HI long time viewer. Never posted, but the end is coming and I thought why not share with you who have shared so much.
I keep thinking about some ducks i saw on BBC planet. Natural selection dictates that those with good genetic traits must survive to reproduce. Which combined with evolution produce life with a good chance of survival and hapiness.This would mean that there are also those with traits less desirable that should not reproduce as they would not hurt the chances of life.
So the ducks are born on a wet beach. Crawling out of their eggs onto the land preparing to migrate safely away. Only because it is wet sand some of the ducks get stuck, ussually those with weak legs. They die right there in the sand unable to move forward. I was really sad when I saw that. Now I think it’s a mercy Natural selection at its best. Perhaps one day all the ducks will be strong enough too survive if only the weak ones stop.
Now you could help the duck. Lift it out of the sand to join the rest of its brood. Though isn’t that kind of cruel too let the duck limp along knowing it will produce a duck with the same problems on and on. I think not. The early death stuck in sand is a mercy it is nature’s will. Yet this society keeps me Alive for what. Hahaha. Years ago I would have been disposed of at birth. Now society is soft I mean I would have been a slave because of my skin colour. What I mean is I’m only alive because of the current world if natural selection had its way I would be dead.
I read a post sometime ago from a man who dreamt about his ex lover from 15 years ago and is still in the same boat it was uncanny to read how similar we felt despite our age gap. 15 years is a long time I couldn’t do that.
4 comments
I guess you’ve hit the unanswerable question, are we the design of a “merciful god” or are we simply the favourites of a “cruel god”. I use the term “god” in lowercase and quotes because I’m using the term figuratively to mean “nature”. It’s easy for people to throw up their hands and say the lame duck deserves to die. But I don’t think so. If we humans are truly evolved, then our instinct for compassion is the pinnacle of 4 billion years, and maybe we’re the first species to recognize the collective benefit of helping others who are struggling to survive. It’s often cited that many of our greatest thinkers & inventors & philosophers were disabled, handicapped, deaf, blind, minorities, underdogs and “weak”. The neanderthals amongst us would say they need to die off. But history has proven otherwise. Genetic perfection and the selfish conqueror does not translate to value. Infamously, look at the Nazi purification which resulted in an total dearth of artistic and intellectual advancement because they were busy burning books and killing the enlightened ones. Would a genetically perfect, self-absorbed but morally bankrupt Aryan race really be nature’s ideal? They may outlive the weak, but what’s their intellectual, innovative and moral contribution to keeping the collective world together?
Scientists often approach “natural selection” through the myopic lens of genes and chromosomes but they ignore how much the genetic aberrations contribute to the overall success of the population. If I see a duck stuck in the mud, I will do everything in my power to see that it gets to safety. If I see a human bullied, victimized, disabled or oppressed, my instinct will be to protect. You never know when you might be saving the next Stephen Hawking.
Hey thanks allot for the reply you’ve given me some things too think about. I like your example of Stephen hawking. No man could argue we would be better of without his genius. Yet the chance of him surviving without assistance is indeed quite low. I’ll think on this.
Yeah but in reality, there are perhaps already many ‘geniuses’ in this world who are not fortunate/lucky enough to thrive & survive in this cruel world/society/life/existence. How many ‘Stephen Hawkings’ are there, seriously? ie: the ones who can ‘make it’ & reached the stellar pinnacle of success, fame, & leaving a big/huge legacy & impacts in this world? In reality, we only know ONE Stephen Hawking (and/or Albert Einstein, etc etc). For every success story, there are probably hundreds (if not thousands, or even millions) failure/fail stories in this world & life. Welcome to the harsh reality.
What exactly is your point, relative to the discussion of natural selection? My point is that ‘weak’ genetics correlate to a disproportionately large number of geniuses. Ask any musician who the greatest composers were and most of them will tell you it was a deaf guy. Ask any painter, and they’ll tell you about a blind guy and a guy who suffered from suicidal depression and shot himself in a wheat field. Abraham Lincoln, the only American president whom everyone can agree was a great leader, depression and physical deformity. Hawking wasn’t just “another scientist” but he was one of the greatest, and (not-so-) coincidentally he had the worst genes in terms of natural selection. That was my point. It sounds like you’re disagreeing but I don’t see how.