messing with nature ( not going to be popular... )

[ColJack]

I was watching telly this morning and something occured to me while I was watching an advert..
It happened to be an advert for some childrens aid thing is africa or somewhere..

It occured to me that we as a society are messing with the natural order of thing by saving these children that would otherwise die of one thing or another.

Natural selection has put us in the position of being healthy and wealthy enough as a society to protect our own and for out genetics to prosper.
( by virtue of being clever enough to move when food runs out or to come up with some way of increasing the amount of food from a given area.. )

If we didn't intervine then their genetics wouldn't prosper and they'd die out, or they'd get smart and move etc..

 

[Nige F]

Natural selection - my arse the British Empire , Thatcherism and greed has put us where we are - and the smoke+ mirrors of modern " banking" ..2 steps behind Greece

 

[thatbloke]

surely the human species is more like unnatural selection? surely we are the most unnatural thing on the planet?

 

[ColJack]

yes but way back when, it came down to natural selection..

our ancestors realised that they needed to follow the food, find a way to get more food from where they are, or move to another place with more abundant resources..

 

[freddiemercurystwin]

How can anything that happens on earth not be driven by nature? Or is there some odd power at work we don't know about?

 

[thatbloke]

alien intervention?

 

[LastMagicBean]

It occured to me that we as a society are messing with the natural order of thing

Intervention can be disastrous......
For example.........
African nomads roam from area to area, eating and utilizing the available resources, then moving on.
Thus allowing that area to regenerate.
No problem..........They've done it for thousands of years........

BUT THEN.......
We, the do-gooder westerner go over and put a water supply in for them.........
Bang....... thats it.........It all goes pears.......f*cked........
Why...???....... because they no longer move on, to stay with the water and starve because the resources are used up.

Simple case of leaving certain things alone.

 

[thatbloke]

perhaps its survival of the stupidest? what i mean is , over population through progress i.e. the water supply enabling the tribe to flourish more so than being left to natural selection , thus causing over population for a particular environment. so , is over population natural? i think nature would beg to differ especially seeing as we fight nature and her selection regime every day with drugs such as antibiotics and as you say , water sources where there would naturally be none etc.

 

[Mickymoody]

I've often thought that medical science has overtaken life selection. You hear of babies, in the modern world, have 10% of success, so hundreds of thousands are provided, even if the baby has no arms or legs, and will need to be supported for the rest of it's life.

But in 3rd world countries, they simply have loads of babies, so that at least a few can survive disease etc..

Surely there is a cut off point which says, this baby will have no life, if it lives, we are ploughing all this money into its survival, and after care, but 3rd world countries, have no after care, and have to provide many children, for at least one of them to survive? It goes back to the Victorian era...You CAN save a life, but does that life have a life? Or breed more, hoping that a 'few' make it, as there is no aftercare?

 

[Nige F]

It goes back to the Victorian era...

Victorian Values - that`s what we need - and drag out Thatcher before it`s too late

 

[mickyg]

I've often thought that medical science has overtaken life selection.

Your in the right area there. I personally think humans have over-evolved. We have become to smart as creature. We've abandoned human instinct for logical thought. We now understand nature and science and therfore we can con it and play with it.
The biggest problem is that we are screwing evolution. Only the strongest, fittest etcc should reproduce effectively according to evolution, but thanks to modern science we can take care of and ensure the longevity of the offspring off the weak and poor. These happen to be the groups that thanks to modern culture are breeding more, so we're now starting to go backwards with bad genes out breeding good genes.

 

[PrenticeBoyofDerry]

African nomads roam from area to area, eating and utilizing the available resources, then moving on.

Pikies then?

 

[ColJack]

We, the do-gooder westerner go over and put a water supply in for them.........
Bang....... thats it.........It all goes pears.......f*cked........
Why...???....... because they no longer move on, to stay with the water and starve because the resources are used up.

Simple case of leaving certain things alone.

thank you, exactly my point I was trying to make..

these kids we're saving will have more kids of their own that they can't feed and so it spirals out of control..

instead of letting the population self regulate itself to a managable size that it can sustain, we're stepping in and making it worse for them..


and no this is not all because I'm too tight to send £2/month to help an african child....

 

[joe-90]

When the oil runs out we'll be in a worse boat than they are.

 

[Nige F]

Well said again Joe they`ll have their canoes and we`ll have tankers with no fuel - Britain a Nation with a bunch of tankers