Darwinism

[Max Headroom]

Charles Darwin, the evolution theorist. First I'm going to throw a question right away and ask, do you believe in evolution, or something else? Answer when you're finished reading the rest.

I'm sure we all know of the Darwin theory, or Darwinism, which is pretty much natural selection. But some extreme believers of Darwinism think that stupid people, or people with a low IQ, shouldn't be allowed to breed. These are people who luck by natural selection(somehow) & lurk our streets, living off our tax money, or their low-end job. Hell maybe some of them even lucked a good job, but when it all comes down to it, they have absolutely no common sense. Why should their gene pool continue on, if they are nothing but detrimental to our society & world?

I'm a man of few words. Science, wrestling, and video games are all I really could care about. So there was my overlook and here are my questions to you, fellow Wrestlezonians.

As asked before, do you believe in evolution, or any other means or creation?
I Believe in evolution 100%. If you do research at all, and have intelligence, you can see that there is no denying evolution. There are a few missing links, but they are getting fewer & fewer as time progresses. Personally, I think religion & any belief of it is just silly, almost child-like. Not to mention all the pointless wars caused by religion.

Now, do you believe in extreme Darwinism? There is no denying that natural selection takes place, but I think the forces of nature are being too nice, and aren't naturally selecting enough. But, do you think that there should be a set IQ to allow you to give birth? Should there be a test given to someone, stating that if they do not pass, they may not give birth? I mean there is good and bad to it.

On the bad side, it makes us look almost nazi-like. Telling people they can't have offspring because they don't meet the standards, saying that if they're too dumb they should just die off & stop wasting air.

But, on the good side, we would have much less idiots in the world. That's almost what we need these days, as the idiot level is rising. I don't mean silly, stupid things, either. I'm talking bottom of the barrel, shit-for-brains people who lack no common sense. These people plague our world, and make life so much harder. But the fact is they get nothing for it, they act as if they are of equal social stature as us. Especially if they're too dumb to get a good job, they can't afford a child, but they have lots & get our money from it in the forms of welfare & whatnot.

While a stupid-test sounds stupid, it would actually be a good thing on hand, it would just have to take a lot of things into consideration. I don't get too extreme with my Darwinism, but I do believe either natural selection should start bumping up its game, or the dummies should cut back a bit on their breeding.

What say you, people?

 

[AndThat'sTheBottomLine]

I'm on the fence about it. On one hand I'm Christian so the prospect of being related to monkeys is kind of silly. Then again, on the other hand, signs of evolution are there. But again, I've always been an advocate of the creation theory. And before you ask me "What about the dinosaurs?" Read the bible in the old testament it talks of large beasts. And also somebody found an artifact of a roman sword with a brontosaur on it. (Can't remember how to spell it)
I don't know I've always thought that you believe whatever you want. It's what free will is all about. Extreme Darwinists always seem like Nazis to me. I like the idea of there being less stupid people in the world but lets not commit genocide here. I believe what I believe because a) I was raised that way and b) I've seen evidence to convince me God exists. My sister had Leukemia and was in ICU and her kidney was failing. The doctors had her on the transplant list but they didn't think it'd be approved in time. They said to say our goodbyes. She was 2 years old at the time. But guess what, her kidneys made a turn around and by the next week she was back in her old room. She's 10 years old now. Alive, happy, and healthy so you can't convince there's not a God.

 

[Loveless]

I can't really get too deep into this because evolution is such a all-encompassing and massive subject that I could be here for hours.
Ethically the "enforced" genetic selection you mentioned is contemptible & already happened during the slave trade. It also shows a profound arrogance to try and control nature under the assumption that we know best how to advance the human race or control how those advancements happen.

To give an example, during the slave trade there was an attitude that if you didn't take care of the slaves during the trip, only the strong would survive the journey. That idea then spread to eugenics and a "breeding" program in the carribean. Ethically repugnant but otherwise it sounds like a solid idea right? Well no, because what no-one realised was natural selection doesn't always work towards the benefit you think. A large portion of the slaves that survived the trip from Africa to the Carribean did so because of water-retention, a side-effect of heart-disease & high stress. The scientific community doesn't like talking about it but it's widely regarded as a major contributing factor to the shorter lifespan of African Americans the world over.

Now back on point, the fact the dumbasses survive is a sign of their genetic success. Genetic success isn't defined by how smart you are or how fit you are, that's a human perception and misunderstanding. The simple definition of genetic success is that you live long enough to pass on your DNA. The bottom 10% may seem pointless but they're not so far behind that they can't compete, survive or don't have a purpose, the fact they exist suggests their genes still contribute something. It's not like the bottom 10% is evolutionary stationary anyway, they advance with the rest of us, it's just maybe that bottom 1 or 2% drop out of the gene pool with every generation.

 

[Albert T]

My feelings on darwinism are this:

I believe in it and agree that its not healthy to deny it, but extreme darwinism is not a something I support. No to people being denied the ability to procreate based on IQ because people can produce children much smarter than they. Also, I don't think it's childish to believe in a god as often times people do so because they want to believe that there is a higher power that cares about them and would never let the worst happen. That's not a bad sentiment to have as long as its for the right reasons.

 

[It's Damn Real!]

Evolution is not a theory. It's a fact — or as close as you can get to fact in the ever-changing world of science. The "theory" is in the mechanics within it, but not over it's existence, as that is undeniable true. "Believing" in evolution—as in choosing to or not—is like choosing to believe in air or not. You can say you don't believe in it, but fact trumps ignorance, and air can demonstrably be shown to exist, so you denying it is your right, but you are wrong regardless of how you cut the cake.

The fundamental reason why there even exists a "debate" on the validity of evolution is the public's misinformation and ignorance over the difference between evolution (the scientific principle) and Darwin's "survival of the fittest" theory. It's not evolution that is up for debate, it's the small mechanics within it that explain specific functions and processes therein — ergo it's Darwin's theory that's up for debate itself.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/evolution-fact.html

Well evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape-like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered.

Moreover, "fact" doesn't mean "absolute certainty"; there ain't no such animal in an exciting and complex world. The final proofs of logic and mathematics flow deductively from stated premises and achieve certainty only because they are not about the empirical world. Evolutionists make no claim for perpetual truth, though creationists often do (and then attack us falsely for a style of argument that they themselves favor). In science "fact" can only mean "confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional consent." I suppose that apples might start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in physics classrooms.

Evolutionists have been very clear about this distinction of fact and theory from the very beginning, if only because we have always acknowledged how far we are from completely understanding the mechanisms (theory) by which evolution (fact) occurred. Darwin continually emphasized the difference between his two great and separate accomplishments: establishing the fact of evolution, and proposing a theory--natural selection--to explain the mechanism of evolution.

- Stephen J. Gould, " Evolution as Fact and Theory"; Discover, May 1981

Or if that doesn't explain it well enough, try this:

It is time for students of the evolutionary process, especially those who have been misquoted and used by the creationists, to state clearly that evolution is a fact, not theory, and that what is at issue within biology are questions of details of the process and the relative importance of different mechanisms of evolution. It is a fact that the earth with liquid water, is more than 3.6 billion years old. It is a fact that cellular life has been around for at least half of that period and that organized multicellular life is at least 800 million years old. It is a fact that major life forms now on earth were not at all represented in the past. There were no birds or mammals 250 million years ago. It is a fact that major life forms of the past are no longer living. There used to be dinosaurs and Pithecanthropus, and there are none now. It is a fact that all living forms come from previous living forms. Therefore, all present forms of life arose from ancestral forms that were different. Birds arose from nonbirds and humans from nonhumans. No person who pretends to any understanding of the natural world can deny these facts any more than she or he can deny that the earth is round, rotates on its axis, and revolves around the sun.

The controversies about evolution lie in the realm of the relative importance of various forces in molding evolution.

- R. C. Lewontin "Evolution/Creation Debate: A Time for Truth" Bioscience 31, 559 (1981) reprinted in Evolution versus Creationism, op cit.

In the simplest possible terms I can speak in:

Evolution is fact. "Survival of the fittest" is a theory.