Does the gene pool really improve if stupid people die?

[FingerDub]

I know I'm asking for it here, especially with that title, so call this an "entertainment posting".

No matter how small the percentage it could be .000000000000000000001 does the gene pool actually improve if dumb people die? I hear this all the time that when somebody dies who is doing something stupid and they claim that the gene pool has been improved.

I was just talking with a person of intellect IMO and he claimed the same thing after we we're just talking about people dying from taking selfies with bears, rattlesnakes and monkeys at the zoo.

 

[NMTB]

I know I'm asking for it here, especially with that title, so call this an "entertainment posting".

No matter how small the percentage it could be .000000000000000000001 does the gene pool actually improve if dumb people die? I hear this all the time that when somebody dies who is doing something stupid and they claim that the gene pool has been improved.

I was just talking with a person of intellect IMO and he claimed the same thing after we we're just talking about people dying from taking selfies with bears, rattlesnakes and monkeys at the zoo.

If they don't manage to breed first, yes.

 

[buldog5151bass]

Every little bit helps.

 

[Stumbo]

No.
What is it, about 40% of people in Europe died from the plague way back in the day.
Where are we now? Same place, same time. Statistics. Normal distribution, etc.

 

[NMTB]

No.
What is it, about 40% of people in Europe died from the plague way back in the day.
Where are we now? Same place, same time. Statistics. Normal distribution, etc.

Unfortunately, plague victims weren't generally infected through their own stupidity so the ratio of knucklehead-to-human in the death toll and survivors would have been an average spread.

 

[MattZilla]

Improved in what way? Stephen Hawking made me smile both less frequently and less intensely than did Paris Hilton.

 

[Downunderwonder]

If they don't manage to breed first, yes.

If they die before their offspring mature there is still a residual effect that their offspring will more likely kark it also.

 

[dreamadream99]

The theory is “survival of the fittest,” not smartest. Stupidcide doesn’t cure stupid.

 

[petrus61]

Current evidence points to no.

 

[NMTB]

The theory is “survival of the fittest,” not smartest. Stupidcide doesn’t cure stupid.

They generally shoot own-goals without the need for outside assistance. Stand back at a safe distance, is my approach.

 

[GIBrat51]

I think that it would depend on:
1. What traits we'd consider desirable for Homo Sapiens to have in the current (and foreseeably likely) future;
2. How we define "Stupid"; and
3. How #2 affects said people in regards to #1.
But, as things stand now? Provided they haven't bred, no, very little useful stuff ever comes out of the shallow end of the gene pool, IMO....

 

[shadowtippy]

I don't know whether to be optimistic or pessimistic about the Darwin Award Winners. The optimist in me thinks "another one is out of the gene pool" while the pessimist thinks "there are still too many of them."

 

[Old Garage-Bander]

I know I'm asking for it here, especially with that title, so call this an "entertainment posting".

No matter how small the percentage it could be .000000000000000000001 does the gene pool actually improve if dumb people die? I hear this all the time that when somebody dies who is doing something stupid and they claim that the gene pool has been improved.

I was just talking with a person of intellect IMO and he claimed the same thing after we we're just talking about people dying from taking selfies with bears, rattlesnakes and monkeys at the zoo.

When the question of are we becoming smarter or more stupid as a society finds its way into the conversation, I always cite my favorite definitive reference; The movie, Idiocracy. Perhaps not the most scholarly of treatments on the subject, but certainly to the point while being both funny, and a disturbingly sad look at our possible, not too distant future. Two hopefully opposable thumbs up on this one.

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[T_Bone_TL]

Only if they have not spawned first.

 

[Fishheadjoe]

Obviously not as there are still far too many drummers walking the earth!
Fishheadjoe

 

[Bob_Ross]

Having just finished reading one in-depth treatise on evolution and now halfway through another -- both by the same author, Daniel C. Dennett: Darwin's Dangerous Idea (1995) and Bacteria To Bach And Back (2017) -- I'm fairly convinced that the type of "fitness landscape improvements" that (might) result from stupid people dying off at a disproportionate rate to less-stupid people is not reflected in the gene pool.

Cultural transmissions -- of which education and/or metrics for intelligence are just one small subset -- evolve too quickly to have a dramatic impact on biology. The stupid [sic] people dying off today are substantially smarter than their ancestors (who by definition didn't die off, at least not before creating descendants) were 5,000 years ago, and yet they are biologically/genetically indistinguishable.

The fact that culture and language and memes (in the original sense, not in the Cute Internet Pictures With Captions sense) can so dramatically change human behavior in less-than-geologic time suggests that actual genetic evolution for Homo Sapiens may have reached its terminus. There's just no selection pressure forcing us to evolve biologically any more.

 

[basst scho]

When the question of are we becoming smarter or more stupid as a society finds its way into the conversation, I always cite my favorite definitive reference; The movie, Idiocracy. Perhaps not the most scholarly of treatments on the subject, but certainly to the point while being both funny, and a disturbingly sad look at our possible, not too distant future. Two hopefully opposable thumbs up on this one.

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that movie is my argument, too when this topic is brought up

we´re on the best way

 

[richntiff]

the problem is that evolution is most accurately assessed using something more akin to geologic time than how we tend to frame our references - which is, naturally, based on our own extremely limited life span.

 

[Funky Ghost]

I'm not concerned about the "stupid" people. The catastrophically stupid ones get vetted out by natural selection. The socially stupid ones get exposed then ridiculed, or shunned or imprisoned or killed.

I'm far more concerned with the clever bastards that try to convince us that stupid is ok. The purposeful dumbing (sic) down of "us" as a collective. THAT is who I would love to see purged. Unfortunately they have a seriously high self preservation instinct and a knack for turning scrutiny into table turning villainy.

Stupid takes care of itself.

Mostly

 

[Stewie26]

Our modern society tries to protect stupid people which therefore sometimes interferes with natural selection. For instance, a warning on electric hair dryer manual. " WARNING: Do not operate this device while in the shower or taking a bath." That said, stupid people never read the instructions anyway.