A question of morals.

[Ele Mantel]

If you were to have 8 zygotes ready for transportation into a woman to use as a surrogate mother or what have you, would you consider destroying the remaining 7 immoral, seeing as how its the beginning of life?

Also, would you consider that equal to or worse than an abortion, which, if done before the 6 week period, is almost the same thing.

What about adding genes, something as simple as making sure it is a boy or girl(currently possible), to something like, say, being more physically capable, or incredibly intelligent?
If you had the option would you go through the tedious procedure of this process(which isn't possible, but lets say its the same as changing gender for zygotes) would you go through with it, or wish your your SO to do so?

I have no reason for asking, I've just been thinking about it lately, and I think its a pretty good topic of discussion.

[Kromax]

Fuck babies, kill them all.

[Candy Biu]

May 4, 2011 21:30:53 GMT -5 Ele Mantel said:

If you were to have 8 zygotes ready for transportation into a woman to use as a surrogate mother or what have you, would you consider destroying the remaining 7 immoral, seeing as how its the beginning of life?

Also, would you consider that equal to or worse than an abortion, which, if done before the 6 week period, is almost the same thing.

What about adding genes, something as simple as making sure it is a boy or girl(currently possible), to something like, say, being more physically capable, or incredibly intelligent?

(ok on that one I do - that'd be sweet because science)

If you had the option would you go through the tedious procedure of this process(which isn't possible, but lets say its the same as changing gender for zygotes) would you go through with it, or wish your your SO to do so?

Pardon?

tl;dr

[Ele Mantel]

Yeah I kinda figured you guys would just say shit like that.
As far as my opinion goes(not that anyone cares), killing a zygote isn't killing a child, and neither is an abortion, its like planting a seed then pulling it out, and calling that the cutting down of an orange tree.
But the gene modification I wouldn't be cool with, there are just too many factors that could go wrong. Though it is completely useful for the prevention of early life diseases, removing the chances of an early death etc. which is pretty great.
Then again, I could make my baby super strong and intelligent, then give him a suit of armor to wear, and he could fight crime across the world.
(I'd give him the flying gene of course, who the hell wouldn't give their baby that)

[Gront]

May 4, 2011 21:30:53 GMT -5 Ele Mantel said:

If you were to have 8 zygotes ready for transportation into a woman to use as a surrogate mother or what have you, would you consider destroying the remaining 7 immoral, seeing as how its the beginning of life?

I've never been a fan. You're taking something that has the potential to develop into a human being, who may very well have the ability to change the world, and you're snuffing out that potential. I don't think that's a decision we should have the power to make.

Also, would you consider that equal to or worse than an abortion, which, if done before the 6 week period, is almost the same thing.

I'd put it on par with abortion, maybe a little less bad depending upon the circumstances in which the zygote was acquired.

What about adding genes, something as simple as making sure it is a boy or girl(currently possible), to something like, say, being more physically capable, or incredibly intelligent?
If you had the option would you go through the tedious procedure of this process(which isn't possible, but lets say its the same as changing gender for zygotes) would you go through with it, or wish your your SO to do so?

I'd really only be willing to do this for genetic diseases, and only if we were sure that said genes didn't tie into anything else. If you select genes specifically, the species doesn't progress with favorable mutations.

[charlie]

Yeah, grent, it has the potential but it's not necessarily sentient, so it would be like killing germs using hand sanitizer. completely humane, however, a fetus is different to me.

[Metal Chao]

What kind of moron gives eight zygotes to a univeristy programming student

[Balto-Boy]

May 5, 2011 13:56:37 GMT -5 charlie said:

Yeah, grent, it has the potential but it's not necessarily sentient, so it would be like killing germs using hand sanitizer.

But killing germs is self defense. You don't kill them on a regular basis, and your ass dies of e.coli.

May 5, 2011 14:25:07 GMT -5 Metal Chao said:

What kind of moron gives eight zygotes to a univeristy programming student

YOU'RE OVER-THINKING IT. DAMN.

[Candy Biu]

May 5, 2011 0:24:49 GMT -5 Gront said:

May 4, 2011 21:30:53 GMT -5 Ele Mantel said:

If you were to have 8 zygotes ready for transportation into a woman to use as a surrogate mother or what have you, would you consider destroying the remaining 7 immoral, seeing as how its the beginning of life?

I've never been a fan. You're taking something that has the potential to develop into a human being, who may very well have the ability to change the world, and you're snuffing out that potential. I don't think that's a decision we should have the power to make.



I'd put it on par with abortion, maybe a little less bad depending upon the circumstances in which the zygote was acquired.

What about adding genes, something as simple as making sure it is a boy or girl(currently possible), to something like, say, being more physically capable, or incredibly intelligent?
If you had the option would you go through the tedious procedure of this process(which isn't possible, but lets say its the same as changing gender for zygotes) would you go through with it, or wish your your SO to do so?

I'd really only be willing to do this for genetic diseases, and only if we were sure that said genes didn't tie into anything else. If you select genes specifically, the species doesn't progress with favorable mutations.

the more I see you talk about relatively important issues, the more respect I lose for you

[Gront]

May 6, 2011 1:32:43 GMT -5 Candy Biu said:

the more I see you talk about relatively important issues, the more respect I lose for you

I'm sorry? I hardly think my rationale was that unreasonable. Since I apparently wrote much less than I thought I did, perhaps I should explain why I feel how I do about some of these.

May 5, 2011 0:24:49 GMT -5 Gront said:

I've never been a fan. You're taking something that has the potential to develop into a human being, who may very well have the ability to change the world, and you're snuffing out that potential. I don't think that's a decision we should have the power to make.

I'm sorry I dislike the idea of going against a fundamental process of nature that has been sustaining life on this planet for millions of years. Yes, this case is a little different because the zygotes may have presumably been created for this express purpose, but if they were made naturally, I don't think we should dick with anything. I find it a little disturbing that our ego as a species has grown to the point that we think disruptions to our personal lives are more important than one of our most basic biological duties. I suppose this goes more for abortion than the zygote question, but still.

May 5, 2011 0:24:49 GMT -5 Gront said:

I'd put it on par with abortion, maybe a little less bad depending upon the circumstances in which the zygote was acquired.

As I was writing the above, I realized that yes, this specific scenario is probably "less bad" than abortion in most cases.

May 5, 2011 0:24:49 GMT -5 Gront said:

I'd really only be willing to do this for genetic diseases, and only if we were sure that said genes didn't tie into anything else. If you select genes specifically, the species doesn't progress with favorable mutations.

I thought this one was a fairly reasonable point, if a little underdeveloped. Darwinism suggests that mutations are how a species becomes better at what they do, and I fail to believe that we are better at selecting "favorable mutations" than Nature.

[Metal Chao]

Grent at this point we are far, far better at selecting favourable mutations than nature
We've evolved to the point where evolution has slowed to a crawl, due to the fact that environmental factors no longer really have even the slightest effect on where we live or who we have sex with

Nobody here who is unadapated to the environment dies, so the people who have the superior adapted genes don't necessarily get to do more boning than people with disgusting inferior mutations
This is not a bad thing or an undesirable thing, if we're not evolving then obviously it's because we don't need to, but arguing that nature is better than us at improving us at this point is a bit of a ridiculous statement as nature doesn't have shit on our development process any more

[Gront]

May 6, 2011 9:19:00 GMT -5 Metal Chao said:

Grent at this point we are far, far better at selecting favourable mutations than nature
We've evolved to the point where evolution has slowed to a crawl, due to the fact that environmental factors no longer really have even the slightest effect on where we live or who we have sex with

Nobody here who is unadapated to the environment dies, so the people who have the superior adapted genes don't necessarily get to do more boning than people with disgusting inferior mutations
This is not a bad thing or an undesirable thing, if we're not evolving then obviously it's because we don't need to, but arguing that nature is better than us at improving us at this point is a bit of a ridiculous statement as nature doesn't have shit on our development process any more

I didn't mean nature as in the environment outside civilization. I meant nature as a general force for the way things tend to be. Natural selection appears in daily life more frequently than you probably think; it just appears in different forms. As you mentioned, mutations that would help with wilderness survival aren't really encouraged, but often various forms of intelligence are. Also, there is some indication that both nature and nurture contribute to most of our personality traits (i.e. a combination of genes and life experiences influences who you are as a person), and you can't tell me that personality doesn't impact who you're attracted to.

[Metal Chao]

No, I can and will tell you that
The genes that make you better at living in our current civilisation are disconnected from the ones that let you have lots of babies
People who are successful have as many children as people who aren't, or even possibly less due to poverty's effect on the obtainability of birth control

There is no weeding for beneficial genes at all in our society

[Kromax]

Then what's the kid who is shunned from society? The kid who never gets to have kids because he was annoying or awkward? That is definitely beneficial weeding, and sure, it is not nearly as obvious as it was if we look to the past, but that's just a side effect of evolution, 200 years from now scientist may look back at our society and pick apart all the ways our feeble minds worked.
Those two genes are very much connected, it's not as blatant as you can't survive in the cold therefore you can't have kids here, but if you're not very enjoyable or just plain boring, how are you not somewhat weeded out of the evolutionary track?

Also, you know that children die, right? Some of it is just plain chaotic accident, but some of it is because in the way of thinning the herd the weak links break off, it's sad, but it is weeding out beneficial DNA, or at least leaving the people with higher IQ

[Gront]

May 6, 2011 21:25:36 GMT -5 Kromax said:

Then what's the kid who is shunned from society? The kid who never gets to have kids because he was annoying or awkward? That is definitely beneficial weeding, and sure, it is not nearly as obvious as it was if we look to the past, but that's just a side effect of evolution, 200 years from now scientist may look back at our society and pick apart all the ways our feeble minds worked.
Those two genes are very much connected, it's not as blatant as you can't survive in the cold therefore you can't have kids here, but if you're not very enjoyable or just plain boring, how are you not somewhat weeded out of the evolutionary track?

Also, you know that children die, right? Some of it is just plain chaotic accident, but some of it is because in the way of thinning the herd the weak links break off, it's sad, but it is weeding out beneficial DNA, or at least leaving the people with higher IQ

I was actually going to argue that altruism is generally selected and that it is a desirable trait that benefits the species, but I guess that works, too?

[Metal Chao]

May 6, 2011 21:25:36 GMT -5 Kromax said:

Then what's the kid who is shunned from society? The kid who never gets to have kids because he was annoying or awkward? That is definitely beneficial weeding, and sure, it is not nearly as obvious as it was if we look to the past, but that's just a side effect of evolution, 200 years from now scientist may look back at our society and pick apart all the ways our feeble minds worked.
Those two genes are very much connected, it's not as blatant as you can't survive in the cold therefore you can't have kids here, but if you're not very enjoyable or just plain boring, how are you not somewhat weeded out of the evolutionary track?

Also, you know that children die, right? Some of it is just plain chaotic accident, but some of it is because in the way of thinning the herd the weak links break off, it's sad, but it is weeding out beneficial DNA, or at least leaving the people with higher IQ

It has been scientifically proven that smart people have less kids, usually due to the fact that they think it would just take up their time. People who drop out of education are much more likely to have more children than people who are well educated and have high paying jobs. Does this sound like selecting advantageous traits for society to you?

People in third world countries have greatly reduced access to birth control. Due to their lack of accessible education and other environmental factors, they are also of a lower general IQ.
They also have more children than people in more developed countries with greater access to birth control, again this is not helping to create a higher standard of human beings.

It would be nice to think that Altruism was desirable in a partner and maybe it even is, but because we have invented birth control physical attraction isn't even necessarily related to the persistence of genes. Many, many people do not want to have children and simply want to have sex, so they use birth control and do not have kids. No matter how successful they are, their genes are not passed on.

The fact that awkward people are less likely to breed is also irrelevant. Social awkwardness has little or nothing to do with how useful or successful you are in life. People who do not form relationships easily are still perfectly capable of gaining high paying jobs, making a lot of money, creating works of art, having long and enjoyable lives or whatever other quality you would choose as sucecssful, so this is irrelevant to the discussion.

Stillborn children or child death also has nothing to do with the child's IQ. The children who live do not do so because they will be more useful or intelligent human beings, only because they either had better parents or because they did not have some kind of genetic deformity.
It is true that this slowly weeds out genetic deformities that cause sudden infant death, but it has nothing to do with increasing world IQ at all. The continued evolution of the viruses and inherited medical conditions also means that this is unlikely to improve the overall health of the species all that much in the future either.

[Kromax]

You keep implying that people who have good jobs and do "well" in life equates to having kids, but then you bring up how people with higher educations have more kids, which is pretty paradoxical.

And you completely missed my point on how children's death and thinning the herd, because that definitely happens, sure, maybe a very smart kid dies, but people die all the damn time, how can you say that all these kids didn't die because they were stupid? How in the world could you know that? So people who have good parents and aren't deform don't die? That's bullshit (To be fair, we all die, but hey, that doesn't matter.)

And your final sentence pretty much is the exact opposite of all you have said, the virus and diseases evolve, true, but have you ever gotten chicken pox? (I doubt you have since the vaccines are pretty much everywhere, but that is a good example of modern man-made evolution.) Afterwords, you don't get it again, because you have just evolved, you have evolved past this disease and are now genetically and chemically altered because of it, as the virus evolve, we evolve, every single day, and that's just on a genetic level at a major point, we evolve nearly every moment, every sound, movement, gust of air, and germ that touches you has altered you, and you have now evolved past what you once were, because that's just how time works, there is no such thing as yesterday, you are not who you were yesterday, the entirety of you is gone, and a new evolved version of yourself is here, and by the time you have finished reading this, you have just evolved, at a micro-scopic level? Of course, but that was a couple of minutes of changing. Our children evolve beyond us, and theirs will be beyond them, it has nothing to do if you had good parents, or what education you had, your offspring has mixed your genes, with the genes of another, and a more evolved being has been created.

[Metal Chao]

I read your post and I suddenly realised that you don't know how evolution works at all and were still trying to argue with me and this made me incredibly annoyed
Especially because you also quoted me as saying the exact opposite of what I wrote, but as you weren't paying attention in secondary school science I am beginnning to wonder how good your reading comprehension is anyway, or maybe you just didn't bother looking at it at all and just made stuff up and stuck it in my mouth

May 6, 2011 22:51:50 GMT -5 Kromax said:

You keep implying that people who have good jobs and do "well" in life equates to having kids, but then you bring up how people with higher educations have more kids, which is pretty paradoxical.

No, I do not.
I say that people who have good jobs and do well would be the people that have more kids is what Grent is arguing and that people with a higher education have less kids.
As you are stating the exact opposite[/i] of what I actually wrote I am starting to wonder whether you either didn't bother reading my post or are just unable to speak in English.

May 6, 2011 22:51:50 GMT -5 Kromax said:

And you completely missed my point on how children's death and thinning the herd, because that definitely happens

No I didn't, as we've already established you just didn't actually bother even reading my point.

May 6, 2011 22:51:50 GMT -5 Kromax said:

sure, maybe a very smart kid dies, but people die all the damn time,

That really doesn't support your argument in the slightest. If someone smart has an equal chance of death it actually supports mine.
Also it's bullshit, people in cities don't die all the time.

May 6, 2011 22:51:50 GMT -5 Kromax said:

how can you say that all these kids didn't die because they were stupid?

Because that isn't at all how disease works, and children don't die all the time because they are so dumb that they walk off cliffs, that's what hospitals are for.

May 6, 2011 22:51:50 GMT -5 Kromax said:

How in the world could you know that?

Because I'm not a complete moron, if people died because they weren't smart then we would all have become extinct because we died as children before we evolved brains.
THERE IS NO MAGIC BRAIN FUNCTION THAT PSYCHICALLY MEASURES THE INTELLIGENCE OF EVERYONE NEARBY AND THEN TERMINATES THE CHILD IF IT IS NOT AS SMART

May 6, 2011 22:51:50 GMT -5 Kromax said:

So people who have good parents and aren't deform don't die? That's bullshit (To be fair, we all die, but hey, that doesn't matter.)

No, they don't die as infants and even then they have a good chance of dying
So they have a chance to spread their genes, so people do not evolve because both groups have a pretty much equal chance of spreading their genes.
I begin to wonder if you even understand how genetics work

May 6, 2011 22:51:50 GMT -5 Kromax said:

And your final sentence pretty much is the exact opposite of all you have said, the virus and diseases evolve, true, but have you ever gotten chicken pox?

Yes, and the fact that everyone on the planet is not completely immune to chickenpox by now proves absolutely nothing at all that would aid your point so I don't know why you brought it up.

May 6, 2011 22:51:50 GMT -5 Kromax said:

(I doubt you have since the vaccines are pretty much everywhere, but that is a good example of modern man-made evolution.)

Vaccines are not evolution

May 6, 2011 22:51:50 GMT -5 Kromax said:

Afterwords, you don't get it again, because you have just evolved, you have evolved past this disease and are now genetically and chemically altered because of it

Oh my God

May 6, 2011 22:51:50 GMT -5 Kromax said:

as the virus evolve, we evolve, every single day, and that's just on a genetic level at a major point, we evolve nearly every moment, every sound, movement, gust of air, and germ that touches you has altered you, and you have now evolved past what you once were

You... you really are an idiot

May 6, 2011 22:51:50 GMT -5 Kromax said:

because that's just how time works, there is no such thing as yesterday, you are not who you were yesterday, the entirety of you is gone, and a new evolved version of yourself is here, and by the time you have finished reading this, you have just evolved, at a micro-scopic level?

NO

NO I HAVEN'T
YOU ARE NOT TALKING ABOUT GENETICS YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT TIME
THIS IS NOT HOW GENES, EVOLUTION OR THE PASSING ON OF TRAITS WORK

A man who works out gets more muscles. This does not change his genes at all. His children are not born stronger.
The every day actions we have help us improve as an individual. THEY HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH EVOLUTION.
Working out, eating healthily, becoming smart, taking a vaccine.
NONE OF THESE THINGS HAVE ANY EFFECT AT ALL ON YOUR GENES.
YOU DO NOT CHANGE DAILY "ON A GENETIC LEVEL". THIS IS COMPLETELY INACCURATE AND STUPID.

May 6, 2011 22:51:50 GMT -5 Kromax said:

Of course, but that was a couple of minutes of changing.

NO
IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH OUR CHILDREN
THE CHANGES YOU MAKE DAILY AS AN INDIVIDUAL DO NOT CHANGE YOUR GENES
NONE OF THESE TRAITS ARE PASSED ON
THAT IS NOT HOW GENES WORK

May 6, 2011 22:51:50 GMT -5 Kromax said:

Our children evolve beyond us, and theirs will be beyond them, it has nothing to do if you had good parents, or what education you had, your offspring has mixed your genes, with the genes of another, and a more evolved being has been created.

/facepalm

Right
Before you start spouting more completely inaccurate bullshit, probably now enraged because I have told you exactly how misled you are, here is an explanation about how evolution actually works:


Once upon a time, a man called Lamarck came up with an idea about how animals changed over time.
He posited that an animals traits were passed on to its children when it mated, so as it went about its business doing its best to fit into its environment it would change itself and pass on these traits to its kids, who would do the same to their kids. These changes would build up over time until the animal was far more suited to its environment.
For example, to reach food on a higher tree, a giraffe might stetch its neck. Its children would be born with longer necks because of this, and would do the same until the giraffe had transformed from some kind of spotty horse to the shape you know today.

This is called Lamarckian evolution.
This is what you believe happens in real life, that people do things, the individual changes they make on a daily basis edit their genes, and that these new genes are passed on to their kids.
THIS IS WRONG AND STUPID.

Real evolution happens like this:
A species of animal lives in an environment. Every generation, some animals are very very slightly different than the rest due to mutations on a genetic level, almost all of which are far too small to see but still have some small effect on the animal's behaviour.
Some of these mutations are unhelpful, and the animals having them die earlier. These animals produce fewer offspring because they do not live as long, so their genes are not passed on very far.
Some of the mutations are helpful, and the animals having them die later. These animals produce a greater amount of offspring, and so do the offspring of their offspring. In this way, eventually, most members of the species will have whatever trait made the animal more successful in the first place. These very very small changes build up over time, until eventually you get the species we know today.

In human society, no such pressure exists.
People are still born with minor mutations, but they have little to no effect on how many children the person has.
Arguably the most "desirable" characteristic in a human would be someone with a high paying job, however you can exchange this for whatever criteria you would say makes a "successful" person. The amount of success someone has in the human world isn't the same as that of an animal. We have tamed our environment completely and there is no risk of death anywhere, even if you are a complete idiot.
The amount of success you have also has little to do with the amount of children you have due to the advent of birth control. Even if people with more success are more popular with the opposite gender, something that really isn't even necessarily true, the arrival of birth control means that people can have all the sex they like without having kids, and the prevailing opinion among many (not all, but most) people with high paying jobs is that they don't have time for children.
In comparison, people with a low IQ or people who have low paying jobs or drop out of college have arguably got "unsuccesful" genes. These people are no less likely to have kids than successful ones and if anything are possibly more likely.
The fact that they are more likely is basically irrelevant, because either way we aren't evolving, but it is perhaps still interesting to note that people with less money have less access to birth control, and people with a lower intelligence are less likely to use it or use it correctly, so they are in fact more likely to produce children than people with more successful genes.
THIS IS EVOLUTION AND THIS IS WHY IT IS NOT HAPPENING.

Taking a vaccine is not evolution. Vaccines inject dead or weakened pathogens into your bloodstream which are then recognised by your immune system.
It has no effect on your genes, and thus no effect on evolution.
Sounds are not evolution. Sound waves are picked up by your ears and heard by your brain.
They have no effect on your genes, and thus no effect on evolution.
Movements are not evolution. Movement is something you do to move around and get things done.
It has no effect on your genes, and thus no effect on evolution.
A germ that touches you is unlikely to penetrate the epidermis. If it does, it will either do nothing (as most germs are harmless and this one is alone), give you some kind of disease or get killed by your immune system.
None of the above have an effect on your genes, and the second case is only evolution if you are too dumb to go to hospital and get it cured, thus removing your genes from circulation.

Evolution is not some magical force that kills babies because they are stupid.
Evolution is not he same as personal improvement, it simply affects the base state you are born into as a combination of the genes of your parents.
Evolution is not what you were talking about in your previous post.

Please don't make such basic mistakes again.

[Ele Mantel]

Hate to sound like a dick kro but you should probably have a general idea of how something works before you argue about it.
The elaborate, you were talking about adaptation, not evolution, which is kind of understandable since they're loosely related, and generally talked about at the same time.
Also I'd have to agree with you metal chao, currently it doesn't matter about your genes or general health, as long as you're not dying in a hospital bed, to reproduce. Actually, as far as I've read about other third world countries and other places of low quality of life, it seems fertility is higher in those places. Why, is it because sex is something to do? Why do people want to have children in really terrible places? I think its just more than just lack of birth control.
(some sources:
www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2006/sep/01/guardianweekly.guardianweekly1
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependent_territories_by_birth_rate)

[charlie]

cracked is the only site where i get my information.

[Kromax]

]I read your post and I suddenly realised that you don't know how evolution works at all and were still trying to argue with me and this made me incredibly annoyed
Especially because you also quoted me as saying the exact opposite of what I wrote, but as you weren't paying attention in secondary school science I am beginnning to wonder how good your reading comprehension is anyway, or maybe you just didn't bother looking at it at all and just made stuff up and stuck it in my mouth

Yep, just decided to skim past it and then argue back.

I say that people who have good jobs and do well would be the people that have more kids is what Grent is arguing and that people with a higher education have less kids.
As you are stating the exact opposite

[/i] of what I actually wrote I am starting to wonder whether you either didn't bother reading my post or are just unable to speak in English.[/quote]

...

Social awkwardness has little or nothing to do with how useful or successful you are in life. People who do not form relationships easily are still perfectly capable of gaining high paying jobs, making a lot of money, creating works of art, having long and enjoyable lives or whatever other quality you would choose as successful, so this is irrelevant to the discussion.

So you just posted a point you don't agree with just because you could?

No I didn't, as we've already established you just didn't actually bother even reading my point.

Yeah, those big long words, hurt my tiny tiny brain, had to just skip that part.

That really doesn't support your argument in the slightest. If someone smart has an equal chance of death it actually supports mine.
Also it's bullshit, people in cities don't die all the time.

How do people in cities have this AMAZING survival rate that doesn't cause those areas to have deaths as often, true it is a safer in cities, but if you mean just one city, sure people don't die as much then people in the country, but on a global scale the difference isn't that huge.

Because that isn't at all how disease works, and children don't die all the time because they are so dumb that they walk off cliffs, that's what hospitals are for.

Why do you think that hospitals are magical places that cure all injury and disease? And why do you keep countering my points with 'that's how diseases work.' when I'm not fucking talking about diseases, you can die millions of ways, stop saying my points are invalid because they don't apply to all ways of dying, because that's bullshit.

Because I'm not a complete moron, if people died because they weren't smart then we would all have become extinct because we died as children before we evolved brains.
THERE IS NO MAGIC BRAIN FUNCTION THAT PSYCHICALLY MEASURES THE INTELLIGENCE OF EVERYONE NEARBY AND THEN TERMINATES THE CHILD IF IT IS NOT AS SMART

...Really? OH NO THERE IS NO MAGIC BRAIN FUNCTION THEN IT MUST BE RANDOM, that's what you're saying here. No, that's bullshit. Dumb people die all the time as kids, the reason that there is still dumb adults is because they were smarter or just got lucky or a million other reasons why they survived, and no, people who are smarter don't have an equal chance, true, diseases don't pick and choose who dies and who lives, but who do you think goes running in the street like the moron and get's hit by a truck? The smart kid? Don't fucking think so.

No, they don't die as infants and even then they have a good chance of dying
So they have a chance to spread their genes, so people do not evolve because both groups have a pretty much equal chance of spreading their genes.
I begin to wonder if you even understand how genetics work

I'm not fucking talking about infants, when did I say infants? I said children, that's 18 years of life, 21 if you feel that's fair.

Yes, and the fact that everyone on the planet is not completely immune to chickenpox by now proves absolutely nothing at all that would aid your point so I don't know why you brought it up.

Vaccines are not evolution

I realize I confused evolution with adaptation in the last bits of my rant and I am sorry, I am sorry for making that mistake and I will stop arguing because I do need to get a better grasp on the rest of this.

We have tamed our environment completely and there is no risk of death anywhere, even if you are a complete idiot.

BULL. FUCKING. SHIT. That is a direct quote that is pure shit, sure, we don't have the same death rate as we did ranging back many many years ago, but that is the most retarded thing I have ever heard. Hospitals don't magically cure all disease and injury, and even if they did a lot of injuries kill you before you can even get to the hospital. You. Are. Lying.

[Metal Chao]

People still die, true.
Some people even die because they are stupid an not just because of random coincidence, though this number is vastly lower than you believe it to be. Very few children die these days, the mortality rate of children under five in the UK is 0.6% and most of that is from disease. It is only going to go lower as you get older as you learn what things can kill you.
www.statistics.gov.uk/articles/hsq/hsq28_death.pdf
The highest causes of death are from diseases, which are something that is largely unaffected by genetics and definitely not very affected by success or intelligence.

The remaining number of people who die simply through stupidity is nowhere near high enough to become an evolutionary factor.
Let's say half of the people who died under the heading "accidents" (an incredibly generous figure) died because of their own stupidity. That's only 1.4% of males and the figure for females is so low it doesn't even show up in the top ten.
And remember this is 1.4% of deaths, not of the population. The death rate in the UK is somewhere around 1% of the population per year, making the death by stupidity rate somewhere around 0.0014%

I'm sorry, but you only have anecdotal evidence from things you have guessed.
I've actually looked up the figures, you're just wrong.

[Kyon]

May 7, 2011 12:50:30 GMT -5 charlie said:

cracked is the only site where i get my information.

You can't combo-break the serious atmosphere, bro.

I should have an opinion on this, but maybe I just don't have the time to write it all down or maybe I have a problem spreading my thoughts on the matter. Nonetheless, I'm fairly surprised at the amount of debate here, I almost didn't even click on this thread but scrolling down and giving everyone an equal 1-sentence skim, all I can say is... woah.

What made you think about this all of a sudden?

[Ele Mantel]

May 11, 2011 6:26:42 GMT -5 Kyon said:

May 7, 2011 12:50:30 GMT -5 charlie said:

cracked is the only site where i get my information.

You can't combo-break the serious atmosphere, bro.

I should have an opinion on this, but maybe I just don't have the time to write it all down or maybe I have a problem spreading my thoughts on the matter. Nonetheless, I'm fairly surprised at the amount of debate here, I almost didn't even click on this thread but scrolling down and giving everyone an equal 1-sentence skim, all I can say is... woah.

What made you think about this all of a sudden?

I'm reading the book Mutation, by robin cook.
Its not bad, gets a little boring in the middle, but otherwise interesting.
It has gene altering things, which got me wondering about the topic.