Darwin’s theory upended? Natural selection may be making society more unequal

[tn1911]

https://www.studyfinds.org/natural-s...ciety-unequal/

Researchers from the University of East Anglia find that natural selection is favoring poorer people with little education. The study “shows how natural selection effects are stronger in groups with lower income and less education, among younger parents, people not living with a partner, and people with more lifetime sexual partners.”

[tn1911]

[Averageman]

No kidding I remember having this discussion when I was about 13 with a friend's older brother.
In summary when people are broke they can't do a lot of fun things, but they can have lots of sex which leads to babies.
And poor people don't think ahead or plan anything, they're poor and they want to feel better which leads to more babies and becoming even poorer trying to feed them all.

[flenna]

It’s easy to have lots of kids when the taxpayers are providing your housing, groceries, income, cell phone, medical care, etc…. And the more kids you crank out the more money you get.

[WillBrink]

Not clear how that upended anything, but out breeding your rivals is a well known strategy for winning the evolutionary race to dominate and "win" the race. Modern cultural and political realities impact that also.

[FromMyColdDeadHand]

There is not 'right' outcome. Evolution isn't 'smart', have a plan, or and end game in 'mind'. Drives me nuts when people make it sound like COVID has a 'plan'. It's all just probabilities in relation to gene EXPRESSION and the probability that those give better outcomes. And it isn't just genes- how they are expressed due to environmental factors is really important too.

[tn1911]

Not clear how that upended anything, but out breeding your rivals is a well known strategy for winning the evolutionary race to dominate and "win" the race. Modern cultural and political realities impact that also.

When only stupid people are breeding it’s a problem.

[WillBrink]

When only stupid people are breeding it’s a problem.

Of course, but has nothing to do with upending anything as to evolutionary forces and such. We are in fact preventing normal Darwinian process by not making sure being stupid more likely to prevent one from passing on those genes as we save them from themselves over and over. Hence my added "Modern cultural and political realities impact that also" comment.

[SteyrAUG]

It’s easy to have lots of kids when the taxpayers are providing your housing, groceries, income, cell phone, medical care, etc…. And the more kids you crank out the more money you get.

This.

Not clear how that upended anything, but out breeding your rivals is a well known strategy for winning the evolutionary race to dominate and "win" the race. Modern cultural and political realities impact that also.

And this.

We have to a large extent evolved our environment to us and people now are adapting to THAT environment. And we are also practicing artificial selection (where a favored bias is protected) than natural selection.

[WillBrink]

This.



And this.

We have to a large extent evolved our environment to us and people now are adapting to THAT environment. And we are also practicing artificial selection (where a favored bias is protected) than natural selection.

True natural selection does happen with many (most?) modern humans, and we are now "selecting" for idiots. Hence the great movie and all manner of metrics indicating people are getting dumber. Good old human hubris modern all inclusive bubble rapped risk averse US culture. Anyone with two neurons saw this coming decades ago.