# Reverse Darwinism? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 14, 2013, 12:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reverse-darwinism/671207 "2013-10-14T12:04:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![jsutter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/8e8cbc/32.png) [@jsutter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsutter)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2013, 12:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reverse-darwinism/671207/1 "2013-10-14T12:04:20Z")
A recent New Yorker cartoon depicts a woman talking to a man at a cocktail party saying, “I read somewhere that people are stupid.” \*\*\*\*\* Read about it? Just look around. 🙂 " … Poor women generally have more kids than middle-class women, while women who drop out of high school have more than those who graduate, and way more than those who earn advanced degrees. All this adds up, Last writes, to a “kind of reverse Darwinism where the traditional markers of success make one less likely to reproduce.” > **[Head Count](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/10/21/head-count-3)** > > Fertilizer, fertility, and the clashes over population growth. I’m not sure that this is debate material but I’d to hear some thoughts on the general question, is our present education system maladaptive? \*\*\*\*\* I can’t reference the cartoon but I did download it. If someone will tell me how to post it on the internet :o , I will. Aloha ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2013, 12:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reverse-darwinism/671207/2 "2013-10-14T12:13:28Z")
Why single out the education system? Why not the economic system? Or the medical system? ---
**Author:** ![Kable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ed655f/32.png) [@Kable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kable)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2013, 12:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reverse-darwinism/671207/3 "2013-10-14T12:18:43Z")
> [@jsutter](#): > > I’m not sure that this is debate material but I’d to hear some thoughts on the general question, is our present education system maladaptive? I was thinking more along the lines of the current welfare system being maladaptive. Anyway you have to watch this flick: [Idiocracy - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiocracy) ---
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2013, 12:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reverse-darwinism/671207/4 "2013-10-14T12:22:24Z")
Herbert Spenser’s Social Darwinism has been discredited. What does education have to do with intelligence (as economic factors have a much higher correlation with academic success than IQ scores) or with “Darwinism?” I do see that education may be strongly linked to subscriptions to the New Yorker but that is not the big picture. Reproductive success is the only measure of “success” in a given environment, despite what the New Yorkers’ writers might feel about “traditional markers.” ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2013, 12:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reverse-darwinism/671207/5 "2013-10-14T12:27:23Z")
> [@jsutter](#): > > " … Poor women generally have more kids than middle-class women, while women who drop out of high school have more than those who graduate, and way more than those who earn advanced degrees. All this adds up, Last writes, to a “kind of reverse Darwinism where the traditional markers of success make one less likely to reproduce.” That’s not Darwinism, reverse or otherwise. The only success that counts in Darwinian terms is success at reproduction. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2013, 12:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reverse-darwinism/671207/6 "2013-10-14T12:28:41Z")
And it is an old story. Very old. A hundred years ago people claiming to base themselves on “Darwinism” were giving dire warnings about “degeneracy” in the population. > [@jsutter](#): > > I’m not sure that this is debate material but I’d to hear some thoughts on the general question, is our present education system maladaptive? The trick would be to make sure the children of the each generation’s left-behinds get equally into a _good_ education system so _ **they** _ are able to access through it both education and economic stability, wouldn’t it? Have the intelligentsia replenish itself not through its own reproduction but through “immigration” by upward mobility of others. ---
**Author:** ![jsutter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/8e8cbc/32.png) [@jsutter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsutter)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2013, 12:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reverse-darwinism/671207/7 "2013-10-14T12:31:34Z")
> [@Kable](#): > > I was thinking more along the lines of the current welfare system being maladaptive. Anyway you have to watch this flick: [Idiocracy - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiocracy) Alohahahaha. I’ll get it. Meanwhile here’s a brief peek. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0O7\_3o3BrI](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0O7_3o3BrI) [/hijack]😉 ---
**Author:** ![jsutter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/8e8cbc/32.png) [@jsutter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsutter)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2013, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reverse-darwinism/671207/8 "2013-10-14T12:49:45Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > Why single out the education system? Why not the economic system? Or the medical system? See below. > [@DrFidelius](#): > > Herbert Spenser’s Social Darwinism has been discredited. What does education have to do with intelligence (as economic factors have a much higher correlation with academic success than IQ scores) or with “Darwinism?” I do see that education may be strongly linked to subscriptions to the New Yorker but that is not the big picture. > > Reproductive success is the only measure of “success” in a given environment, despite what the New Yorkers’ writers might feel about “traditional markers.” > [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > That’s not Darwinism, reverse or otherwise. The only success that counts in Darwinian terms is success at reproduction. Does the article say something different? The less educated produce more kids. > [@JRDelirious](#): > > And it is an old story. Very old. A hundred years ago people claiming to base themselves on “Darwinism” were giving dire warnings about “degeneracy” in the population. “I read somewhere that people are stupid”. Maybe it’s just better publicized today. > [@](#): > > The trick would be to make sure the children of the each generation’s left-behinds get equally into a _good_ education system so _ **they** _ are able to access through it both education and economic stability, wouldn’t it? Have the intelligentsia replenish itself not through its own reproduction but through “immigration” by upward mobility of others. To be sure. Talk to the 1% who run things and who have in thirty destroyed the middle-class. They have no interest “upward mobility”. Aloha ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2013, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reverse-darwinism/671207/9 "2013-10-14T12:59:05Z")
> [@jsutter](#): > > Does the article say something different? The less educated produce more kids. And so what? Poor people have more kids everywhere. This is mostly about class hatred, culminating in the idea that the poor should be [sterilized](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buck_v._Bell) or [killed off](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Marching_Morons) before the “morons” overrun the self-appointed “elite”. ---
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2013, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reverse-darwinism/671207/10 "2013-10-14T13:05:44Z")
I am not quite sure what you think you are saying. “Darwinian” success is not a value judgment, and is irrelevant to any question about social equality, improvement in the (American) education system, cartoons mocking the pretensions of the intelligentsia, or declining readership of New Yorker magazine. ---
**Author:** ![jsutter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/8e8cbc/32.png) [@jsutter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsutter)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2013, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reverse-darwinism/671207/11 "2013-10-14T13:06:17Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > And so what? Poor people have more kids everywhere. This is mostly about class hatred, culminating in the idea that the poor should be [sterilized](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buck_v._Bell) or [killed off](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Marching_Morons) before the “morons” overrun the self-appointed “elite”. No argument here. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGL8FEMc378](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGL8FEMc378) ---
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2013, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reverse-darwinism/671207/12 "2013-10-14T13:09:34Z")
Use your words, not youtube links. ---
**Author:** ![jsutter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/8e8cbc/32.png) [@jsutter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsutter)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2013, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reverse-darwinism/671207/13 "2013-10-14T13:20:29Z")
> [@DrFidelius](#): > > Use your words, not youtube links. Thanks for the advice. I think they speak for me, tho. > [@DrFidelius](#): > > I am not quite sure what you think you are saying. “Darwinian” success is not a value judgment, … :smack: While we’re at it, and this is the last time I will address the issue, I never implied that it was. If you inferred that, what more can I say? Aloha ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2013, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reverse-darwinism/671207/14 "2013-10-14T13:35:40Z")
Besides the fact that the OP is misusing the term “Darwinian”, there’s another false assumption: that society functions better when everyone is of high intelligence. Certainly we need a professional class. We need scientists, engineers, doctors, journalists, etc. We also need intelligent leaders. When you have a bunch of dumb politicians, you have prolonged government shutdowns with no end in sight. But we also need people who don’t mind scrubbing toilets for a living and who can endure the monotony of manual labor. Even with increased automation, we will still have jobs that are better suited for the high school graduate versus the Ph.D. It should also be said that while poor women shouldn’t be having children in their financial situation, they are more “biologically” smarter than middle-class women who wait until all their ducks are in a row, at the expense of their fertility. But I see changes in the horizon. One day, when it becomes cheap enough, it will be normal for women in their 20s to freeze their eggs. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2013, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reverse-darwinism/671207/15 "2013-10-14T13:44:48Z")
> [@jsutter](#): > > Maybe it’s just better publicized today. It isn’t better publicized. These sorts of theories have been around since evolution entered the popular consciousness, and they still don’t make sense. They also show no signs of going away because they play into that age-old fear that everything’s going to go to shit and the stupid are going to ruin everything. ---
**Author:** ![jsutter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/8e8cbc/32.png) [@jsutter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsutter)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2013, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reverse-darwinism/671207/16 "2013-10-14T13:53:13Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > … > But we also need people who don’t mind scrubbing toilets for a living and who can endure the monotony of manual labor. Even with increased automation, we will still have jobs that are better suited for the high school graduate versus the Ph.D. > … Certainly true. College isn’t for every one. I dropped out after two years and have both cleaned toilets as a campground mgr and have endured the monotony of manual labor. I’m none the worse for it. But I did have an excellent secondary education which, as near as I can tell, is no longer available to much of the population. Aloha ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2013, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reverse-darwinism/671207/17 "2013-10-14T14:02:49Z")
> [@jsutter](#): > > No argument here. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGL8FEMc378](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGL8FEMc378) Gotta backup Dr Fidelus on this one. Jsutter, posting links - whether YouTube or otherwise is an invalid form of debate. I’m not issuing a warning this time but do so again and you’ll get one. Remember, YOU are responsible for your argument. Posting a link and saying “how 'bout it?” Is the equivalent of “let’s you and him fight!” ---
**Author:** ![jsutter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/8e8cbc/32.png) [@jsutter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsutter)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2013, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reverse-darwinism/671207/18 "2013-10-14T14:09:05Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > It isn’t better publicized. These sorts of theories have been around since evolution entered the popular consciousness, and they still don’t make sense. They also show no signs of going away because they play into that age-old fear that everything’s going to go to shit and the stupid are going to ruin everything. IMO, everything HAS GONE to shit and it is the 1% who have saddled us with the “stupid” by dumbing down our educational system to the point that (as Carlin above points out) critical thinking is discouraged. Aloha ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2013, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reverse-darwinism/671207/19 "2013-10-14T14:10:11Z")
> [@DrFidelius](#): > > Use your words, not youtube links. I can only assume that the OP does not understand the New Yorker cartoon he is going on about. Otherwise the irony between what you’ve observed here and the humor of the cartoon would be so great as to be incapacitating. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2013, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reverse-darwinism/671207/20 "2013-10-14T14:12:56Z")
> [@jsutter](#): > > IMO, everything HAS GONE to shit and it is the 1% who have saddled us with the “stupid” by dumbing down our educational system to the point that (as Carlin above points out) critical thinking is discouraged. And so far your evidence for this has consisted of a comedic movie, a stand-up comedian and a cartoon. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/reverse-darwinism/671207.md?page=2)