| Devolution |
[21 Aug 2003|12:11am] |
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Has it ever occurred to anyone but me that the human species may be in the process of breeding itself into subjective degeneracy? By subjective degeneracy I mean the proliferation (or dominance) of traits that are generally considered undesirable, whether serious or frivolous, such as stupidity, ugliness, allergies, other physical ailments, and tendencies toward mental disorders.
My train of thought goes somewhat like this:
- Improvement of the species through natural selection is based on the law of survival of the fittest. Human societies, by protecting the unfit, negate this process. (I'm not saying we should do anything else, as nothing else is reasonable, but this does have the side effect of giving bad genes a second chance.) This gives bad genes a fighting chance.
- People who possess more subjectively good traits are probably likely to
do better in life, meaning that they gain a higher income, thus gain access to better education, and so forth.
- Poor people and people with little or no education tend, in general, to have more children. This, in combination with the above, promotes the proliferation of the gene stock of those with undesirable traits.
I'm not really going anywhere with this, and obviously these are merely loose thoughts that should not be confused with an attempt at being scientific, but it's a thought that's been nagging me for a while. Fills you with hope for future generations, doesn't it?
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