Final Word from Wednesday, April 14, 2010
How much longer can we fool Darwin? According to the Origin of Species, the process of natural selection should lead to a continual improvement of the human breed. We should be getting stronger, smarter and more resistant. Instead, our educational systems are increasingly geared toward the least common denominator, and our social and health systems are designed to preserve the weak. Our faltering companies are shielded from Darwinism by state subsidies that keep the weak alive at the expense of the fit. Now even entire governments are being kept on life support. According to Thomas Robert Malthus and his Principle of Population, war, famine or disease should wipe out perhaps hundreds of millions of people. In a sense, this would be evidence that Darwin can be fooled temporarily, but not permanently. But then maybe we're safe. After all, Darwinism and Malthusianism are only theories.[Czech Republic Greece]
Glossary of difficult words
to fool someone - to prove someone wrong; to confound someone;
breed - a stock of animals within a species having a distinctive appearance and typically having been developed by deliberate selection;
resistant - invulnerable or immune to;
geared toward - adjusted or adapted;
least/lowest common denominator - the most basic, least sophisticated level of taste, sensibility or opinion among a group of people;
faltering - struggling, starting to lose strength;
life support - maintenance of the vital functions of a critically ill or comatose person or a person undergoing surgery.