Darwin’s Origin of Species was a controversial piece when it was published, and it continues to fuel debates today. Origin of Species presents ideas about natural selection and sexual selection in nature based off his observations largely made during his voyage on the HMS Beagle. Darwin suggests that because the Earth is overpopulated, different variations will make some individuals better adapted to survive and therefore reproduce more, which results in the emphasis of certain characteristics. He also suggests that these small variations accumulate over time to create better-adapted species.
More recently, through the advances of science, we are playing with natural selection and trying to make ourselves invincible from it. Today’s focus is more on improving the survival of individuals rather than concerning ourselves with the survival of the species. Medical breakthroughs in prolonging the lives of those with genetic diseases are allowing such characteristics to be further entered into our species. The idea of natural selection is to strengthen the species by weeding out the weaker. In other words, those susceptible to a fatal disease will die, leaving only those with resistance to breed and therefore the resistance would become a part of the fabric of our genome. I don’t disagree with the idea of correcting the genetic mutation in utero or only selecting those zygotes that do not have mutations because that is merely forwarding natural selection. However vaccines such as the polio vaccine allows the further breeding of individuals that are not naturally resistant. Then, in order to correct the weakness we have created, every child needs to be vaccinated. We have spun ourselves into a cycle. In class someone made an example of bad eyesight. Because we have made it so that those with lesser eyesight can still function, those people can then have more babies, which also have poor eyesight. Because of our advances, we have weakened the general eyesight of the species. I’m not suggesting that we just take away corrective lenses in order to try to correct the weakness. I’m just pointing out that we have caused the further need for corrective lenses due to our solution in the first place.
However, Chad made the point that our species has moved beyond the day-to-day survival that many other species still deal with. So perhaps we can allow for the weakening of the general sturdiness of our species as long as we can continue to dominate the world and provide our remedies like vaccinations and corrective lenses.
I’m not trying to say that medical or science advances are bad. If someone gets an illness, we should not necessarily leave it to their immune system to fight it because “if they’re not strong enough then they deserve to die.” That is not what I am trying to suggest at all. If you get a kidney infection, it could kill you if you did not get medical attention. But also, if you survive from a kidney infection, that does not mean your children are more likely to also get kidney infections. That’s where its there is a difference between treating disease and treating inheritable diseases. When it comes to inheritable diseases, should we prolong the life of someone so that they can develop and reproduce when they would otherwise not have been able to? Sure that may be beneficial for that individual, but not so much for our species.
Also, I am not suggesting that we should do some of our own “natural selection” to correct the weaknesses we have created in our species, such as through eugenetics. The things we have already woven into our genome cannot be corrected. I am merely suggesting that we should let natural selection take its course a little bit more in the future.
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I see what you’re saying about letting natural selection run its course. It would be good if we could, through natural selection, eliminate certain kinds of diseases altogether. Still, I don’t know how that would work out in practice. You said that you don’t like the idea of eugenics, and neither do I. You asked “should we prolong the lives of those with inheritable diseases so that they can reproduce when they otherwise would not have been able to?” This seems to suggest that, if people have an inheritable disease, we should simply let them die. While that might be a way of getting rid of certain diseases (if we did it with everyone), it seems so wrong to me. Say that you have a genetic disease whose symptoms are not present at birth. Could you imagine being told, that even though it is possible for your disease to be treated, (but not cured) you cannot get treatment because it would prolong your life and you might reproduce? I can’t! As individuals, those people have as much of a right to live as anyone else.
I think the most that could be done in that case is to highly discourage people with certain diseases from having children. Still, I think people with genetic defects have the right to have children. I’m not sure how I feel about having children when you know that you will most likely pass on a life-altering disease...but people should still have that option. Otherwise, it could lead to the type of forced sterilization that was associated with eugenics.
I don’t see how we could just let natural selection run its course, without creating laws that enforce it. People would have to choose to not get treatment or not have children, and I don’t think that enough people would do that for it to make a difference. I think the most that we could do is try to prevent these genetic diseases, before birth. Although, I admit, I don’t know very much about genetics, so I can’t really give an example. But I don’t think it’s impossible, and will scientific breakthroughs in the future, it will probably be even more feasible.
I agree with Kristi here. I think natural selection running its course would be a good thing as well but when we get into discussing letting people die or not helping them ovecome a disease, it seems merely impossible to do such a thing. She said something along the lines of trying to convince those who have inheritable diseases to not have children of their own but having a family and raising kids is a special part of human life. If one wishes to do this then they should by all means have the right to. The whole situation is tough and it is hard to pick a side. I see it as helping save a human life is more important then allowing things to just happen when it involves that person dying because nothing was done.
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