First, I never said anyone was stupid. Stupidity is something else entirely; a doctor causing and accident by drunk driving is just as stupid as anyone else causing a drunk-driving accident.
Second, payment does not say anything about level of education; a plaster(er)(?) makes tons of money though he doesn't need a doctor's degree, for example.
Third, there's always the already mentioned 'exceptions that confirm the rule'.





I really started my Zelda Gamer's forum career good with that statement...

I have found this... strange and horrible tendency in people to look at each other, and suggest that one is better or another worse based on the traits they find to be superior inside themselves without looking or thinking about a larger picture. I've done some more thinking since I posted this topic.

I posted it because, while Darwin's thoughts are similar to those that I had as a youth, I have since studied Nazi Germany and the actions of the National Socialist party to attempt to control the breeding of mankind through selective elimination of "undesirable" traits. I've also learned quite a few other things, and I heard that quote last night, and it struck a chord with me. I heard both words that I and other friends who I thought to be very smart have said, and.. I heard something that made me feel like a monster for having ever thought that.

And it occurs to me, now, why I feel that Darwin is wholeheartedly wrong... his strict definition of a species means that the overall species will only include the same traits, it can only adapt and evolve through mutation. In truth, this is the least effective way to evoke change.

Genetic diversity. The larger, and more diverse the genetic pool of traits, the more possible combinations and the greater chance for rapid change over a small period of time. If you whittle down any set of human traits, cutting out any "undesirable" traits from that genetic pool, you ultimately reduce the species to a single set of unchangeable traits that can never get better or worse, they will simply cease to grow and begin, ultimately to stagnate, in a single large scale batch of inbreeding.\
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This is how I've begun to think of it. I can no longer believe that there is a strict definition of what is better or worse within the definition of human, only that we are all necessary, our diversity is essential to what helps us grow as a society. I don't believe true large scale society, and thus, any kind of advanced social construct, or literature, or even technological advancement could exist in a world where we did not encourage as high a survival rate as possible.

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Don't worry, it's not the end of the world. Opinions are meant to collide here, and nobody's going to kick up a fuss about it. And if they do, they get time-out, if you know what I mean.

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Seconds on that.

Usually, it's important for weaker members of a species to die out for the greater survival. But as someone said, humankind has rised above that. Genetically, maybe we'd be better off if those with inherited handicaps were stopped from having children. But it wouldn't make much difference to our survival, humankind is of a sufficiently advanced level now to survive despite these things. Our population, even our healthy population, isn't exactly endangered. So it's important for our moral development (which is vitaly important to the mental health of our species) that we help those who need it.

I stand by my statement that sex is fun.

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Thanks. Still, first impressions are everything, and I hate to think you guys think of me as some kind of neo-nazi.

You do have to realize that the shuffleing of genes isn't the only way to create genetic diversity. It's the mutations, a geno-/fenotype that is better adapted to the environment.
I do agree though that the 'selective breeding' of them nazis and the theoretical evolution theory will create something akin to inbreeding.

Quoted for truth.

I did mention mutation. Mutation doesn't happen enough and is not at all accustomed to the environment, it's random, and according to darwin's theory of natural selection only acclimates to the environment through the level of likelyhood for a given mutation to survive in that environment, mutation will also be fixed to the speed of any species breeding cycle and will always be slower than encouraged genetic diversity.

Moreover, in HUMAN controlled selective breeding, a mutation is just as likely to be killed off and chosen as unacceptable.

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Ok, tr00 dat. You win.

We don't want a higher survival rate anyway. There's over population, if anything people with terminal illnesses and threats to life are a benefit to us as a race. In nature, natural selection to aid survival is counteracted by natural population checks. We've grown beyond needing either. There's no real need for encouraging genetic supremacy, especially when supremacy has criteria which are impossible to agree on.

Over/ population/ is/ a myth. Every decade the estimate for when overpopulation will occur is pushed back because as the actual population of the planet has increased, the rate of increase has declined, to the point even that some scientists are predicting that once a certain level of human population is reached, the birthrate will actually be lower than the death rate, leading into a steady decline.

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