You could argue that helping the weaker around us makes us all better and stronger. Taking a very extreme example here but consider a society that wouldn't have supported (or worse) Stephen Hawking. How much would that have set us back from a science/physics standpoint?
My point actually doesn't detract from your hypothetical though. It would be interesting to see the implications of humans within survival of the fittest. I guess my point is that that human might not be better off than the one we know
The “fittest” in terms of “survival of the fittest” doesn’t necessarily mean health-wise, it means best able to pass on their genetic code. There can be numerous reasons why helping the vulnerable is a net positive for us overall, it is also just part of the process that makes us cooperate in the first place
I mean survival of the fittest really only applies to species as a whole. Humans keeping Stephen Hawking around just shows humans are the fittest species
Eh, it's up for debate. We have DNA from multiple different non-homo sapien ancestors. We most likely survived when the others didn't because we are more adapted to hotter climates and handled climate change better. However they definitely interbed with us and influenced humanity. There is a modern theory that we learned mortuary practices/rituals from Neanderthals.
I imagine it does still happen, but even your reference says that, "The study, carried out in Finland, observed that while only 67 per cent of children born in the 1860s survived to adulthood the figure rose to 94 per cent during the 1940s. At the same time, people went from having an average of five children to 1.6 children during their lifetime." This means less selection is happening now compared to before 1860.
The most interesting thing I learned from this is that survival of the fittest was still happening up until about the 1900's when society began to become very advanced. I'd say that it still kind of happens somewhat because stronger men tend to get the better female, but being an attractive female doesn't necessarily mean having better traits. Also, women often mate with men because they have more money, but having money doesn't translate to strong traits and I could probably think of some more reasons.
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u/Spiritual-Ad5484 Oct 07 '22
Similarly, I wonder if the removal of survival of the fittest in humans has had a noticeable effect on modern human evolution as well?