Reverse Darwinism

[CptSternn]

This article along with a few others that have come out over the past couple of years makes me think people are trying to fight natural selection.

http://www.newsobserver.com/news/story/789831.html

A quick summation for those who aren't inclined to click links...

The officers involved in the Duke lacrosse scandal...are all being promoted. Nevermind they had their testimony thrown out of court because they intentionally misled people with their shoddy investigation, and discount the fact they are being sued by everyone involved because they acted in such a manner - the police force, and the state, have decided they need to be promoted.

Promoting people who screw up, in efforts to counter lawsuits is against nature. A guy wrecks a forklift into a customer in a warehouse? Promote him out of the position and tell everyone he was a damn fine forklift driver, that way he can use it (as the company can) in court.

Get it 100% wrong on the pre-war intel? Give them all promotions, because the public is so stupid they won't notice.

Then there is my favourite - the NYC police department. Your most bravest, best trained first responders all die in 9/11? Promote all the idiots who didn't respond, or were too overweight to attempt to climb the stairs in the towers. Yeah, thats a brilliant idea.

I mean, in essence, they doing nothing less than promoting failure. They are taking the slow, fat, and stupid and advancing them above people who actually should be promoted.

It just seems more and more to hide their failure, people are intentionally fighting against nature, and good common sense, when it comes to advancement in many areas.

Reminds me of when Greg Louganis hit his head on the feckin' diving board backin in the '88 Olympics, and the judges still gave him a gold. Hell, he would have had to miss the pool totally...to have gotten the silver.

Promotions and advancements need to be based on ability and actions - not on personal politics and pay offs.

Anyone else noticing stories that fit into this troubling, growing trend?

[Drake Dun]

I don't know if the evolution reference was meant in seriousness, or simply as a rhetorical device. In case it was meant in seriousness, I'll point out that it gives a rather distorted picture of the theory. Take this example:

Originally Posted by CptSternn

Then there is my favourite - the NYC police department. Your most bravest, best trained first responders all die in 9/11?

If we are aligning the evaluative term "best" with the objective standard of selective fitness, then the guys who died trying to save others may have been, by definition, the worst rather than the best.

The picture gets complicated, of course. In this case they died, but it may be that the same genes that drove them to that death would give them a selective advantage under less unusual circumstances. And all of this is assuming that the personality traits in question are properly ascribable to genetic factors in a sufficiently direct way that selective pressure can bear upon them with meaningful results.

The point being, evolution is not about how species get "better", or how "society advances", or anything like that. To confuse those subjective values with the objective principles that underlie evolution is to seriously confuse one's understanding of both.

Anyone else noticing stories that fit into this troubling, growing trend?

They've always been there. The ones whose persistence astounds me the most are those involving medical care for veterans. Basically veterans have been getting the shit end of the stick since... well, forever. Way before I was born, anyway. And they keep on waving their flags and managing to feel good about murdering foreigners on foreign soil so that the same guys who consistently give them the shaft can advance their newest Machiavellian designs.

Then they come home short a limb or two, and reap the rewards of their servility.

Drake