Is This What Natural Selection Means? (moral, Darwin, evolution, moral)

[Sunstone]

Does the following make any sense:

1) We should do what nature entails.

2) Natural selection entails the survival of the fittest.

Therefore, we should leave the least fit among us to survive as best they can while putting our resources into helping only the fittest among us to live.

Is this a fair assessment of what natural selection implies or entails? Why or why not?



Just for reference, here's an overview of what is meant by "natural selection" (with thanks to Michael Shermer):


Natural selection is the process of evolutionary change, co-discovered by Darwin and Alfred Russell Wallace, which operates in the following manner:

1) Populations tend to increase indefinitely in a geometric ratio: 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024…

2) In a natural environment, however, population numbers stabilize at a certain level.

3) Therefore, there must be a “struggle for existence” because not all of the organisms produced can survive.

4) There is variation in every species.

5) In the struggle for existence, those individuals with variations that are better adapted to the environment leave behind more offspring than individuals that are less well adapted. This is known as differential reproductive success.

[PureX]

Originally Posted by Sunstone

Does the following make any sense:

1) We should do what nature entails.

2) Natural selection entails the survival of the fittest.

Therefore, we should leave the least fit among us to survive as best they can while putting our resources into helping only the fittest among us to live.

Is this a fair assessment of what natural selection means? Why or why not?

No. Natural selection refers to idea that the healthier (or fittest) life forms of any species will have a better chance at reproducing. Thus, the genetic attributes that helped that particular life form reproduce successfully, will be passed on to succeeding generations. It's nature's way of taking advantage of it's advantages.

Natural selection is no more a foundation for a philosophical or moral proposition than is gravity.

[Seyorni]

What PureX said.
Natural selection is more like reproduction of the fittest, and "fittest' is a deceptive term. It has nothing to do with physical fitness. It has to do with environmental fit. Accidental features that improve an individual's ability to wrest food, safety and mates from its particular environmental niche or even to expand its niche, tend to raise more offspring to reproductive age, increasing the incidence of a particular selective trait in the general population.

[James the Persian]

Sunstone,

What you've just described is pretty much Social Darwinism, as advocated by the Nazis and even pre-WWII US governments with their Eugenics programs (anyone who isn't aware should look into some of the horrendous Eugenics programs supposedly civilised countries espoused in the inter-war years, prior to Nazism basically ending them). It is certainly a possible political/social intrepretation of Darwinism, and was once very popular, but it isn't actually natural selection.

James

[*Paul*]

[quote]

Originally Posted by Seyorni

What PureX said.
It has nothing to do with physical fitness. It has to do with environmental fit.

This is my understanding of the theory too. Why do some species then become extinct in certain areas? Is it not because they are no longer fitted to live in that enviroment therfore they have to evolve quickly to keep up or die out.
Is this incorrect?

[Sunstone]

Originally Posted by JamesThePersian

It is certainly a possible political/social intrepretation of Darwinism, and was once very popular, but it isn't actually natural selection.

I'm not sure what you mean by "...a possible...interpretation of Darwinism...", James. By "possible" do you mean logically sound or legitimate? Or, do you only mean that such an interpretation can and has been made?

[Sunstone]

Originally Posted by *Paul*

Why do some species then become extinct in certain areas? Is it not because they are no longer fitted to live in that enviroment therfore they have to evolve quickly to keep up or die out. Is this incorrect?

That's roughly correct.