Survival of the Fittest and Health Care

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Has anyone given thought to the fact that we are removing survival of the fittest from the (western world) human equation?

I mean, people with heritage of things like breast cancer, heart disease etc, are more likely to develop said problems.

Allergies seem to be spreading rapidly, and each generation seems to have more allergies (though I could be wrong on this one).

Survival of the fittest means those people with 'defective' genes would die out and not pass them on, yet with our health care they are.

What happens 3, 4, 5, 10 generations down the track - will every single person have a health problem? Multiple health problems?

If so, should something be done about it...or is it something that should be consigned to the 'too hard basket'?

...or hope that genetic engineering advances enough that we won't have to worry the answer to that question Confused

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Looked at narrowly: as long as modern medical science out-paces the diseases in question all will be well.

Looking more broadly: when (not if) we get to the point of manipulating our genetic heritage, then your concerns may well become moot. Combine gene therapy with cybernetics and your argument for increased predisposition to disease is unlikely to be a hindrance at least in the manner you refer to.

Do I think genetic engineering and cybernetics will stave off mass disease from survival of the unfit? Yes I do but not without unprofitable and consequential social upheaval!

If you think religionists and neo-Luddites have something to bitch about now, just wait 100 years, especially in light of perhaps the biggest single change of which you forgot to mention: life extension!

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This has been a frequently expressed concern since the late nineteenth century, especially in the big urban centers of Europe. In many cases such rhetoric was tied to political and nationalistic rhetoric. After the collapse of the Second Empire in France, for example, the triumph of materialism, rationalism, science was commonly (though not always) associated with the progressive politics. A common tactic among embittered royalists was to question the social advances of the Third Republic--things like improved methods of mass transit, hospitals, and more inclusive education--by claiming that they undermined the "natural order" of things.

Eugen Weber gives a succinct summary of the cultural climate in France in his book France: Fin de Siecle:

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Re: Survival of the Fittest and Health Care

vikorr wrote:

If so, should something be done about it...or is it something that should be consigned to the 'too hard basket'?

Yep. Were you thinking of just whacking everyone with the genetic potential for diabetes, cancer, etc., as a sort of preventive medicine?

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Preventative rataside!

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Yep. Were you thinking of just whacking everyone with the genetic potential for diabetes, cancer, etc., as a sort of preventive medicine?

Who mentioned anything about whacking anyone? The scenario was related to health care. There are other possible forms of dealing with the matter (and they'll never see the light of day)
- not being allowed to procreate for example
- not being treated for said illness (a form of 'whacking' as you put it)

...or increase the genetic research funding.

I personally don't have an answer to the more severe forms of illness, but I do think that anti-bacterial medicinal drugs should only be given to those with life threatenning illnesses (or illnesses which if untreated could become lifethreatenning).

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We're breeding weaker people and stronger bugs. In a purely natural world that has an inevitable outcome.

Luckily, humans are building an artificial world on top of the natural world.

Our ability to manipulate ourselves genetically and mechanically (nano technology) may not be very far away (in geological/evolutionary timeframes).

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The term "survival of the fittest" has taken on an entirely new meaning in our day and society.

For animals it is still the same. Survival of the fittest means that the best genes will pass on, and the measure is their capacity to survive.

To us, who is the fittest is more a matter of who contributes the most, and who gets the most in return. One of the most brilliant minds on this planet, dr. Steven Hawking is confined to a wheelchair, and needs a computer to help him speak. Yet, he is one of the leading minds in physics, an authority highly respected.

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Ever since the development of WMD's, the 'survival of the fittest' is quite out of the question. It's probably evolved into 'a survival of the luckiest'.

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Re: Survival of the Fittest and Health Care

vikorr wrote:

Survival of the fittest means those people with 'defective' genes would die out and not pass them on, yet with our health care they are.

Not that I accept Darwinism as a means of producing new life forms, but this isn't necessarily true. Darwinists believe that it is possible for a detrimental gene to survive in a population when the gene confers a survival benefit of some sort. The gene that causes sickle cell anemia supposedly gives some resistance to malaria, so people living in malaria-prone regions supposedly have a biological reason for preserving the sickle cell gene.

But even with a degree in biology I have never been given any explanation as to how the sickle cell gene protects a person from malaria. Neither have I ever been told why the sickle cell gene persists in people who no longer live in malaria-prone places.

Sickle cell reminds me of the peppered moth. When air pollution darkened the trees of industrial England the moths that had genes that gave a light color were at a severe disadvantage because they could easily be seen by birds on the trunks of darkened trees. But the light genes did not go extinct. Now with air pollution laws the trees are no longer dark and the dark moths are the ones that can be easily seen by predators. But the dark genes haven't gone extinct either. It sounds as if natural selection tries to preserve as many genes as possible because they may be needed in some future environment that may develop. But it doesn't seem like this preservation is the best way to turn one organism into another. The moths didn't turn into butterflies.

Now, as for genes that cause things like breast cancer, you must note that woman can produce children as young as the age of 12 or 13, but most breast cancers don't develop before the age of 40. So the genes have already been passed to the next generation long before they can do any damage to the previous generation. And breast cancer isn't a concern in a population whose life expectancy is less than 50, which historically has the been the case for most of the world's people.

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...or hope that genetic engineering advances enough that we won't have to worry the answer to that question

I dread to think of all of the other questions we'd have to face

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vikorr wrote:

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Yep. Were you thinking of just whacking everyone with the genetic potential for diabetes, cancer, etc., as a sort of preventive medicine?

Who mentioned anything about whacking anyone?

This is the logical direction of this issue. It is eugenics in its worst form- first you prevent people with bad genes from breeding and then if such people still burden society, you exterminate them (shouting Zeig heil as you do).

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Re: Survival of the Fittest and Health Care

flaja wrote:

Not that I accept Darwinism as a means of producing new life forms, but this isn't necessarily true. Darwinists believe that it is possible for a detrimental gene to survive in a population when the gene confers a survival benefit of some sort.

I stopped reading right there. Perhaps if you started thinking of "a detrimental gene ...when the gene confers a survival benefit of some sort" as a "beneficial gene", and then maybe go learn something of what it is that these "Darwinists" "believe".

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Re: Survival of the Fittest and Health Care

vikorr wrote:

Has anyone given thought to the fact that we are removing survival of the fittest from the (western world) human equation?

I mean, people with heritage of things like breast cancer, heart disease etc, are more likely to develop said problems.

Allergies seem to be spreading rapidly, and each generation seems to have more allergies (though I could be wrong on this one).

Survival of the fittest means those people with 'defective' genes would die out and not pass them on, yet with our health care they are.

What happens 3, 4, 5, 10 generations down the track - will every single person have a health problem? Multiple health problems?

If so, should something be done about it...or is it something that should be consigned to the 'too hard basket'?

...or hope that genetic engineering advances enough that we won't have to worry the answer to that question

I used to think this vikkor, but someone here pointed out that medicine is an adaptation much like a hermit crab's borrowed shell. As long as it remains, then it will continue to act as a buffer against genes that may otherwise prevent us from surviving long enough to breed.

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Re: Survival of the Fittest and Health Care

Eorl wrote:

flaja wrote:

Not that I accept Darwinism as a means of producing new life forms, but this isn't necessarily true. Darwinists believe that it is possible for a detrimental gene to survive in a population when the gene confers a survival benefit of some sort.

I stopped reading right there. Perhaps if you started thinking of "a detrimental gene ...when the gene confers a survival benefit of some sort" as a "beneficial gene", and then maybe go learn something of what it is that these "Darwinists" "believe".

Perhaps you should explain what your biology education is before you disparage the biology education of others. What I gave here is the standard Darwinian explanation for the survival of the sickle cell gene. If you know something different, tell us.

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It is not only the passing of a defective gene. Medical science has made it so that someone who was born with with a very serious defect, who in the past would have died, are now living, and costing society.

I say this from personal experience, as there is a prime example in my own family. There is a child who was born with severe brain damage, and extensive physical problems. She is almost totally blind (her eyes are fine, it's her brain). She has to be tube fed. She cannot communicate in any meaningful way.

She will always wear diapers. She spends her days in a wheelchair, not even able to stare at the walls. Her limbs are spastic,
and you can see that at times she is in obvious pain. She can hear, and apparently the playing of music is the only thing to which she is able to respond. It does seem to calm her down.

Over the years, she has been rushed to the hospital with some emergency or other. It has been hell for the parents, who accept the entire situation with an equanimity that I cannot fathom.

Their whole lives revolve around this child, who lives at home, and is cared for by her parents. She is now fifteen, stable, and could live a normal length of time. I would suspect that it has cost society millions for her care, although there was some money that was given through a malpractice claim that the family won. She goes to "school" and receives physical and occupational therapy, basically to keep her muscles from atrophying. She is not educable, or even trainable.

I sometimes think that the money spent on this child could be better used to help people who could benefit from it. I think that this case is a prime example as to where medical science has allowed a child who should have died in infancy to live.

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Human's can only adapt for so long.

I fear the super-bug that we're breeding will someday knock humanity down by a few million members.

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Fitness is a function of surviving in a given environment, and mental ability, creativity, talent, charm, or other traits may be more important to modern human beings than physical fitness.

A society that allows individuals with diverse assortments of genes to survive is a far richer one than it would be if it selected only those with approved genetic profiles. Diversity allows for the evolution of genes that might not be beneficial initially but in combination with other mutations could eventually confer new traits to our species.

I agree with Phoenix that spending millions on one hopeless case at the expense of thousands of other children who suffer due to inadequate medical care does not seem right.

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Terry wrote:

Fitness is a function of surviving in a given environment, and mental ability, creativity, talent, charm, or other traits may be more important to modern human beings than physical fitness.

Fitness is a product of genetics. Aren't mental ability, creativity, talent, charm and all other traits we have due to our genes? Why wouldn't these things be part of fitness?

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A society that allows individuals with diverse assortments of genes to survive is a far richer one than it would be if it selected only those with approved genetic profiles. Diversity allows for the evolution of genes that might not be beneficial initially but in combination with other mutations could eventually confer new traits to our species.

Thus natural selection strives to achieve genetic diversity- preserving "bad" genes that lead to a lowering of fitness. Contrary to Darwinian thinking (and the earth's natural history) natural selection doesn't seem to lead to extinction.

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I agree with Phoenix that spending millions on one hopeless case at the expense of thousands of other children who suffer due to inadequate medical care does not seem right.

Killing off the sick and infirm or letting them die of thirst or starvation is any less right?

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flaja wrote:

Killing off the sick and infirm or letting them die of thirst or starvation is any less right?

I am not suggesting killing someone off. What I am saying is that medical science has gotten to the point where people who normally, in the natural course of events, would not have lived, are now living due to heroic interventions.

There are times where "benign neglect" would have been a far better choice than jumping through hoops to save a person with a quality of life that is practically nil.

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Stephen Hawking.

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Survival of the Fittest and Health Care

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