Now that I have written this title, I wonder why I have never before considered the context in which the term “natural selection” arose (and how this context perhaps influenced the selection of the term natural selection“). So I pulled a few volumes of decades-old paper encyclopedias off my shelves and in one of them found this sentence:
In the 18th and early 19th centuries what today is called natural selection was thought to be simply a kind of divine government maintaining natural forms in their proper proportions.
“Darwinism” in Encyclopedia Britannica (1973)
While this may sound antiquated, it is nonetheless documented (and therefore valid). In our world today, I believe we (humans) must evolve into a species which is somewhat more aware of our own role in the process of natural selection.
One example of this which also seems somewhat antiquated but is now becoming surprisingly relevant is the concept of nuclear annihilation. If a few humans — whether senile or otherwise deranged or not — decide to press a few buttons, the prospect of mass extinction on a scale no one alive has ever seen before can become quite realistic in a matter of minutes.
And even apart from such a nuclear holocaust brought about by humanity, consider also other foolish ideas put forth by quasi-rational human beings — for example that one subset of the entire global population of humans could become independent of other subsets of humanity. Prominent politicians proudly pronounce such nonsense every day … and I cannot fathom how such screwballs actually manage to fool the public into paying them large sums of money to fly around in jets, stand in front of cameras and microphones and thereby to document their own stupidity for all of the world to witness.
Oh, I almost forgot: the whole world is sleeping.
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