A bit of a weird question: Can modern medicine be a threat to humanity long-term by greatly reducing effects of natural selection?
A bit of a weird question: Can modern medicine be a threat to humanity long-term by greatly reducing effects of natural selection?
OK, I hope my question doesn't get misunderstood, I can see how that could happen.
Just a product of overthinking.
Idea is that we can live fairly easily even with some diseases/disorders which could be-life threatening. Many of these are hereditary.
Since modern medicine increases our survival capabilities, the "weaker" individuals can also survive and have offsprings that could potentially inherit these weaknesses, and as this continues it could perhaps leave nearly all people suffering from such conditions further into future.
Does that sound like a realistic scenario? (Assuming we don't destroy ourselves along with the environment first...)
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Same question rephrased: Can seat belts be a threat to humanity long-term by greatly reducing the effects of natural selection? After all, stronger individuals are more likely to survive car crashes.
What about wood stoves? Surely the fittest individuals are able to handle the cold?
We removed ourselves from "natural selection" a long time ago.
And yet, we have not, for these inventions are the Adaptations developed by other humans for the purpose of the propagation of genetics similar to their own
I think we're in a more similar position to birds of paradise. Several species of birds that live in the south Pacific/Indian ocean islands/Australia kind of region, where the weather isn't particularly harsh, their food is abundant and there are no natural predators, so natural selection has given way to mate selection. Male birds of paradise are fancy as fuck with brightly colored burlesque plumage not because it's any help surviving their environment, but because the girl birds think it's sexy.
I think our genus is in a similar position, but got there via a different route. Once the upright walking, hands having, brain thinking ape got dexterous and smart enough to build fire and cook food, there was a sort of bootstrapping period of becoming smart enough to do engineering, at which point we arrive at anatomically modern humans, and from there most physical changes have basically been "because it's sexy." Men have deeper voices because it turns women on. Women have permanent boobs because it turns men on, etc. People from Asia have distinctively shaped eyelids...is there some environmental pressure in Asia that doesn't exist in Europe or Africa, or is it because that eye shape became fashionable to ancient Asians?
And now we've arrived in a time where we have a functioning understanding of how genetics work, and the ability to manipulate those genetics at industrial scales. Seriously I think we departed the "it was cold so the ones with thicker fur were more likely to survive to fuck another day" phase of existence at some point, with the invention of writing at the latest.
All of this is true, and I agree with it, but until we start employing genetic modifications to our own population, this is all still just natural selection in the same way that celibate worker drone bees building nests for their hive is natural selection.