gib wrote:The main advantage to this method is that when the so-called "weak" are helped to survive, they also bring with them their strengths. That is to say, there is no such thing as an organism that is overall weak, but rather weak at something, which implies possibly being strong at something else. So medical intervention might be brought in to help someone who is genetically crippled but that person might be super smart and be able to contribute great things to humanity.
Better adapted, less well adapted are better terms. There are organisms, including humans, who have less to contribute. It's true that a crippled genius does would, but then there are others who would not.
Also, most medical deffects aren't genetic. Tuberculosis for example is a strain of bacteria that anyone can catch. Unless the entire human race all at once becomes inundated with tuberculosis and no medical intervention is applied, letting people die of tuberculosis isn't going to create a stronger, superior, tuberculosis resistant strain of human beings.
Well, it ptrobably would. People who were less resistant would die before procreating or not fully support the children they had before dying or during the longer illnesses and this would indeed likely lead to people who were more resistant. If tuberculosis was one of the major threats, then natural selection would lead to better adapted humans in relation to it, just as bacteria that are better resistant to antiobiotics will start to arise.
And just in general, everybody wants to survive; the weak and the sick are no exception. They will strive to get their medical intervention just as the strong and healthy strive to get food. If they succeed, I don't see this as any different than any other species striving for survival and succeeding.
If it's just a matter of the sick having to live with their sickness rather than dying, that's their choice; letting them die seems like such a contradictory solution to the problem: if you think sickness is such a bad thing, why isn't death on your radar?
I am not advocating anything, just noting. The ones who want more natural selection are not trying to prevent disease or deaths. They want the best adapted homo sapian genes to win out.
