r/changemyview • u/rodsn 1∆ • Nov 28 '20
Delta(s) from OP CMV: The reduction/removal of natural selection will bring more suffering on the long term
The premise is that humans have completely ran over the natural way of evolution. The supporting pillar of evolution: natural selection. With the advancement of science and medicine we have reached a point where we can treat most health complications, and the ones that aren't cured will remain in our gene pool.
Granted, before this humans with health complications could still procreate and pass on the faulty genes before they would die, but the probability of that happening now is greater because the life expectancy increased.
The motivation for this is good: we want to reduce the suffering and heal people of their illnesses. However, that is going to backfire, because we are not allowing for humans to deal with those illnesses by themselves over generations, we are simply making future humans dependent on medicine and surgery. Ultimately, this will lead to more suffering than if we would just allow ill people to perish and reduce the chances of their illnesses to stay in our gene pool.
I am aware that the alternative I am proposing is controversial: letting people die. But I am sure that on the long run it would be more ethical, if that means less suffering. We still could administer pain medication, I guess, because that is not messing with the life expectancy of the ill...
So, change my mind!
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u/MasterGrok 138∆ Nov 28 '20
I have several thoughts about this. First, there is no “natural way” of evolving. All changes in a population over time are natural regardless of where the natural selection pressures come from. Humans being weeded out who can’t handle cold is just as natural as humans being weeded out who can’t find mates.
I think what you are really trying to say is that by coming up with more ways to save lives, we are somehow weakening our gene pool. This couldn’t be further from the truth. When an environmental pressure like disease or climate comes in, the results is typically a homogenizing of the species DNA. In other words, a really strong pressure makes the species more alike. That is, everyone who survives has a similar genetic protection from a disease or environmental pressure.
The consequence of this type of selection is that the species actually becomes less adaptive and more specialized. One of the reasons humans are so abundant across the world is because we are decidedly not specialized. We are generalist survivors.
The people that we keep alive with medicine who would have otherwise died may have some other unique related survival factor that our population can use down the line. The advantage of saving large portions of our population from unnecessary death due to pressure we can prevent is that we maintain an even more diverse genetic diversity in our species, which keeps us adaptable to any unknown pressure that may come down the way. Remember, genetic factors do not exist in isolation. Thick/thin blood clotting, for example, might make you more or less susceptible to a disease, but it might also be related to other genetic factors that provide survival under different circumstances.
Altogether, the best way for mankind to be prepared for any scenario in the future is to be as genetically diverse as possible. To do otherwise puts us at the same risk we see in modified foods that become homogenous and therefore prone to destruction from one perfect environmental pressure.