Neo-Darwinism and Myth

I wanted to comment on a claim I saw on the "other side" about how if we don't choose to practice eugenics, nature will, through selection, practice eugenics for us. The advocate of things like selective abortion and forced sterilization claims that the only other option is natural selection, whereby "what ever form of genetic expression leads to the most offspring, regardless of moral implication, is the best that can be hoped for" [sic]. If we simply refuse to abort out people who are inferior, say, we'll be relying on brute nature, and there's nothing good that can come of that: "if a man has genes that make him rape large numbers of women - and sire large numbers of offspring - this will be allowed to continue." Because that's how it's always happened, before there were genetic screening tests for pregnancies. We just allowed rapists to proceed, recognizing that whatever form of reproduction produces the most offspring is best. "There is no escape" from the choice, we're told.

Well, that's quite a myth.

I'll ignore the stupider bits, though, about how we'll have to allow serial rapists to proceed unimpeded, and focus rather on the Darwinian myth at the heart of this kind of illogic. (Though I will point out that there is a massive contradiction at the heart of any Darwinian claiming that we have to do X or Darwinism will take over, since according to Darwin, natural selection is hardly a process that we can will to opt out of.)

The larger Darwinian myth is borrowed from Malthus and says: "Every member of every species will try to maximize his or her number of offspring to the greatest number possible." Darwin needed this myth to explain "natural selection." Why else would there be "a constant struggle" so that certain beneficial characteristics would "triumph in the contest of life" over over characteristics, unless there was such a staggering tendency to overpopulate that any small advantage would increase one's chances of survival over others, who would die off? Overpopulation is the required condition for natural selection, according to Darwin. Without Malthus, Darwin would have had no explanation for natural selection.

Malthus, of course, is spectacularly wrong. As the philosopher David Stove pointed out, Malthus claims that every member of every species is dedicated to maximizing his or her number of offspring, but not only can we all think of great numbers of people who do not do that (including ourselves), we can think of not one person who has done that. Can you think of a man who has sired as many children as is biologically possible? According to Malthus/Darwin, that is every man's objective. Yet common sense and the universal experience of mankind proves that not only is that not universal, there don't even seem to be specific individual instances of it.

This Darwinian fantasy leads someone like Richard Dawkins to claim, seriously, that it ought to be unobjectionable to women (as it is to their advantage) when other women kidnap their babies to raise them, since that frees the woman up for more procreation (and thus rewards her selfish genes with more replication). Does Dawkins know any women? Any humans? But of course, if you blindly buy into the Malthus/Darwin myth, it just makes sense.

One might observe that a scientist is someone who tests his theories against reality to see if they can be falsified. But as patently and manifestly falsified as the Malthus/Darwin myth of the constant struggle of life may be, there are still folks who think themselves scientists while espousing such manifest horseshit.

I know no one here will be so stupid as to think I am denying evolution by denying this one wrongheaded tenet of Darwinism.

If you want to read an absolutely terrific book that shows what rubbish most of Darwinism and neo-Darwinism is (written, by the way, by a non-theist and a believer in evolution), check out Darwinian Fairytales: Selfish Genes, Errors of Heredity, and Other Fables of Evolution
by David Stove. It's brilliant and beautifully written, and it shows Dawkins as a wholly different kind of nitwit than we already knew him to be.

I particularly liked the idea that natural selection is a form of "eugenics." It means that my backyard is a tiolet, I suppose, and my dogs' leashes are vehicles. I always love it when people try to talk about evolution by collapsing the distinction between nature and culture.

Once again, the Progressive-Natrualists have have problem butchering our language. Eugenics has a very specific meaning, artifical selection and, therefore, not natural.

Maybe a term that should be introduced is "cultural selction", whereby procreation is influenced by cultural or moral standards. A good example would be the standard set by English culture whereby one did not marry and procreate until one was financially established. Enviromental factors would play a large part in population control, but, who did the most procreating would be mostly influenced by intelligence and ambition.

Joe, you made a great observation, if men are driven to have as many kids as possible then, Donald Trump would use his vast wealth to hire women to breed. Why doesn't he? Are we...gasp...more than monkies?

Ah, Darwin. A nitwit? You don't have to agree with everything he said but, a nitwit? Natural selection was a novel idea, an idea that has some merit. Don't flush the whole thing.

Who can't hold a candle to Darwin, much as he tries.

I really liked this interview. It's with the father of a severely disabled child. He notes that the birth of tthis child helped to lead him and his wife to the Catholic church; he has really interesting things to say about disability and abortion. I particularly liked his last answer, where he expresses skepticism about those who claim only to be happy about the gerat gift of disability--his honesty lends credence to everything else he says.

For not reading more carefully. I feel like a dope.

No, I feel like Emily Latella...Dawkins?...never mind.

is Dawkins claiming that IF a woman were truly rational, she'd try to trick other women into raising her children so that she (and her selfish genes) could return to the project of replicating her DNA (or half of it anyway) and not be bothered with child-rearing. Her genes are screaming for her to ditch the brat on some other gal, but stupid culture and religion have hoodwinked her into having "maternal" feelings. Ack!

I read stuff like that, and I am just gob-smacked.

..., I would hesistate to call it resaoning, in order for a woman to accomplish something that is unreasoned she must reason.

I am starting my retreat early. Bert responded to my post regarding eugenics that just made me think, "not only is he in a different canoe, he is on a different river."

He thinks what he himself defines as random selection is the same thing as eugenics. It's the kind of stupid argument he and his friends are always making--"God causes the most abortions of all!"

Um, yeah.

I know there are probably smart atheists out there. But in my experience they are never all that smart about religion; bert's really the bottom of the barrel.

Did Darwin actually say that over population was necessary for natural selection? Well, whether he said it or not, it isn't true, even among animal populations. Many things in nature are counter intuitive this is one of them.

In the case of white-tail deer, a high population actually increases the chance for a lesser buck to breed a doe. With a smaller population, a dominate buck can better track and gaurd does that are in heat. If there are too many does, a lesser buck can "dart in" and score.

What I find in intriguing about the "Progressive" view of eugenincs is the introduction of the word "compassion". I am not sure of what that means to them. It would seem in the ideal World the Progressives would have a screening process to allow certain people to procreate or survive past the womb.

but yeah, he was indebted to Malthus for the mechanism that would cause certain members of species to die off without reproducing, and Malthusian demographics fit the bill. The sense was something like -- "this ecosystem can only sustain 1000 cougars, but cougars will reproduce at a geometric rate and overpopulate the system inevitably, but that just means that any cougar with a distinct advantage will be able to survive and reproduce, and over loooooooong periods of time, natural selection will weed out the weaker characteristics." Your point about deer is a terrific rebuttal to such a simplistic view.

I also liked GK Chesterton's question about bat wings, which was: "in what way would a tiny, incremental change that produced wing nubs and that took countless generations to produce actual, useful wings fit this theory? That is, having arms encumbered by flesh that does not yet function as wings is not an advantage at all--it doesn't become an advantage for a thousand years."

Another great line in Stove's book has to do with the Darwinian claim that the most successful in the species will reproduce at higher rates, which he asked us to consider in light of human experience, where for all of human history the observation has been that the poor have more kids than the rich.

Malthus (and Darwin) say that while populations will reproduce geometrically, the food supply can only grow arithmetically. That is, population will grow 2-4-16-256, but the food supply will grow 2-4-6-8. So populations will always (and swiftly) outstrip the food supply.

Stove deals this claim a spectacularly concise death blow--it actually stunned me when I read his comment. If I had the book before me, I'd quote it directly. But anyway, what he says is this:

It's false to distinguish populations and food supplies, since the food supply consists of populations. Nothing we eat, nothing at all, is not also a member of a plant or animal population, and there is no population that is not part of the food supply, be it for large predators or for bacteria or for worms. So, saying that populations grow at a different rate than the food supply is total nonsense, since populations ARE the food supply.

Wow.

I can't wait to read this book.

..the less sense Malthus's therory makes.

In the United States we have had smaller and smaller families as time has gone on. Now with the population even higher, we are having yet smaller families. But, I would point to this as being what the times demand of us.

In the mid-1800's, 80% of the US population lived on farms. The way you produced more food was by having more labor, you produced more labor by having my childeren. Also, the mortality rate was very high. There were periodic outbreaks of cholera that wipeout entire familes.

The ultimate survival of a speicies is dependent on rapid and timely mutations. The mutations must provide some sort of advantage to adapt to enviromental change. Of course, how often can you mutate and be considered the same species?

Believe it or not, Agent had a valid point, how do you judge what mutations (or currently undesirable traits) will be important for the continued existence of the human race.

Sickle cell anemia helps Africans survive against malaria, though in the absence of malaria it is seen an undesireable trait.