Quote Originally Posted by Adrian II View Post
Or getting stone drunk, or smoking cigarettes, or driving recklessly, or ..

Nah, humans clearly have a self-destructive streak that is in no way linked to survival. The balance is different in each individual, but it's there.

Go tell that to homosexuals.

EDIT
By the way, haven't you heard of the theory that genes really use humans to pass themselves on, not the other way around? It's all the rage since 1976 and the publication of The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins.
Didn't one of the 3419 books you've read since 1976 mention sexual selection?

Jared Diamond explains the phenomenon succinctly in his 'The Third Chimpansee' of 1992, in chapter eleven. One does not pass on traits that benefit survival, one passes on traits that make breeding more likely.
This is why peacocks have those clumsy, yet fantastically attractive tails. It may not be handy when dealing with a tiger with a taste for Bengali Fried Peacock, but it sure catches the eye of the females. This is why humans have similar destructive traits.

Smoking, recklessness, alcohol and drugs show that your genes are so superior, that you can afford to waste, and still function.
Alcohol also has the added benefit of reducing sexual inhibition, thus increasing the chance of pregnancy, which in turn passes on the genetic combination that likes alcohol.

These phenomena are well-recorded throughout the animal world. (Including the use of drugs). I shared the genetic advantages and the widespread occurance of homosexuality throughout the natural world in another thread.


Also, I remember you once praising Stephen Jay Gould's infinitely more refined mind over that of Dawkins? Or was that reserved for Dawkins the atheist activist, but not aimed at Dawkins the evolutionary theorist?



Anyway, breeding stupidity is not limited to the human world. Evolution does not 'better' a species, it increases the number of the individuals in a species, to breaking point. Wretched, hungry, miserable creatures, that is what the earth is inhabited with.
The reckless, stupid, beer guzzling and risk-taking trash is evolutionary programmed to outbreed the others, and will continue to do so as long as it doesn't tilt a breaking point for his group. It is the same for many species.