I have often thought in the past about how many people in civilization have genetic traits which would be completely unviable in wild nature. For example, poor eyesight is an obvious and uncontroversial one.

Perhaps and perhaps not. Technicaly, we are just as much in “wild nature” as we ever were, as least when speaking of adaptation- and many of the things we believe are “strengths” or advntages are not necessarily. For example, if you’re a large, agressive grasshopper, you might have a mating advantage over a smal, wcowardly one- but you also might get eaten by a bird. In evolution, it is usually one trait or a small number that are crucial during critical evolutionary periods. Sharp eyesight is not necessarily a survival mechanism today 9or not so much as before), so it isn’t being selected for. Generaly speaking, an evolutionary advantage goes to whoever can have babies, or more babies, so only those traits which are relevant at the time ever matter.

The problem with eugenics and Nazi Darwinism is, they thought that a) evolution was progressive (it isn’t- it’s purely adaptive), and that they could project an “ideal” state. Since it was already assumed that certain races were ‘inferior,’ they went with an idealized race based on ancestry, because that ‘race’ was automatically ’strong’ and was being overrun by ‘babying’ the ‘inferior’ races. This was one reason Hitler despised social welfare systems. Of course, had they sicceeded, they wouldn’t have created a “super race,” they’d have shrunk the available gene pool, which is KEY to successful adaptation. More and more varied genes mean more chances for survival.

Sure, someone handicapped isn’t going to make it if they suddenly become a leopard- but one of humanity’s adaptive traits is that we are social, and we care for one another, giving even the “weaker” some chance at survival.

based on Darwin’s work Origin of the Species

Tim, the book title is The Origin of Species and the tiny detail of the placement of the “the” really does make a difference.

Similarly, the western ideas of dialectic and debate conflate the subconceptual memetic level with the conceptual level of “ideas.” You often hear things like “Ideas compete in the marketplace,” but the “archetypal” concepts, which form the “genome” of an idea may be what are actually competing.

(O.T. but I was reminded of a really interesting book I have called “The Geography of Thought,” which compares the thought-habits of Asian and English subjects. I couldn’t have imagined anyone ever responding in the ways the Asians did in some experiments.)

it wasn’t until later that science established the mind as the overriding factor in achievement, and most culutres are so deeply racist they preffer not to fully acknowledge that fact.