Natural selection

http://www.nytimes.com/1993/09/25/us/miracle-child-is-survivor.html

How would an A/A decipher this kind of story in the face of natural selection?

Do you think there was something genetically wrong with the Chancey's?

What do you mean by "was something genetically wrong with the Chanceys"?

Are you suggesting that this girls handicap was a genetic mutation that allowed her to survive the train wreck... Thus her being "naturally selected" and ultimately passing along her hadicap to her offspring who, in the event of a train crash, may have a better chance at survival?

bullethead said:

What do you mean by "was something genetically wrong with the Chanceys"?

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Why would two seemingly healthy and capable adults sacrifice themselves for a handicapped child? It seems to fly in the face of natural selection.

swampstalker24 said:

Are you suggesting that this girls handicap was a genetic mutation that allowed her to survive the train wreck... Thus her being "naturally selected" and ultimately passing along her hadicap to her offspring who, in the event of a train crash, may have a better chance at survival?

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Huh?

stringmusic said:

Why would two seemingly healthy and capable adults sacrifice themselves for a handicapped child? It seems to fly in the face of natural selection.

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String, do you have any clue as to how Natural Selection works?
It has little if anything to do with self preservation as an individual. It has everything to do with the changes in nature and a species ability to be able to adapt or not.
All animals have a motherly or parental instinct.

stringmusic said:

Why would two seemingly healthy and capable adults sacrifice themselves for a handicapped child? It seems to fly in the face of natural selection.

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Based on the article, you are starting with a false premise.

When Andrea felt herself being pushed out of a train car window into a murky Alabama bayou in Wednesday's fatal crash, she thought it was her parents acting in one last selfless gesture. But she will never know for sure.

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So far starters its not a fact that two seemingly healthy and capable adults sacrificed themselves.
It might have been somebody with 2 weeks to live and therefore saved the "stronger" person.
Next, the assumption is that because she is in a wheel chair she is therefore the "weaker" one.
How about her mental capacity?
If she evolved the mental capacity to cure cancer is she still the "weaker" one?

The whole premise is carp.

One example of natural selection I remember is dandelions in your yard. It's early summer and they're all growing pretty good, the tall and short varieties.
Then you start mowing the lawn. The tall variety doesn't get to grow any fruit to produce. The short variety does. The tall variety dies off and the short variety lives to reproduce.

It doesn't sound like a deep concept even for us Christians.

I do wonder though if at some point such as with humans and other higher evolved animals is that we develop compassion as a basic survival instinct.
We start to care for children who are retarded or handicapped that in lower evolved animals would not survive due to lack of parental care. We also protect and care for our sick and elderly.
This compassion is itself a part of natural selection.

I would think if one was to look at all religions and even small isolated islands you would find this compassion. Perhaps it is a survival skill needed for certain types of communal living. I don't think humans are the only creation that does this.

I can see a natural selection in humans of men/fathers becoming more involved in the care of their infants as a type of compassion survival. We have mutated from just a bread winner to a care giver. Not only with our children but also with our aging parents. The man in today's society has mutated into a compassionate caregiver.

I am the irrefutable proof of failure in the theory of natural selection. But this is my purpose, in the natural.

There is no natural selection. God called the chancy's home but he still has plans for the daughter.

WaltL1 said:

Based on the article, you are starting with a false premise.

So far starters its not a fact that two seemingly healthy and capable adults sacrificed themselves.
It might have been somebody with 2 weeks to live and therefore saved the "stronger" person.
Next, the assumption is that because she is in a wheel chair she is therefore the "weaker" one.
How about her mental capacity?
If she evolved the mental capacity to cure cancer is she still the "weaker" one?

The whole premise is carp.

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Yeah it sounds unlikely to me that as a train is going off a bridge where presumably physics is still working and people and objects are being tossed about that two parents would suddenly grab their kid and throw them out a window. Because we all know when you're on a train falling off a bridge your best chance of survival is to go out a window of the train. Sounds like an unlikely premise.

To strings question there are two different factors at play in your question as it relates to natural selection. The first is parents that instinctively care for their offspring. I assume you can see how that trait improves survival rates of offspring and thereby becomes more prevalent in the gene pool. The second is the fitness for survival of the offspring. That is a separate matter. Let's suppose in this particular case the offspring is not fit for survival and fails to pass on their genes to another generation. That would mean natural selection worked against them and against the parents and their instinctive altruism. But the gene pool isn't determined by one individual case. It is determined by the aggregate of individual cases over time.

Artfuldodger said:

I do wonder though if at some point such as with humans and other higher evolved animals is that we develop compassion as a basic survival instinct.
We start to care for children who are retarded or handicapped that in lower evolved animals would not survive due to lack of parental care. We also protect and care for our sick and elderly.
This compassion is itself a part of natural selection.

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Slightly off topic but, interesting...at least to me.
I was watching an animal show that featured a pride of lions. One of the females, that use to be the leader, had a badly damaged lower jaw. She couldn't hunt and had trouble eating. After a kill, she would wonder over to the carcass and another female would hold the carcass open so the female with the damaged jaw could reach the tender parts. I thought that was amazing. Normally, this type of injury is a death sentence.

Sorry for the tangent.

660griz said:

Slightly off topic but, interesting...at least to me.
I was watching an animal show that featured a pride of lions. One of the females, that use to be the leader, had a badly damaged lower jaw. She couldn't hunt and had trouble eating. After a kill, she would wonder over to the carcass and another female would hold the carcass open so the female with the damaged jaw could reach the tender parts. I thought that was amazing. Normally, this type of injury is a death sentence.

Sorry for the tangent.

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Watch what they do to that injured lioness in times of scarcity.

If String is trying to show that compassion or altruism demontsrates that God exists then what does that brace of ducks around his neck in his avatar show? I wonder if String had biscuits and gravy before going on that hunt? Which Ranger bass boat would Jesus buy?

If a Christian is to show that Jesus and the Bible informs us how to be altruistic then they should show us by example. Every extra penny not spent feeding a hungry child has blood on it. (I'm gonna attribute that quote to William MacAskill cause that who I heard it from).

stringmusic said:

Why would two seemingly healthy and capable adults sacrifice themselves for a handicapped child? It seems to fly in the face of natural selection.

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That has nothing to do with natural selection-except that according to the theory of natural selection, if enough people sacrificed themselves, the ones who didn't sacrifice themselves would be at a genetic advantage in passing on their DNA, while the sacrificers would be at a disadvantage for having their DNA passed on. And maybe eventually, there would be less people with the trait of being willing to sacrifice themselves. And if enough healthy people sacrificed themselves to save genetically handicapped people, eventually there would be less healthy people and more genetically handicapped people.

ambush80 said:

Watch what they do to that injured lioness in times of scarcity.

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Same thing we do.
"Cannibalism: Survivor of the 1972 Andes plane crash describes the 'terrible' decision he had to make to stay alive."

NCHillbilly said:

That has nothing to do with natural selection-except that according to the theory of natural selection, if enough people sacrificed themselves, the ones who didn't sacrifice themselves would be at a genetic advantage in passing on their DNA, while the sacrificers would be at a disadvantage for having their DNA passed on. And maybe eventually, there would be less people with the trait of being willing to sacrifice themselves. And if enough healthy people sacrificed themselves to save genetically handicapped people, eventually there would be less healthy people and more genetically handicapped people.

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As demonstrated by the wondrously delicious bluegill:

https://books.google.com/books?id=E...sh bluegills and altruistic bluegills&f=false

Some are nest guarders, some are free riders. The balance of both turns out to be the best survival strategy for the species.