Will reverse darwinism cause the failure of Western Society?

[RaynorWolfcastle]

I don't have any hard facts on this mostly because I'm too lazy to google it up; if anyone feels like finding evidence for or against this, feel free to do it.

I think it is pretty obvious that in Western cultures, the most successful people in their respective fields spend a lot of time on their career, leaving little time for a large family. That is the brightest and best, in Western cultures, do not reproduce much. On the other hand, much less successful people seem to have much larger families.

Basically, this is reverse darwinism, since in darwinism the most successful genes are the ones that are most passed on to the next generation, whereas this is clearly not the case in modern western culture.

Will this lead to the failure of our society? Is it already leading to the failure of our society?

 

[Lonyo]

Plus the stupid people can be saved when they manage to seriously injure themselves doing something stupid, so the bad genes breed and the good genes die.
Society is going downhill, we need more clever Catholics.

 

[djheater]

Darwin's theories and evolution in general make no moral conclusion.

Societies are irrelevant to the continuation of the species.

Those who can survive to reporduce, will.

 

[RaynorWolfcastle]

Originally posted by: djheater
Darwin's theories and evolution in general make no moral conclusion.
Societies are irrelevant to the continuation of the species.
Those who can survive to reporduce, will.

Where did I say anything about Darwin making moral conclusions? I just said that in traditional darwinism, the best genes are the ones passed to the next generation. In general the "best genes" are the ones that will allow the species as a whole to be more successful; clearly in western society "best" has a different meaning.

 

[AFB]

No, the stupid people will end up dead, just give it some time.

 

[RaynorWolfcastle]

Originally posted by: amdfanboy
No, the stupid people will end up dead, just give it some time.

Please elaborate. Also, it doesn't matter if they end up dead after having 12 children...

 

[djheater]

Originally posted by: RaynorWolfcastle

Originally posted by: djheater
Darwin's theories and evolution in general make no moral conclusion.
Societies are irrelevant to the continuation of the species.
Those who can survive to reporduce, will.

Where did I say anything about Darwin making moral conclusions? I just said that in traditional darwinism, the best genes are the ones passed to the next generation. In general the "best genes" are the ones that will allow the species as a whole to be more successful; clearly in western society "best" has a different meaning.

Clearly best in this case has nothing to do with society.

You conclude that the best genes are those posessed by what you consider successful people. This is a moral conclusion based on your perceptions of success.

Evolution doesn't care how much money you make, just whether or not you reproduce. That being the case the welfare masses will likely succeed us all.

 

[Wallydraigle]

Of course this raises another question. Is any civilization, civilization being an artificial construct put in place by the successful in order to exploit the less successful, doomed from the start? Civilization brings great numbers of less successful people together for their breeding ease and ensures the survival of their offspring. Eventually the "success" genes begin to die out of the population and civilzation will crumble, leveling the field, and natural selection will select for "successfulness" again. A sine wave if you will.

 

[badmouse]

Who are you to decide which are the "best" genes? Just because someone is at the top of the heap of today's society doesn't mean they are the best for the long-time survival of the species.

As a parent, I think that having a family and loving them, raising them, feeding them, clothing them, etc. is a pretty darned good accomplishment. And worth passing on.

The ability to invent nuclear weapons and other things pales by comparison.

 

[Megatomic]

The inbred wealthy at the top of the corporate ladder (think Kennedy and the Windsors) often have the worst genes to pass along. Being born into money says nothing about one's genetic stock.

 

[djheater]

Originally posted by: lirion
Of course this raises another question. Is any civilization, civilization being an artificial construct put in place by the successful in order to exploit the less successful, doomed from the start? Civilization brings great numbers of less successful people together for their breeding ease and ensures the survival of their offspring. Eventually the "success" genes begin to die out of the population and civilzation will crumble, leveling the field, and natural selection will select for "successfulness" again. A sine wave if you will.

I reread the OP and I think I get it now, the OP, you, and I all agree I believe.

Yes, I believe that our society as we know it is doomed. But, it's "as we know it" I don't think we'll have the same death as ancient cultures and be wiped from the very face of the earth, almost, I'm guessing it will be more a cultural evolution and transformation. Eventually we'll HAVE to function as a world culture for the preservation of our environment or the discovery of a new one.

Sorry if that's too Star Trekky,

 

[gururu]

being rich or adept at making money is not a genetic trait and a skill easily lost between generations.
I have to agree that financial welfare is not the greatest gift a parent can offer their children.

 

[RaynorWolfcastle]

Originally posted by: djheater

Originally posted by: RaynorWolfcastle

Originally posted by: djheater
Darwin's theories and evolution in general make no moral conclusion.
Societies are irrelevant to the continuation of the species.
Those who can survive to reporduce, will.

Where did I say anything about Darwin making moral conclusions? I just said that in traditional darwinism, the best genes are the ones passed to the next generation. In general the "best genes" are the ones that will allow the species as a whole to be more successful; clearly in western society "best" has a different meaning.

Clearly best in this case has nothing to do with society.

You conclude that the best genes are those posessed by what you consider successful people. This is a moral conclusion based on your perceptions of success.

Evolution doesn't care how much money you make, just whether or not you reproduce. That being the case the welfare masses will likely succeed us all.

That's the point I'm trying to make...successful from an "individual" evolutionary standpoint (which is all that matters in nature reall) means "has reproduced a lot". From a more global "species" standpoint, succesful means the indviduals reproducing most allow a species to better compete against other species. In western society there is a disjunction between these two definitions of success. Your points are very much valid, you're just viewing them from a different perspective than I.

 

[GRIFFIN1]

Originally posted by: amdfanboy
No, the stupid people will end up dead, just give it some time.

Smart people are smart enough to know that they can't support 10 children. Stupid poeple can't figure this out, so they end up having 10 kids that the smart people end up paying for. Since there is a good chance all 10 of these children will grow up to be stupid like their parent's, they will also have more children than they can support. The population of the stupid people will keep growing as long as there is enough money coming from the smart people to support them.

 

[RaynorWolfcastle]

Where the hell did I say that money = success BTW? How many olympic athletes have 15 kids? Hmm? How about PhD graduates and Nobel prize laureates? How about great entrepreneurs? Money isn't a good gauge of success as far as I'm concerned, so stop telling me that money != success.

 

[fredtam]

First those people don't generally have better genes. Normally those who are successful get to be so through nurturing and not nature. Yes they can pass this same nurturing on to their kids but they are just as likely to have kids that are not as successful. Given that info is only written to the genetic code at 1 bit per year it would be a long time before any significant differences between intelligence (which is what I'm assuming your basis for being successful is) was seen among ones own race although the difference can be seen among different races.

Secondly Darwin's rules are for survival of the species and intelligence is not a requirement for that as can be seen in bacteria, plants, etc. In fact our "intelligence" may be our downfall rather than the reverse.

Lastly those same people who have less children may cause a worse impact on society. Many countries depend on immigration to keep things going as their own people reproduce less. They don't have people to fill job positions or support their current aging members. In doing this they take the chance of fundamentally changing their society because they are importing people with cultures that differ from the original culture that founded the society.

 

[djheater]

Originally posted by: RaynorWolfcastle

Originally posted by: djheater

Originally posted by: RaynorWolfcastle

Originally posted by: djheater
Darwin's theories and evolution in general make no moral conclusion.
Societies are irrelevant to the continuation of the species.
Those who can survive to reporduce, will.

Where did I say anything about Darwin making moral conclusions? I just said that in traditional darwinism, the best genes are the ones passed to the next generation. In general the "best genes" are the ones that will allow the species as a whole to be more successful; clearly in western society "best" has a different meaning.

Clearly best in this case has nothing to do with society.

You conclude that the best genes are those posessed by what you consider successful people. This is a moral conclusion based on your perceptions of success.

Evolution doesn't care how much money you make, just whether or not you reproduce. That being the case the welfare masses will likely succeed us all.

That's the point I'm trying to make...successful from an "individual" evolutionary standpoint (which is all that matters in nature reall) means "has reproduced a lot". From a more global "species" standpoint, succesful means the indviduals reproducing most allow a species to better compete against other species. In western society there is a disjunction between these two definitions of success. Your points are very much valid, you're just viewing them from a different perspective than I.

Yes, I re-read your OP and realized our disconnect. I agree with you, in the main.

 

[AFB]

Originally posted by: RaynorWolfcastle

Originally posted by: amdfanboy
No, the stupid people will end up dead, just give it some time.

Please elaborate. Also, it doesn't matter if they end up dead after having 12 children...

They will die faster than their parents.

 

[Megatomic]

Originally posted by: RaynorWolfcastle
Where the hell did I say that money = success BTW? How many olympic athletes have 15 kids? Hmm? How about PhD graduates and Nobel prize laureates? How about great entrepreneurs? Money isn't a good gauge of success as far as I'm concerned, so stop telling me that money != success.

I guess most of us see wealthy when we read "the most successful people in their respective fields". If that's not what you meant then I apologize. But to answer one of your questions, I work in a DOE nuclear physics lab and there are several PhD physicists here who are quite prolific reproductively. One man who happens to have a PhD has 11 children, 3 by adoption. The others typically have 2 or 3.

I believe they provide evidence that the best and brightest often do indeed have to time to make and raise a family.

 

[RaynorWolfcastle]

Originally posted by: Megatomic

Originally posted by: RaynorWolfcastle
Where the hell did I say that money = success BTW? How many olympic athletes have 15 kids? Hmm? How about PhD graduates and Nobel prize laureates? How about great entrepreneurs? Money isn't a good gauge of success as far as I'm concerned, so stop telling me that money != success.

I guess most of us see wealthy when we read "the most successful people in their respective fields". If that's not what you meant then I apologize. But to answer one of your questions, I work in a DOE nuclear physics lab and there are several PhD physicists here who are quite prolific reproductively. One man who happens to have a PhD has 11 children, 3 by adoption. The others typically have 2 or 3.

I believe they provide evidence that the best and brightest often do indeed have to time to make and raise a family.

2 or 3 isn't prolific by any means, you need an average of ~2.08 children just to compensate for deaths. For the one man with 8 reproduced children, how many large "unsuccesful" families that rely on society to help them are out there? Even the term "families" should be used loosely.

 

[Megatomic]

Originally posted by: RaynorWolfcastle
2 or 3 isn't prolific by any means.

Tell that to the parents in PRC who couldn't have more than 1 child for decades. Or to the Japanese who don't have room for more than 1 or 2 children in their homes.

 

[RaynorWolfcastle]

Originally posted by: Megatomic

Originally posted by: RaynorWolfcastle
2 or 3 isn't prolific by any means.

Tell that to the parents in PRC who couldn't have more than 1 child for decades. Or to the Japanese who don't have room for more than 1 or 2 children in their homes.

What the hell does that have to do with the price of tea in China? () From an evolution/biological point of view 2-3 is not prolific.

 

[Megatomic]

It does when segments of the population are unable to reproduce.

 

[AmbitV]

We are evolving man. Less children is progress. One of the main reasons why 3rd world countries are stuck in poverty is cuz they're birth rate is so high. But they need to have so many children because the mortality rate is so high and also because there is no social security system, so the parents need to have many children to insure they'll be taken care of when they are old.

 

[Turin39789]

Agreed the definition of success is defined simply in reproductive terms. In a way your "successful people" actually have the bad trait of being too work oriented. If less work oriented, less "successful", even less intelligent people will breed more, then they are the MOST darwinian successful people.