Is medicine the enemy of natural selection?

Question

Does modern medicine inhibit the progressive, advancing nature of human beings' evolution? Surely by preventing or treating illnesses, which would otherwise be fatal to a human being, we are allowing these inferior genes to be passed onto the next generation. When did survival stop being about physical resilience and strength, and start being about preventing these problems?

Answer 1

Only if medicine is keeping people alive to have kids who wouldnt otherwise.  

Most deaths that could impact the gene pool are child deaths.  Child deaths are usually not the result of bad genes or weakness, its accidents or infection.

Basically that means no.   Medicine only delays death for people who have already passed on their genes.  

Answer 2

You could deffinetly argue it either way.  But the question is why?  I mean if you had an illness im sure you would want to try to fix it and survive wouldn't you?

Answer 3

It depends what you're talking about.

If you're talking about treating people with genetic diseases who can then go on to have kids who inherit those diseases, then yes medicine is counterproductive to natural selection.

If you're talking about vaccination, then it doesn't really have an effect because genes have only a limited degree of influence compared to chance. If anything it increases the breeding pool (and the variation available) to speed up selection for other traits.