Natural Selection in the Human World

The longer I live, the more I discover the truth of the theory of evolution by means of natural selection, proposed by Charles Darwin, an English scientist whose 207th birthday was just celebrated – on 12 February.

Charles Darwin statue at a museum

How? You might be asking. It is simple: by looking at our own society.

Let's play a bit of a game. Ask yourself what you do for a living? Got your answer? Now ask why you do that. Got your answer again? Ask again: why? Do the same procedure over and over, and if you are "normal" – by "normal", I mean you are not a psychopath or that sort of thing – you will end up giving an answer that sounds more or less like "so that (modern) humans a.k.a. Homo sapiens will always survive." Yes, the keyword is "survive".

You might be a computer programmer, trying to make the most helpful applications for the world (including for yourself). Hopefully, humankind  (including you, who gets a salary) will benefit in some way because of your work or products. You might be a doctor, trying to heal sick people or patients in hope that the existence of the human race will go on and on. Whatever you are, if you think about it carefully and thoroughly, this should be your ultimate purpose.

Now we look at the "agonizing" part. How many people are poor? How many people are on the street, begging for money and food? How many people are suffering? How many people have died before their life expectancy? This is probably the result of their laziness, which is a quality that natural selection doesn't favor. Their unwillingness to develop or improve themselves in some way is what caused them to be so. However, many of the pitiful are in their states not because of their "faults", but by misfortune: an example would be children with AIDS, who inherited the disease from their mothers. Thankfully, some people are so kind that they help these "unfortunate" people to live as long as they can, by being volunteers or that kind of thing (again, for the continuity of our species). It is a shame that racism still exists in the world: black, yellow, brown and white people are different variations but they are the same species, aren't they?

On the other hand, we see "successful" people, those who seem to be happy and are likely to live longer than others. They have worked hard, increasing their skill to contribute to the world, and as a result, they reap what they have sown. They are also more likely to have more offspring that will be great representatives of the next generation of humans. And, on a larger scale, we all should learn from these people and foster the good attitudes that they have in order to ensure our future existence as one species.