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Originally Posted by cthulu23
Good old fashioned Darwinism? How does that work? Do you victimize the weak, elderly or young because they are easier targets?
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I don’t' think you understand what Darwinism is. In its true form, Darwinism isn't survival of the fittest in terms of being smarter, stronger, faster, whatever. Its the ability to reproduce. It doesn’t matter how you do this, as long as your genes get passed on to the next generation. If you do this by 'victimizing the weak' or setting up a daycare facility it doesn't matter, as long as you have kids who in turn reproduce.
Social Darwinism is thinking that the upper classes in society are the upper classes because they are better then the lower classes. They are smarter, more gifted, whatever. It is used by some as an excuse to exploit the lower classes, or not care about their issues. While there is some truth that more gifted individuals may rise above their peers in social status, it has nothing to do with Darwinism. In fact because the upper classes tend to have fewer kids, they are 'less fit' then the lower classes. Now one study did challenge this by looking at children fathered out of wedlock, aka bastards, and found that the higher your rank in society the more bastard children you had and in fact, by Darwinism, you would be more fit (it was done for Spain and Spanish Royalty) but I'd think that was more of a blip (plus I'm not sure how they determined parentage) then a true trend.
Now lets take abortion. Abortion is limiting someone’s reproduction. Without abortion they would have a child who would pass on their genes in turn. With abortion this does not happen. As far as Darwinism is concerned these people may as well be infertile as they do not have any viable offspring.
Those more inclined to have children will, while those who are not won't. As a long trend this could very well effect human evolution.