Wednesday 29th of December 2004
Poking Darwin just a bit
Yesterday, while talking to Kathy about some $problem she had, she said something along the lines of “there’s three guys here and none know how to fix $problem“; I then said “and those are going to pass on their genes.. don’t let them touch you!“. Anyway, that got me thinking.
It seems like we’re reaching the point where the enviroment is no longer having as much of say on what get’s selected and what doesn’t regarding our genetic makeup. A thousand years ago my blindness would probably cost me my life; yet today, I can just buy some glasses, contact lenses or get a laser surgery. There, I just cheated evolution.
I’d dare say we been quite successful at blatantly ignoring enviromental pressures on the “selection of the fittest” to the point of even imposing our very own. If my eyesight would have cost me my life, I wouldn’t get to sexor some lovely woman with the intents of procreating; yet I intend to do just that, at some point very, very much far away along the line. And when I do so, I will cheat evolution once again and pass on my crappy eye genes.
I guess other forms of selection are still in place, such as sexual selection (eeeww he’s ugly) or social selection (but he’s so boring!), and while the former does directly have to do with the physique of the person in question, hence their physical fitness, the latter does not. You could argue he’s boring because he’s less intelligent, and thus, less fit in another aspect; but it could just be she’s into Hello Kitty while he likes the Thundercats.
Another point is, if we have the ability to alter our deficiencies trought the wonders of medicine (laser surgery, et cetera) isn’t that, then, an expression of being the fittest? -then again, I need a doctor to perform the surgery on me, and he needs someone to make the laser for him, and yet someone else to make the gloves he uses, and so on; at that point it’s not survival of the fittest individual anymore, we’ve made into survival of the fittest species as a whole.
Also, is it really going to be me or the average person in the society we partake on, going to make an indent on evolution? -I don’t have birth rate figures at hand, but I do know that Italy has a higher mortality than natality rate. Yet way more impoverished countries have soaring natality rates, with families having eight and more children.
Maybe in the not so near future “normal” will stop existing and everyone will have something wrong with them; but we, the mighty ones, have changed the process of “survival of the fittest”, so, I’m sorry Darwin, but who cares? -bring on the viagra!
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