A Measure Of Thinking - Can You Answer Without Emotional Bias?

First, it is not nature's premise that the "strong survive", it is nature's premise that the adaptable survive. Big difference.

Responding to (and correcting) conditions that would otherwise deplete the total population is adaptability. And it seems the human race is becoming more adaptable with every year. In other words, our creative abilities to survive longer is "allowing nature to take it's course", not the opposite as your premise would imply.

I think the argument would make more sense if the word "allowing" were replaced with the word "assisting." To simply allow something to live would imply it had the ability to live. How do you determine that something, whether human or not, to be weak if it can survive on its own. The only way to not allow it to live is to prevent it from living.

There was a very famous man who had similar thoughts. He has been alluded to in previous comments. He decided to no longer allow what he viewed as an inferior people to live. He ended the lives of approximately eleven million inferiors. Could it be true that out of those eleven million, not a one would have benefited mankind? I know of at least one person who escaped certain death. A person, who under this thought of a superior race, would have been killed. The man that escaped later gave us the theory of relativity.

You may agree with Hitler's actions, or you may disagree. He may have been very noble in trying to preserve the human race by eliminating the weak. Of course, this is by his standards of what is inferior. What standard should we use when we no longer allow the weak to survive? Who should say what it weak and what is not? Should this decision be concluded by a mass vote that included the weaker voters? If not, then how do we determine who is weak so that they should not be allowed to take part in the vote of who is weak?

Should the members of Mensa eliminate the rest of the world? By our standards of intelligence they are in the top two percentile. Where is the line, and who determines it? What of their diseases? Should those of the remaining population then eliminate those with hereditary diseases? The old, the young, the weak, the poor - who should be killed in order to preserve life? Once we are left with only those of great strength, not only mind but physically as well, what goal in human evolution do we achieve? We are now left with only the strongest and the brightest, to what end will we put their abilities toward?

There is emotional bias in everything, but I'll give it a shot. Your question included mention of "nature's law of the strong surviving". If this was actually nature's law, only the "strong" would have survived up to this point. How exactly could nature's laws be broken? Obviously, the weak do survive, and they reproduce.

Strong and weak are relative, and also contextual. What gives you power in one situation will strip you of power in another, eg. having an AK 47 gun in somalia will give you power, having an AK 47 in the states will get you in jail.

edit: You say "if we allow nature to take it's course". We cannot "allow" nature to take it's course. It has always taken it's course and it always will.

Also, you say "The Human Race has managed to harness...". This is the fallacy of anthropomorphism. The human race is not a conscious, unified entity that consciously does anything.

Yes, it's very true. If someone with cancer has kids, the cancer gets spread through the gene pool very fast, and generations after will be more likely to get it.

If I find out I have some gene defect that will make my kids likely to develop something bad, I think I would simply rather not have them, than to put them through that, when they didn't ask to be born.

If we operated by the strong surviving, we probably wouldn't have the horrible overpopulation problems we have, we would constantly improve as a species, and would essentially become super human many generations down the line.

The planet would be more able to survive, as if the smartest and strongest, without disease defects, came together... we would surpass anything that is around today by a longshot.

Those people would probably be more likely to stop ******* up than we are today. People today are entirely weak willed it seems.

There is a huge factor that so far has been overlooked and so, I for one am jolly relieved that we know more about what is needed to SUPPORT LIFE BECAUSE WHO I WONDER IS WISE ENOUGH TO DECIDE WHO WOULD BE DENIED THAT SUPPORT?

Human life does not just come under the laws of nature, we are spiritual beings who inhabit a physical body whilst here on Earth and so there is a lot more to be considered than survival of the fittest. We are here to gain soul attributes and there are diverse ways in which we can develop our spiritual selves as well as our human personalities.

Consider the person who fights severe debilitating disease, in order to continue some study or work, that others will benefit from; Stephen Hawking for example, what a wonderful contribution to mankind he is making and what strength of character and determination. How proud his family must be of him!!

My own Mother survived two lots of cancer, both times she "should" have died, but thanks to a brilliant surgeon, good nursing care, her determination and of course the Will of God she made miraculous recoveries both times.

Since then she has become a very accomplished artist demonstrating her love and appreciation of natural beauty. She has looked after her husband suffering with vascular induced dimentia until she couldnt physically manage, she has supported the rest of the family when they have needed her and her many friends know her as a lady of gentle spirit and great wisdom, which was forged through adversity.

My mother is now well into her 80s and still exhibiting her art and still supports others and is a joy to be with. I am very proud to pass on those genes believe me.

It doesnt matter what is in the genes and DNA, an individual may inherit the tendency toward a particular disease or condition, but that doesnt mean that they have to develop it. We inherit from my Mum great strength of spirit, love of life, care for and understanding of others, and faith in a loving higher intelligence.

Talk of polluting the gene pool has to come from someone very young without experience of life, or a completely mad nazi!!

Now that I have presented evidence to you, albeit anecdotal, (but hey, look around with wider eyes ) I leave you with the question, who are the weak relying on the strong?

WOULD YOU JUDGE IN IGNORANCE?

Well, yes. In some cultures years and years ago they would kill the weak or disabled babies - that was actually one of the things that started the anti-sematic ideas in about 1200 bc, the Jews never killed their children, so they multiplied faster than the neighbouring religions. But then again, perhaps the attachment of a mother to her child no matter what, could be what makes us more advanced.

Then again, we have adapted to make it so you don't need to be too smart to survive - we can buy food without much effort at all, and if you can't afford it then stealing isn't difficult. We even have 'beware, may contain nuts' on hazelnut cookies just in case! And 'always keep your arms in the ride' on rollercoasters. We seem to protect the dopey ones here!

While you're correct that we humans are polluting our own gene pool, you are wrong about our ability to "let nature take its course." Our strength as a species with high intelligence is that we are able to manipulate "nature" for our own benefit...and cannot help but to do so.

But, an even greater threat to the future of the human species is the invention of superpowerful weapons by our brainy scientists and engineers. The true evolutionary test in play here is not whether we can, via eugenics, create an ever stronger, ever more intelligent, ever healthier species. It is whether that very high intelligence we possess so plentifully is not what is going to wipe us out!

Here is the problem posed as parsimoniously as I can: "Is high intelligence in a top predator a limiting factor in that species' survival?"

We know that top predators which are relatively stupid compared to us, such as sharks and crocs, have very long species life expectancies...in the range of 150 million years or even more. They are never suspect of creating the conditions for their own extinction. But we humans are now capable of destroying our ecosystem with a major nuclear exchange...or, more slowly, with steady environmental degradation and the steady exhaustion of forests, soils, and food species.

So, would it be wise to use eugenics to create brighter and brighter humans? Do we really need more scientists? Would it be to our advantage to have a device that mixes matter with anti-matter and creates even greater explosions than the hydrogen bomb? It may be more prudent simply to allow our species to decline in terms of general intelligence until the capacity for science is totally lost.

After science had passed away, religion would again rule the world and create stagnation...which may be just what the doctor ordered for a long species life expectancy.

Nah, we've evolved to have a certain empathy with our, and indeed other species. 'Allowing certain individuals to live, who according to natures law of the strong surviving should not'. This leads us either down the route of us all sleeping out in the cold and seeing who is still alive in the morning, or developing a master race, and I think someone has already tried that!

Yes it would, Humans were never meant to be like this in some peoples thaughts. However i have always seen the Earth as a motherland for Humans. In the future we will see Earth as a breeding ground of out spiecies and when a human gets to a certain age they move from earth to a new planet

Well yes, hospitals and medicine help the sick and old to survive and reproduce, but there are also a lot of smart but weak people who make the world adaptable and contribute to things like technology and literature. If all the sick and useless died off we might be stronger, but who knows if we could progress as much.