After initial angst, would society benefit if the weak were not supported?

[I1L2T3]

I don’t disagree with what you’ve said here, but perhaps use of the word ’strong’ has been misunderstood. I’m not referring to tall muscular Ayrians with blond hair and flawless teeth, however much some posters really want to twist the thread to have a concept like that to attack. Strong also relates to people’s ability to resist disease, to their ability to conceive easily, to their ability to give birth to healthy children, and of course to their mental capacity and ability to succeed in society – through their wits and, indeed, social cooperation.

 

If we continue to help people who are medically weak reproduce, that can only mean that future generations will have more people who inherit medical problems from their ancestors, ancestors who otherwise would not have successfully reproduced.

 

If we give unlimited assistance to the profoundly dim, and offer them a benefits system that rewards them for having more and more children while the brighter members of our society are busy working and having smaller families, the average intellect will diminish.

We’ll have more of these: http://i.ytimg.com/vi/gE2OzGfIDLQ/0.jpg

And less of these: http://www.huntspost.co.uk/news/latest-news/pioneering_papworth_surgeon_retires_1_955882

 

The thing is that in our medicalised society the poor have access to the same screening procedures during pregnancy as everybody else. Births of children with genetic problems can and are avoided right across the social spectrum.

 

It may be that the medical support you are suggesting should be removed may be having precisely the positive affect you are looking for, in terms of reducing the number of people in our society with congenital abnormalities.

 

That then moves us onto your concepts about the medically weak. A lot of the medical conditions experienced by the poor are not congenital but rather the result of poor lifestyle and other avoidable diseases, e.g. caused by environment. Providing social support may enhance their environment and also help educate people into good lifestyle choices. Again the support you want to remove may actually be helping achieve results that you are actually looking for.

 

Next, the idea that lower social classes are dim. This doesn't hold up. 150 years ago there was a large working class. As economic conditions improved the middle classes grew in numbers. Are you saying that the new middle classes were only able to make that leap by in the space of a couple of generations becoming less dim? It's more likely that they made the step up because of improved economic conditions and improved education.

[Chris_Sleeps]

Are we brighter than chimps because our more intelligent ancestors tended to survive and reproduce more successfully then their less intelligent neighbours?

But chimps have survived and reproduced equally as well as us. They are our evolutionary equals.

[maxmaximus]

You've talked about devolution, reversing evolution and how

 

 

 

Supporting the dim will cause average intelligence to diminish.

 

Are you now claiming that you weren't suggesting that intelligence is a desirable evolutionary trait?

 

I'd suggest that a person suggesting policies like you have would be dangerous, but that would only be true if they really understood what they were talking about.

 

It would be a reasonable trait for humans to keep if we want to continue feeding 7 billion people; I’m not sure how the majority would cope without the inelegance of the minority.

[Cavegirl]

You're joking, right?

 

How do "Comparative energetics of mammalian locomotion: Humans are not different" or "Intergroup cannibalism in the European Early Pleistocene: The range expansion and imbalance of power hypotheses" disprove what I have claimed?

 

That's an embarrassinlgy lame attempt to divert (again!). When you link to a paper that is actually relevant, not just a list of totally unrelated papers, I'll take you seriously.

 

This paper clearly explains how human reproductive behaviour is not, and never has been limited to your very narrow perspective of what constitutes a suitable reproductive strategy.

 

http://homepage.psy.utexas.edu/homepage/group/busslab/pdffiles/evolution_of_human_mating_2007.pdf

 

Whereas you appear to have limited desires related to strength and economic status it's clear that we as a wider species value a much wider range of reproductive desires.

 

These include prospective parental investment, kindness, generosity, intelligence, ability to cooperate, cultural similarities, youth, virginity, age differences, mutual attraction and others described within this paper.

 

The wide variety of desires that we as a species display has led us to a very democratic form of sexual strategy (all humans have the potential to find a mate) and this has provided enormous evolutionary advantages. Compare our wide ranging sexual strategy with the more limited competetive strategy of the Tournament primate groups (that I described in post 111) and you'll soon realise that once primates such as gorillas are put under environmental stress their strategy of regular mass infanticide has essentially led to their now pretty inevitable extinction. When humans are put under stress the huge variety of our strategies means that we can continue to procreate successfully.

 

Delving a bit deeper it's unlikely that females consciously choose their reproductive partners at all, there's so much chemistry occurring in the subconscious background- pheromones providing information about genetic suitability, dopameine levels during sex determining whether a particular partner will be considered a long term partner or not etc that it's almost impossible as an observer to pre-judge who would make a suitable partner for whom.

 

Natural selection optimises a species' chances of reproducing successfully and in the case of humans we've been incredibly successful due to our democratic reproductive behaviour. All humans, in all cultures, across the whole of time have been able to mate with whomever they see fit. The ridiculous thing about your stupid ideology is that you think, with your extraordinarily limited understanding of these things and some hideous forms of ill-considered social tinkering, that you can do better...

[Conrod]

This paper clearly explains how human reproductive behaviour is not, and never has been limited to your very narrow perspective of what constitutes a suitable reproductive strategy.

 

http://homepage.psy.utexas.edu/homepage/group/busslab/pdffiles/evolution_of_human_mating_2007.pdf

 

Whereas you appear to have limited desires related to strength and economic status it's clear that we as a wider species value a much wider range of reproductive desires.

 

These include prospective parental investment, kindness, generosity, intelligence, ability to cooperate, cultural similarities, youth, virginity, age differences, mutual attraction and others described within this paper.

 

The wide variety of desires that we as a species display has led us to a very democratic form of sexual strategy (all humans have the potential to find a mate) and this has provided enormous evolutionary advantages. Compare our wide ranging sexual strategy with the more limited competetive strategy of the Tournament primate groups (that I described in post 111) and you'll soon realise that once primates such as gorillas are put under environmental stress their strategy of regular mass infanticide has essentially led to their now pretty inevitable extinction. When humans are put under stress the huge variety of our strategies means that we can continue to procreate successfully.

 

Delving a bit deeper it's unlikely that females consciously choose their reproductive partners at all, there's so much chemistry occurring in the subconscious background- pheromones providing information about genetic suitability, dopameine levels during sex determining whether a particular partner will be considered a long term partner or not etc that it's almost impossible as an observer to pre-judge who would make a suitable partner for whom.

Wow, these responses get even better!

 

So, do we assume that women are just as attracted to short ugly unsuccessful men with health issues as they are to intelligent, successful good physical examples?

 

Natural selection optimises a species' chances of reproducing successfully and in the case of humans we've been incredibly successful due to our democratic reproductive behaviour. All humans, in all cultures, across the whole of time have been able to mate with whomever they see fit. The ridiculous thing about your stupid ideology is that you think, with your extraordinarily limited understanding of these things and some hideous forms of ill-considered social tinkering, that you can do better...

Another one that misses the point. people mate with whom they see fit - yes, absolutely. They will be more attracted to a physically healthy and socially successful individual than a dim-witted runt - can we agree on that much?

[Conrod]

But chimps have survived and reproduced equally as well as us. They are our evolutionary equals.

As are fruit flies if you put it that way.

[Phanerothyme]

Yes they are. In fact the arthropods are probably the most evolutionarily successful phylum of all.

[Conrod]

Yes they are. In fact the arthropods are probably the most evolutionarily successful phylum of all.

And it would seem that many of them have accounts on SF.

[Phanerothyme]

On social commentary you're commanding and strident. On biology, you're an embarassment!

[Conrod]

On social commentary you're commanding and strident. On biology, you're an embarassment!

Ok, I don't actually think fruit flies have SF accounts.

 

But I do think that if we change 'survival of the fittest' to 'survival of everybody with extra encouragement for the weak/dim to reproduce', we're not doing ourselves any good.