mKEx_.s0NUE

WASHINGTON - Screaming sports coaches and cutthroat tycoons have it wrong: Nice guys do finish first, a new study suggests.
ADVERTISEMENT

The Harvard University study involved 100 Boston-area college students playing the same game over and over — a punishment-heavy version of the classic one-on-one brinksmanship game of prisoner's dilemma. The research appears in Thursday's edition of the journal Nature.

Common game theory has held that punishment makes two equals cooperate. But when people compete in repeated games, punishment fails to deliver, said study author Martin Nowak. He is director of the evolutionary dynamics lab at Harvard where the study was conducted.

more at link

[ColbertWatcher]

6. Thank you! n/t

[qazplm]

7. you might get stronger

more aggressive and more physical humans if we went that way, but you wouldnt get ones that were any "fitter" in any sense not tied directly to physical fitness and aggression.

Wouldnt get smarter, and that is where the real next step in evolution will come, when we see today's genius being the far tomorrows mentally average.

[TZ]

8. Also bear in mind natural selection is at its heart

driven by environmental pressures. Humans are the only creatures that aren't constrained/controlled by their environment but actually manipulates and controls their own environment. That also creates "evolutionary chaos" I guess you could say.
t

[Demeter]

9. I Have Two Points For You To Ponder

1) We are a social species (when functional). No man is an island. The length of immaturity, if nothing else, dictates that people need other people, plus the fact that singleton births are the norm. We don't spawn like fish, frogs or insects, or turtles laying eggs on some beach and swimming out to sea to leave the young on their own. We need to nurture a society of families and tribes and nations to survive as a species. And unlike the hive species (ants, termites, bees) we have no way of knowing from the start who is worthy and who isn't of reproducing. So maintaining our families, tribes, nations is a survival skill that has brought us through these 10,000-20,000 years. Some societies are better at it than others. Some societies still practice genocide, which is why it is a world-wide recognized crime against humanity (aside from the US and certain other dictatorships).

2) Economic crimes are beginning to seriously affect societies in ways that evolution and immigration cannot compensate. I predict that sometime in the next century, economic crimes will be regarded with the same horror as slavery, torture, and genocide (that is, only the BFEE and Cheney will think it's a perfectly legal thing to do). Economic conditions are not genetic, despite the Fundie prejudice against the poor and disadvantaged, but a function of the efficiency and ethics of society. The more economically and ethically advanced a society, as in providing for health of all members and maintaining the earth, the more likely the society will live to reproduce. Our declining birthrate to below replacement, as well as those in Europe and Japan, speak to the fact that our Western civilization is not very civilized at all, on the economic level. Granted, there is that pig in the python known as the Boomer generation that distorts everything, but an awful lot of Boomers never reproduced or died very young.

"Fighting", the conceit that "Might Makes Right", or Social Darwinism at its worst, is totally opposed to the concepts of supporting society and economic justice. It's also opposed to the concept of civil rights, democracy, nation of laws, etc. It is our last frontier--may we as a species develop some skill at economic and political justice for all before we wipe ourselves out!

[hunter]

10. There's nothing in those arguments.

People reproduce or they don't. People die sooner, or they die later. That's it. There is no weak, there is no strong, no measure of "quality of life," and certainly no invisible hand pushing us along in any particular direction.

Generally anything that reduces the genetic diversity of a population makes it less flexible when environmental conditions change.

The population of domestic dogs was drawn from the very wealthy gene pool of the wolf. The gene pool of dogs is poor and limited. You might breed something like a dalmatian from a large population of wolves in a few thousand years, but it would be very difficult and take much longer, even millions of years, to breed a population of something like wolves from a similar population of dalmatians.

If human beings disappeared tomorrow, the population of wolves and coyotes would expand, and the genes of dogs that did not perish right away probably wouldn't be incorporated into those populations to any great extent -- mostly because the wolf and coyote population already has most of those genes in much more useful and sturdier configurations.

In human evolution our ability to share with one another and our propensity to wander around the planet mixing up our genes has made us the successful weed species generalist we are. Even if we've managed to screw up the environment of earth to the extent that sea levels rise, farmland becomes desert, and 99% of humanity starves or is killed off fighting for scrap, that still leaves a pretty deep gene pool for whoever is left to draw upon.

As members of a population that has access to the internet and presumably enough to eat, we tend to forget that we can die off just like any other animal when our environment changes beyond our ability to cope.

[Kip Humphrey]

11. Survival of the fitest comes into play only when the age of breeding is reached.

Before the 20th century, the greatest threat to humans achieving breeding age was largely restricted to childhood. Up to that time, family populations of 6 or more children were required to ensure two children would reach child-bearing status (necessary to ensure family continuation and support of family elders).

Today, families sizes of 2-3 are sufficient and family size has reduced correspondingly on average.

Genetically, two countervailing trends lead humankind as a species:

1. a higher child-bearing achievement arguably increases DNA diversity as previously marginal DNA pairing are able to reach child-bearing age. While you might consider this diversity to not be optimal in historic survival terms, it does provide greater variation in the face of rapid changes in the environment that might change survival criterea.

2. fewer children born of mating pairs reduces the variation of environmental RNA replication passed on to offspring reducing its variability and the subsequent pool of variability that can occur from mutation. That said, this RNA is naturally subject to mutation as a consequence of contemporaneous environmental stress and personal trauma events.

Overall, to the specie's benefit, IMO, greater DNA diversity in the human child-bearing population is a plus for human survival, especially as we face potential extremely rapid environmental change from the currently occurring climate change - change that may well result in rapid alteration of the underlying survival criteria for the human species.

[unpossibles]

12. as a social animal, no. We have evolved as and because we are a social animal

we have tended to the weak for many generations, and possibly always have. We share and pool our resources and knowledge to grow and evolve.

Look at it this way: Stephen Hawking would likely lose in a purely "survival of the fittest" scenario, yet he contributes GREATLY to our society and to our understanding of the universe.

Even if we are slowing down physical evolution through being able to live longer and reproducing less frequently we are not necessarily stopping it; we've just changed the parameters a bit. Instead of who can outrun a tiger, now we "select" through other criteria.

[mzteris]

13. it's not "survival of the fittest"

it's "survival of those physically, mentally, and equipped for the conditions that exist."

For example - a guy who needs 3000 calories a day vs. a woman who needs only 1200 calories per day - and there's only say - 800 calories available per person per day. The woman can subsist on fewer calories for longer - one reason being that women have larger "fat stores" upon which to draw in times of privation.

or - say - if we suddenly had a whole lot MORE sunlight - those with darker skintone would thrive, and if we had a whole lot LESS - those with lighter skintone would be better off.

[Indenturedebtor]

14. All very interesting responses to your post

I personally agree with much that has been said, specifically about maintaining a larger gene pool in order to better adapt to the evolutionary bottlenecks of the future.

I would also like to add that due to the fact that we are FAR more able to select mates based on very specific qualities than our progenitors were we are actually creating a massive selective pressure on our own.

Previous generations were very much limited by geography and the relative shortness of their lives when it came to selecting a mate. With longer life spans and a far broader "breeding pool" we are going to see a gradual divergence of our species in my opinion. The true divide will come when we "open up" space travel for colonization.

In order to get to the next planet some criteria will likely be used that may unknowingly select for certain traits. That will give us the next true bottle neck that will exacerbate the ongoing divergance we're experiencing based on personal selection.