Last week we talked about opiates and how heroin addiction and habit is overrated and mythologized–well here we go, the lefties in Vermont have too much time on their hands and the heroin helps them get through their aimless lives.
http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/editorials/2014/01/11/governor-shumlin-lifts-veil-heroin-abuse-vermont/HGUkQlogvVtxZC2C1YiZfL/story.html
Sorry John, you come across as very incoherent at this time. Let me parse what you’ve just said.
“fitness that makes cows [something]”
We have the same understanding of fitness now, do we? Fitness is the rate of reproduction. On that view, it is what the cows are that makes them fit, rather than fitness making them what they are. Because cows are obviously still around, I trust they are fit. They strive in their favourite environments.
“cows are so slow or easy to bring down?”
What cows are we talking about? The domestic cow? Even if you think domestic cow, have you ever tried to chase one and bring one down? Without a gun?
You’re a human doctor. How easy or difficult it is, from a doctor’s perspective, to keep the human population going? I am surrounded by cow doctors. For them it is an ongoing battle, with new lines of attack emerging every year. The answer to your question, if it is about domestic cows, is that their fitness is linked to ours. And they are not easy to bring down without bringing us down.
Many domestic animals (including some breeds of sheep) cannot exist in the wild. They are wiped out by diseases that only humans can treat.
If are referring to wild cows, see for yourself how easy it is to bring one down:
Moving on:
“Some species survive even if they don’t have certain advantages–true?”
Species don’t survive. Individuals and populations do. “Advantage” is another ill-defined concept. If I can eat my food and it does not kill me, is it an advantage? I’d certainly think I’d be at an advantage over somebody who is killed by sugars and amino acids. If such is your understanding of advantage, then of course disadvantaged individuals do not survive (the idea of species has nothing to do with that). If by advantage you mean some unique abilities that come as a bonus on top of basic viability, then I’d say the answer will depend of the circumstances, which you have not defined. How variable are those circumstances? Are those the sort of circumstances in which it is better to be a facultative aerobe than a strict anaerobe? If so, then such facultative advantages are critical to survival. If not, then not. Strict anaerobes are alive and well, as I am sure you are aware. I am sure you understand you don’t necessarily get to mate with more women or have better children if you are Olympic champion.
Or, you can take Dawkins’s view that all of us alive today are the offspring of uniquely abled champions, and that would be just as true. The tree of life is mostly dead.
The ideas of selection and fitness are a joke.
How possible can it be fitness that makes cows are so slow or easy to bring down? Some species survive even if they don’t have certain advantages–true?
The Mutation Selection theory is inadequate. There are so many other considerations.
Upon a quick reflection, I know what I dislike in “survival of the fittest”. It is simply that the notion of fitness ought not to be expressed with a superlative. I understand it was originally a threshold category, and because of that it was perceived by many as tautological.
Today we routinely speak of things that are more fit or less fit (e.g., http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22986085). In such contexts, fitness is rather strictly a synonym of “reproduction rate”.
In view of this new word usage, “survival of the fittest” no longer captures the gist of evolution. It would be more correct to say “survival of the viable”, but because that sounds odd and overtly tautological, other forms of expression are preferred. If you really want an expression based on fitness “elimination of the unfit” would be rather more precise.
In fact, most of the changes that happen to us as we evolve are neutral. We are able to carry on and have children not because we are better than the next guy, but simply because the mutations we have undergone just happened to be inconsequential (as they predominantly are).
There is nothing wrong with Darwin’s theory. Bad — maybe, but we can only test theories for being valid or not; badness is immaterial.
Darwin’s most significant insight (at least in his own assessment) was the idea that not all possible variations get fixed because some are deleterious. As such, it is a competent explanation. It is still valid now, even though human populations keep redefining what is deleterious and what is not. The principle remains: some variations get lost. Give it any other name you like if “survival of the fittest” irks you (it irks me too, not sure why), but under any name it will still be a good explanation for why we are not infinitely diverse.
There’s a fine distinction between “settlements” and prisons. The TB metaphor falls apart because addiction is not communicable. If a heroin addict coughs on a subway, the other passengers aren’t going to become heroin addicts. (Lord knows what other horrible disease they’ll get, but that’s beside the point.)
Much has been made of the drug users’ desire to find an external solution to internal problems, but I feel the statists’ cry of “there ought to be a law” stems from the same psychology. Much like the early proponents of the alcohol prohibition blaming their husbands’ infidelity on the breweries, drug prohibitionists blame the drug and the cartels for the behavior of those that take them. Either due to personal involvement such as parents of criminal children, or out of a misguided sense of compassion that urges “blame the drug, not the addict”, many people want to believe that the individuals under the influence of the drug wouldn’t be criminals if the drug didn’t exist. Relapse and recidivism rates following medical detox and rehab tell a different story.
It makes more sense to look at drug use as a symptom. Some root cause in these people’s lives is driving them to the decision that artificial alteration of their perception is desirable. If life is so bad that they feel they cannot face it, can making their life worse ever change their minds?
My vote is to put those who are addicted into “settlements” for those who don’t want to deal with reality. They would be given basic food, shelter and all the drugs they want. If they tire of the place, they can go through rehab and join the real world. There probably would have to be some job training and some “tough love” camps before letting said individuals back into the population. It’s kind of like “Brave New World” in reverse. This is for users only, not sellers.
I once found it described as “survival of the adequately fit”, which seemed more accurate.
wrong, prison get’s these clowns off the street.
you think that isn’t a benefit, in terms of their affects on people, their families, their friends, the culture, consider the idea of letting loose someone with TB.
You say it’s not like TB, I say–tell me which is more devestating, cultural decadence or TB?
If you believe in personal freedom, and I do, then we must accept that some will make unwise decisions. The “War on drugs” like the “War on poverty” was lost years ago. Prison doesn’t solve the problem any more than welfare does.
do not consider darwin competent for anything.
he had a bad theory and he even admitted it in his book, origin of the species.
so what you really mean is –I don’t care. let the best man win. or something like that.
survival of the fittest is not really how we should have described darwin’s pathetic theory–it was selection for advantage.
ain’t that just enough to make you tingle.
Jerry, I agree with you about Darwin, and then get chills down my spine thinking about the effect of the State on evolution. Homo sovieticus comes to mind. Oh well.
The control of access to drugs is not high on my list of priorities. Darwin is probably more competent to the task than I am or would want to be.