Are we failing to progress as a species?

Question

Humans are the only species to have manipulated the process of natural selection. What will be the impact of this dumbing down of society by eradicating the concept of survival of the fittest?

Answer 1

To be sure we would need to look at our history from a distance of at least 10,000 years. How can we be able to sense the changes that natural selection is making on our own society?

Answer 2

There will always be survival of the fittest as even humans have a pecking order.

Answer 3

Hi

To decide whether survival of the fittest is still relevant, you will have to wait for another million years. Such things are decided in million of years. The human race is not that old is it?

Answer 4

I don't think that natural selection is eradicated in humans.  Studies have shown that people's ideal mates still falls into the best fit category.  These studies have removed names of people found in tabloids, etc and brought it down to just a choice of features and such.  Of course, sometimes one feature includes money.  If someone is better able to survive economically in our society, that makes them better fit within our society.

Answer 5

no.

it's just that our values have changed.

Answer 6

Eventually disease will be unable to be cured anymore and a significant number of the species will suffer.

OR

We will become more and more similar through reproduction and eventually all look the same with similar strengths and weaknesses.  We will evolve into the median human species.

Answer 7

I agree that the influence of natural selection on human evolution is decreasing, but I disagree with your assumption that this is inevitably leading to a "dumbing down" of society. Many individuals with the talents and high intelligence that are most valuable to modern society would NOT have survived in the past. (Can you imagine Einstein chasing after a mastodon?) Our ancestors may have been stronger on average and may have had better eyesight, but taken as a species we are probably smarter now. So on balance I would say our "manipulation of natural selection" has actually added to the human resources available to society.

Answer 8

In the end I suppose progress is a relative thing, progress to one person may mean something something far different to someone else's perception as what entails progression.

It could be perceived that we are progressing as we are (arguably) becoming more Civilised throughout time, and improving ourselves on multiplie levels which may be signified by Civil rights movements and other fights for equality.

Moreover, our technological prowess may be seen as a signifier of progression and so forth.

As is the case with most deep questions regarding sociology, definition seems to be one key issue in determining any relative answer.  Personally I think we may be degressing in that as of late we have (particularily in the Western World) become increasingly selfish  and more willing to undermine others in order to achieve our own ends. . . Of course, that is merely my perspective which is hinged on the precondition that progress involves ethical development.

Hope this helps.

Answer 9

I suspect you have grossly misinterpreted what "survival of the fittest" actually means as it is used in Evolutionary science; in any species, by definition, the extant population will be the one "most fit" to be living in the current environment.  If the environment changes so radically it kills some of us off to the point it threatens the human population, the ones it DOESN'T kill will be the ones with incorporated characteristics that most suit survival in the new environment, so they will breed and perhaps preserve those traits.

Natural selection doesn't have to be "natural"; there is very little "natural" about ants holding aphids hostage and milking them, but that is nature! You don't think the ants have manipulated the process of natural selection?

Answer 10

You and I (and six billion others) were lucky enough to have been born at a time when natural selection means very little for the human race.  This will change.  As the population increases and natural resources dwindle, survival of the fittest will have its time again.

Answer 11

I'm not sure where people get the idea that humans are not subject to natural selection anymore. People still die, and there isn't anything we can do about it. What's not clear about that, exactly? The fact that we are able to cure or treat previously fatal conditions has what I'd call an ambiguous effect on natural selection. It's possible that our medical technology isn't really enough to alter the forces of selection, or it's possible that since more "naturally" unfit individuals are surviving that we are placing our species as a whole in a more dangerous situation in regards to natural selection.

But actually decreasing the effect or stopping it? No way. Not happening now. Maybe not ever. As long as mating is non-random and/or people are still dying, we are still being selected.