Re: virus: Evolution (YES again)

sodom (Sodom@ma.ultranet.com)
Mon, 13 Jul 1998 17:11:31 -0400


Interesting idea - but Ill take a shot at it. It seems to me that civilization
is evolution too, that to be evolutionaly (if that is a word) viable as a
human, you MUST be able to fit into civilization. Once again, I blame religion
for the whole problem. People who should not be reproducing by the dozens are,
partly due to bad education, but mostly because "civilization" and "Religion"
demand it of them. The Catholic church for instance is doing everything in its
power to stop HMO's from paying for contraceptives, and that is here in the
states. What of Mexico and South America where Catholicism is virtually the
law? Unfortunatly my emotions dont quite match logic - empathy keeps me from
saying "let the sick die!" - even though it might be beneficial to us in the
long run.

As for Genetic engineering - we would be fools not to explore it as much as
possible, but fools to release into the wild something we dont fully understad
either. There is no doubt that genetic engineering will become commonplace in
the future, maybe sooner than the fearful would like - I mean, lets face it, we
could clone a human if we wanted, quite easily if we dont mind loosing a couple
hundred fetuses in the process. Of course it will be a while til we know cause
"every fetus has a soul"(a concept that I find repugnant) and therefor we dont
clone. Hopefully I will be able to have a say in the genewtic offerings of my
own children, I would take the step, but I fear I may be done reproducing
before the option arises.

Sodom

Eric Boyd wrote:

> Hi,
>
> A more interesting thing to consider is the results of a systematic health
> care system. For instance, what does consistently saving babies that would
> other-wise have died do to the continuning ability of the species to
> propagate?
>
> How about eye-glasses? The longer we use them, the more of the population
> *needs* to use them!
>
> These and other issues make me wonder about the long term (ten of thousands
> of years and up) viability of this thing we call "civilization". Are we
> breeding people who cannot survive without it? If so, how long until even
> our bests efforts will not be able to "cure" the debased gene's of the
> culture?
>
> Maybe genetic engineering is not a only likely but a *necessary* step for a
> galactic civilization!
>
> ERiC