'Space Seed' and Darwin's book.

[Cheapjack]

Doesn't Space Seed prove that Darwins ideas aren't always totally true, that there are exceptions, or misconceptions? I have read of a few misconceptions about Darwin.

Isn't one of them, that the strong always survive?

Khan didn't. He got exiled. And eugenics is denigrated in the episode.

Pehaps, with humans, the weak survive? Or, at least, the average, and in some cases, the below average and very weak?

 

[JarodRussell]

You mean like that a fictional story is able to prove or disprove a real-life theory?

 

[Cheapjack]

Space Seed is about eugenics, saying it is a bad thing. And Eugenics was toyed with by us, in this world, and rejected.

It might have been cos mainly one group, the Aryans, came up with the idea, though I do know that even in America, some people were sterilised.

Also, one of the misconceptions I have just googled, is that Darwin said the most adaptable survive. He didn't, and that is born out in the episode too, as Khan is very adaptable to the 23rd C!!

 

[Robert Maxwell]

Natural selection works in species that aren't sentient and haven't developed technology.

We have, and so the usual conventions of natural selection don't apply, because we're aware of them and we respond differently. We don't euthanize the disabled or infirm, for instance.

 

[iguana_tonante]

Also, Darwin talks about species, not individuals.

 

[PurpleBuddha]

Isn't one of them, that the strong always survive?
?

That isn't what the theory says. Over time the most fit individuals will pass on their genes at a greater frequency than those that are less fit. The strongest animal in the jungle may be killed before it passes any genes along, but that does not change the fact that on average more fit individuals will pass along more of their genes than less fit individuals which is part of how the species evolves.

 

[scotpens]

Darwin came up with a descriptive principle that explains how species evolve in nature. He never intended to prescribe the way in which human societies ought to function. Indeed, active eugenics and Social Darwinism are perversions of Darwinian theory.

And the “fittest” is by no means necessarily the strongest. The slow and feeble North American opossum has been around for 70 million years. So the little furry buggers must be doing something right!

 

[T'Girl]

We don't euthanize the disabled or infirm, for instance.

But we used to. The eugenics programs in Germany used to do exactly that, debatable that's part of what made the holocaust "acceptable" to many Germans in power in the 30's and 40's. Of course being more evolved in America and Britain, we only dragged the undesirables into hospitals to be sterilized. The American Eugenics Society in still in existence, it just changed it name after the war.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

We don't euthanize the disabled or infirm, for instance.

But we used to. The eugenics programs in Germany used to do exactly that, debatable that's part of what made the holocaust "acceptable" to many Germans in power in the 30's and 40's. Of course being more evolved in America and Britain, we only dragged the undesirables into hospitals to be sterilized. The American Eugenics Society in still in existence, it just changed it name after the war.

Indeed, we used to do things like that. But one of the unique aspects of being human is that we can examine our behavior, make value judgments about it, and change it not just at the individual level, but through a whole society (more or less.)

 

[Myasishchev]

Everyone practices eugenics, in the sense that everyone practices a form of sexual selection every day of their adult lives. "I would/wouldn't hit it" is a eugenic judgment.

The objectionable part of standard eugenics* has never been the ends (healthy, superior offspring) but the means (state invasion of the rights of individuals).

*Nazi and related strains of eugenics are objectionable, of course, because they're simply false.

 

[Cheapjack]

Perhaps the reason formal eugenics didn't take off, is cos all humans are valuable, cos they're all alive and successful, and have made it through the last 100 000 years? And could all, theoretically, survive on their own?

Some may want supremacy, but to wipe out one race is not useful.

I think Robert's thoughts about technology are good.

 

[scotpens]

There's passive eugenics (encouraging individuals with desirable traits to breed) and there's active eugenics (ranging from mandatory sterilization to euthanasia of the "unfit" to genocide). The latter is morally unacceptable to civilized society; the former is not really as scientific as it's made out to be. Sure, if both parents are geniuses, there's a greater chance their offspring will have high intelligence. But there's no guarantee. It's all very catch-as-catch-can.

In any case, the present and future possibilities of true genetic engineering -- manipulating the genetic code itself -- make traditional eugenics look positively quaint.