Are we as a species making our selves weaker?

Question

Is all of our technology and medicine actually make humans as a species weaker....if we lose all of that could we survive? I hear that people who take medicine for every little thing, acutally have weaker imune systems that people who allow thier body to do the work itself....Most species will weed out the weaker animals in some way shape or form....are our morals helping or hurting the species, and would only allowing the stronger smarter people breed actually be a benifit for the species...and one final thought. All the domestic animals we raise..we only want to breed for the improvement of the breed(dogs, cows, etc..)...why do most people think this is bad for people....Your thoughts please...

Answer 1

yeah, you're most right. All of our technologies nowadays, especially ones that are related to health are mostly making us, as a whole species, weaker. While we're producing medicines, etc, our own body system have gotten weaker. Several months ago, I read about an article, that basically says, a baby that is exposed to dirty might live longer and be healthier in the long run. The article's test subject is fruit flies, some fruit flies which is exposed to normal, dirty world live longer on average than other test groups that are bred on a clinical sterile environment.

The exact same logic can also be applied to human, immune system develops the most at young age, and we all know that immune system can only develops if they have a sample of their enemies (thats the reason why injecting a weakened virus aka vaccines makes our body immune to the disease). And a superbly clean environment of hospitals cuts the babies' immune system supply of enemies.

Just look at human babies, they're kept for several days on a super sterilized environment of hospital, that might hurt the babies on the long run. They are rather similar (in a sense) to the sterilized lab fruit flies.

Sickness, especially genetical sickness are actually self-correcting. Bad evolution (that leads to genetical disorder, or disease carried by genes) naturally makes an individual have smaller chance of living, and thus preventing the widespread of such disorders. Actually, if we stop curing the diabetics, and other genes-related disease, the disease would slowly disappears in time. Genetical disorder have the tendency to be recessive and this is the best feature of the self-correcting gene. We actually worsens the problem of gene related disease by extending the life of the sufferer. However, morally, we, as a civilized human race, wouldn't be able to just genocide whomever that has genes that carries diabetic disorder (or any gene related disease).

THIS is the problem.

Answer 2

I strongly believe that society (in a health sense) is definitely getting weaker. When the body is sick, without medication the immune system generates a strong response and uses itself to fight the foreign pathogen...and remnants of these fighting self cells are around to help fend off the same pathogen again to decrease chances of becoming sick again. When you introduce medicine, a foreign agent, into the body to fight an infection, disease, etc., the body does not have a chance to defend itself and must rely majorly on the medication to feel better. I think that as technology advances, people are realizing that "oh, well, I don't have to feel pain so I won't" and they take medication after medication to ward off any discomfort. But if you notice, those people who take mediction seem to get sick more often and take more medications as they are older than those who just fight off most diseases naturally.

I also am a firm believer that the foods that we eat today that contain so many unnatural chemicals that the FDA "deems" safe are the main cause of so many cancer cases.

Is it just me or is the world getting sicker and is practically everyone getting some kind of cancer?

Down with genetically altered produce and non-organic fed livestock...up with small farmers and pesticide-free farms!

Down with big pharmaceutical companies and their far-fetched ideas to end sickness while creating even more sicknesses...up with embracing the natural healing process of the body that we are each born with!

Sorry....I'm a little opinionated on the subject :)

Answer 3

Don't forget that genetic illnesses that would have been "bred" out of our species in the past, a good example being diabetes, has now drug supplements that allow them to live somewhat normal lives. I am in no way against improving every individual's lives, but, to echo Aldous Huxley, our world is focused on saving all lives--not to preach against such things as limiting the amount of children we have, or birth control responsibility.

I read a lot of armageddon type sci-fi, and many of them have to do with the "What if" scenario: What would happen if some world tragedy occured right now in which we would suddenly be without our technology? I think we simply rely too much on technology that once it is taken away many of us would not be able to survive without it.

Answer 4

We are adapting to our current environment. If we were thrown back into a preindustrial age, we would definitely be weaker for a little while. But that wouldn't matter too much, because there are so many of us that we would continue to survive as a species.

We really don't have much in the way of competition as a species. We would just be combatting the environment, and it is hard to believe that a few wouldn't continue to survive and prosper.

Answer 5

No not at all. For a start we are increasing the diversity of the gene pool massively by marriage and interbreeding over a far wider geographic range than previously, therefore the likelihood of any one disease proving fatal to our species is much reduced.

As to your eugenic argument there are certain traits we could select for amongst humans bt there is no reason to think they would be 'improvements', are tall people neccesarily an improvement on short people, that together with the difficulty of even trying to select for intelligence (were Einsteins, Shakespeares or Newtons parents particularly intelligent?) should show how much of a dead end that line of thinking leads to.

Answer 6

We have killed off any truly chance to our species, we don't have any populace manipulate in essence. Tigers hunt animals therfore maintaining them in investigate. Snakes and hawks maintain vermin in investigate. The clinical and social alterations of our society has made us smooth and vulnerable however we hold to thrive now not for the reason that of evolution however science, for this reason frightening the stability. Ecology is not the obstacle, folks are. Most folks regard human euthanasia with disdain while it can be the unlucky but vital approach to save lots of us from ourselves.

Answer 7

Good question!

It doesn't seem that way but, it is a likely outcome.