-

 Unnatural Selection 

By A. Johnson

Charles Darwin changed the way people thought about God, the world, and themselves. He published his groundbreaking work The Origin of Species in November 1859. Darwin wrote in his pivotal work: “Natural Selection, as we shall hereafter see, is a power incessantly ready for action, and is as immeasurably superior to man’s feeble efforts, as the works of Nature are to those of Art.” (Darwin 2008, #62) Darwin believed that the environment chooses the fittest species to survive and that man cannot be involved in this process. In his later writings, Darwin observes man’s interference with natural selection. However, his solution to this interference goes beyond the scope of natural selection. Darwin contradicts himself: he believed in unnatural methods of achieving a society based on natural selection.

Darwin’s theory of evolution relied on two pillars; universal common ancestry and natural selection. Darwin’s second pillar claims that all organic beings are exposed to severe competition that results in a survival of the fittest species. (Darwin 2008, #62) Darwin’s original title for his famous book is The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life. This struggle for life produces different individuals of a species who adapt better to their environment. The result is the survival of the fittest and the propagation of the favored races. This is natural selection according to Darwin. Though Darwinism has evolved, the definition of natural selection has changed very little. A modern definition of natural selection reads: “Natural selection is the process through which populations of living organisms adapt and change….This variation means that some individuals have traits better suited to the environment than others. Individuals with adaptive traits -- traits that give them some advantage -- are more likely to survive and reproduce. Through this process of natural selection, favorable traits are transmitted through generations.” (Forsyth 2022) If natural selection is taking place; the favored races are the only survivors. 

Later in Darwin’s life, contradictions to natural selection began to appear in his work The Descent of Man. He writes about the problem with civilized nations protecting the weak in their societies. This is a problem because “the weak members of civilised societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man.” Darwin reemphasizes: “hardly anyone is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed.” (Darwin 2004, #159) He further argues: “there appears to be at least one check in steady action, namely that the weaker and inferior members of society do not marry so freely as the sound; and this check might be indefinitely increased by the weak in body or mind refraining from marriage though this is more to be hoped for than expected.” (Darwin 2004, #159-160)

Darwin contradicts himself: natural selection is the only way to preserve favored races unless man propagates the weak and inferior -- then interference beyond nature is required. According to Darwin, the weak members of society are not favored races because they will not survive without human interference. Darwin sees a problem with this interference but proposes a solution that requires social planning. In order for natural selection to work without human interference, someone must be in charge of “allowing” who gets to reproduce and who does not.

Darwin’s contradiction is illustrated in the ideas of many philosophers, leaders, and scientists who have recognized similar problems. Dystopian novels often contain methods of reproductive control. Aldous Huxley writes about such a system in Brave New World where children are created with machines and surgically removed ovaries. Huxley writes: “The people who govern the Brave New World may not be sane; but they are not madmen, and their aim is not anarchy but social stability.” (Huxley 2005, #9) Reproductive control is used to bring stability. The Giver written by Lois Lowry contains a society where babies-- if not developing fast enough-- are euthanized. (The Giver 2002) There are real-world examples of this as well. China’s one-child policy which lasted for more than 30 years was an attempt to manage the population. Article 25 of the constitution of the People's Republic of China reads: “The state implements family planning to make population growth compatible with economic and social development plans.” (“The Constitution of the People's Republic of China”) Preventing people from reproducing can only be done by man, and not by nature. In order to maintain the favored races achieved by natural selection; unnatural means would be required to achieve it -- and thus we see the full contradiction.

Charles Darwin changed the way people thought about God, the world, and themselves. He constructed a worldview that relied on change by nature and not by man. Only nature can select the favored races, and yet the poor and weak still survive. Evolution, which relies on natural selection from Darwin’s time unto this day, is necessarily a contradiction. The fact is, human interference is inevitable. It will only be through the grace of God that men give up the illusion of the favored races.





References

Darwin, Charles. 2008. The Origin of Species. N.p.: Barnes & Noble, Incorporated.

Forsyth, Ian. 2022. “Natural Selection | National Geographic Society.” Resource Library. https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/natural-selection.

Darwin, Charles. 2004. The descent of man, and selection in relation to sex. Edited by James Moore and Adrian Desmond. N.p.: Penguin Publishing Group.

The Giver. 2002. N.p.: Random House.

Huxley, Aldous. 2005. Brave New World and Brave New World Revisited. Edited by Christopher Hitchens. N.p.: HarperCollins.

“The Constitution of the People's Republic of China CHAPTER I. General Principles Article 1. Socialist state The People's Republic.” n.d. Refworld. Accessed September 17, 2022. https://www.refworld.org/pdfid/4c31ea082.pdf.



By A. Johnson

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

-
The Link Between Intelligence and a Moral Sense By M. Bassett Having laid forth his evidence about the structural similarity between men and animals, pointing to a common ancestor, Darwin had another problem to address in his book The Descent of Man. He recognized that the moral sense of man is probably the most important distinguishing feature between him and an animal, which is a fact that could pose a stumbling block to his theory. What is a moral sense? Where does it come from? Can animals evolve into moral beings through evolution, the way men supposedly did? Modern scientists also ask similar questions. Seeing emotions and actions of cooperation, empathy, and a sense of justice1 in the actions of animals, they debate: do animals have a moral sense, or not? Are they developing a moral sense the way we did? Or is it just a social instinct that comes from living in a group? Perhaps these emotions and actions in higher-intelligence animals are evidence of a lesser moral sense, or per...
Read more
-
The Problem of Darwinian Correlation by J. Rogers Darwin work, The Descent of Man, first published in 1871, is Darwin’s attempt to demonstrate that his evolutionary theory is the logical explanation for the existence of man by drawing connections between species of animals and humans. Early in the work Darwin presents two figures that at first glance seem nearly identical, however one is of a human embryo and the other of a dog embryo.1 Darwin then states that this correlation represents the fact that humans and dogs and all lifeforms come from a common ancestor. This reasoning is wrong. Thomas Henry Huxley, one of the few people Darwin spoke to about his ideas before having published them, explains the fetal development as so, “[I]t is very long before the body of the young human being can be readily discriminated from that of the young puppy; but, at a tolerably early period, the two become distinguishable by the different form of their adjuncts, the yelk-sac and the allantois. The...
Read more
-
Darwin’s problem By A. Nounna Darwin had a problem with explaining how humans could have evolved from a lesser evolved form, which is missing in the fossil record and which he had no demonstration of, and still have ended up with the mental capacity and intellect that they present with today. Darwin articulated his problem by saying that the intellectual progression that he saw within animal species had no particular logical connections with humans are they are today, seeing that some animals possessed some of the faculties that humans present with, but not all of these traits were present within one being, except within humans. Further, humans present with the full spectrum of intellectual capacity and yet their closest comparison is monkeys or apes. So, how did humans end up with all of these in one body? Darwin does have a problem with this, but says he is going to disprove that this is an issue to his theory, or in fact a valid issue at all. He begins by saying: “My object [in this...
Read more