Putting aside the one issue regarding where our species came from, to a certain extent Darwinism seems to exist. Animals evolve over time, clearly, and either become able to cope with their environments better or worse. Clearly this is a process that can be shaped, that's what study in genetics is all about.
So why can't we start applying that to our species? I like to think of it as forced Darwinism. Putting aside the moral and ethical questions, over time we would be able to at the very least lessen certain undisirable traits from our species.
And I don't just mean physical problems, what originally started me thinking about this was my car ride to work this morning. There I am, driving down US 19 in Florida and I look at the stupid people driving alongside me (anyone in Tampa Bay knows how many of them travel that road daily) and I think to myself "Some of these idiots should not be allowed to breed." Well lets apply that, lets work harder to cull stupidity from our gene pool.
I know it's been discussed before, and even attempted before, I've heard at least a couple stories of people paying homeless people, drug addicts and the like to have themselves sterilized, lets expand programs like these on a global scale. Some may call it cruel and unusual, and I think that's half right, it's certainly cruel for the people on the receiving end. There really is no nice way to tell someone they shouldn't be allowed to pass their genetics on, that's a given, but I call it tough love.
As for unusual, Darwinism is hardly the exception, it's the norm. Forced Darwinism may be a bit more extreme but ya know what, in pretty much every species I can think of other than humans the stupid would get killed off faster, thus cleaning the gene pool naturally. But in our species we coddle the stupid and incompetent and elect them to public office, and if that isn't a move in the wrong direction then I don't know what is.
So why can't we start applying that to our species? I like to think of it as forced Darwinism. Putting aside the moral and ethical questions, over time we would be able to at the very least lessen certain undisirable traits from our species.
And I don't just mean physical problems, what originally started me thinking about this was my car ride to work this morning. There I am, driving down US 19 in Florida and I look at the stupid people driving alongside me (anyone in Tampa Bay knows how many of them travel that road daily) and I think to myself "Some of these idiots should not be allowed to breed." Well lets apply that, lets work harder to cull stupidity from our gene pool.
I know it's been discussed before, and even attempted before, I've heard at least a couple stories of people paying homeless people, drug addicts and the like to have themselves sterilized, lets expand programs like these on a global scale. Some may call it cruel and unusual, and I think that's half right, it's certainly cruel for the people on the receiving end. There really is no nice way to tell someone they shouldn't be allowed to pass their genetics on, that's a given, but I call it tough love.
As for unusual, Darwinism is hardly the exception, it's the norm. Forced Darwinism may be a bit more extreme but ya know what, in pretty much every species I can think of other than humans the stupid would get killed off faster, thus cleaning the gene pool naturally. But in our species we coddle the stupid and incompetent and elect them to public office, and if that isn't a move in the wrong direction then I don't know what is.