posted on Jan, 6 2006 @ 01:55 PM
It's a universal principle and as such remains 'around' forever.
The question is who's subject to selection... it's not just the individual, mind you, it affects, umm, populations, too. entire societies in fact,
but more on that later.
----interlude----
there's a problem with societal conclusions based on what we percieve as natural selection: whenever we're talking about extinct species, we presume
they failed because they sucked...
and our proof for suckage is that they're extinct, right?
circular logic is fun though, whenever it can be used to shut someone up. loser? it's your fault. trying to disprove it? heck no-one believes a
loser, so the label sticks...
but who's selecting who in this case? society adversely selects the individual, so the logical moniker for selection within societies would be
Social Selection
surprising, eh? one example of social selection: soldiers with above average abilities are sent to elite units... who do you think has a better chance
of survival, elite troops or logistics folks? how many GIs survived riding the first wave to omaha beach? did they suck? if you think they did not
you'll have to reconsider social darwinism, i presume.
-----end interlude---
now, if society believes somebody's inferior, they'd better make sure they're right, otherwise they risk deterioration of their collective fitness
(not necessarily by genetic influence, if you reward destructive behaviour, people will adapt accordingly), eventually destroying society, Naturally
Selecting it for the collective darwin award (which doesn't necessarily mean the end of every single individual, of course..)
PS: please keep in mind that NS is a destructive principle (obviously, it's about death and infertility) and as such cannot act constructively
without additional means (a dead tree may give nutrition to other plants, but only if there's seeds present...)