I have a question for those who want to continue feeding Terri Schiavo: in your opinion, is Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection right or wrong?
Just curious.
Schiavo/Darwin Survey
I have a question for those who want to continue feeding Terri Schiavo: in your opinion, is Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection right or wrong? Just curious.
I smell a trap, but I’m going to go ahead and say that it’s right.
I’m not sure what this has to do with the price of Tea in China.
Evolution involves massive enviornmental forces and the pressures placed on entire populations of a species: in that context, the life or death of a single individual is moot.
Just looking for a little context is all.
One of the defining characteristics of an advanced civilization is that we care for many people who, through no fault of their own, would have little or no chance of long-term survival in a state of nature (or in a more primitive might-makes-right society).
For example, people who are mentally retarded, blind, unable to walk, etc., would be readily devoured by predators or killed by other humans.
I’m sure Richard wasn’t implying that we should just let “defective” or “weak” people die off or be killed to improve the species?
Another hallmark of our advanced civilization is our practice of respecting the power of individual self-determination, or choice. Thus, when an individual epxresses the desire to die rather than be maintained by life-support should they become hopelessly disabled, we honor that wish even if we personally wouldn’t have made it for ourselves.
And this is the essence of the Terri Schiavo dilemma.
I think that people can believe in Darwin’s theory or not. However, even if Darwin’s theory is correct, the killing of another, even if it is considered that his or her life is not valuable, is murder, not “natural selection.”
I never said otherwise, I simply asked out of curiosity if the people who advocated keeping Schiavo’s pump going generally believed in natural selection or not, on the assumption that natural selection is a theory that doesn’t rely on miracles. The belief that Schiavo would some day be healed seems to be fueled by a belief in Divine Intervention, but perhaps there was some other reason to leave the pumps on that I don’t know about.