LEGALIZE IT

[m_the0ry]

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Substances are incredibly powerful tools. Each one has a responsible and an irresponsible use. Drugs are agents of social darwinism as they weed out the people who cannot responsibly live in a privileged environment.



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Out of curiosity, what good does this social Darwinism do? Idiots that can’t handle drugs responsibly just give the rest of us a bad reputation and cause problems for us. In the meantime, nothing weeds them out. Nutty addicts, at least in California where I came from, are remanded to mental health upon arrest. They don’t even go to jail. Often they are out in 48 (or how many statutory ) hours they must be held for. Then they are back on the streets bugging the rest of society for money.

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Social darwinism is incredibly important because there aren't any predators that separate the weak from the strong. Because our society has progressed to where mental capacity is more important than being able to fight off a lion effectively, darwinism must manifest itself as social penalties for making incorrect decisions. As for what good it does, drug addicts don't/can't have children that will prosper and are fertile.

[soon2bepro]

Doesn't work that way. Darwinian evolution no longer happens in humans nowadays.

As Richard Dawkins <u>explains</u>, evolution needs thousands of years of continuous natural selection for any relevant change to happen. Nowadays the traits that make some of us survive longer and/or have more offspring than the others changes so fast that evolution has no time to adapt. These factors can change over the course of a couple generations or even less, whereas evolution would probably need at least 150 generations for any relevant change to happen.

[Rduke55]

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Doesn't work that way. Darwinian evolution no longer happens in humans nowadays.

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Unfortunately, this is a pretty common misunderstanding even among the educated.

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As Richard Dawkins <u>explains</u>, evolution needs thousands of years of continuous natural selection for any relevant change to happen. Nowadays the traits that make some of us survive longer and/or have more offspring than the others changes so fast that evolution has no time to adapt. These factors can change over the course of a couple generations or even less, whereas evolution would probably need at least 150 generations for any relevant change to happen.

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While many traits and species have taken a tremendous amount of time to evolve, it does not mean that all evolution works on the same timescale.

Also, you may want to rephrase or explain "changes so fast that evolution has no time to adapt." because I am having trouble with it.

And where did you get the 150 generations number from?

[ShakeZula06]

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Idiots that can’t handle drugs responsibly just give the rest of us a bad reputation and cause problems for us.

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Give us a bad reputation? To who, other animals? Aliens? As Chez points out, black markets for illegal drugs do more harm for us then drug users could ever do.
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Nutty addicts, at least in California where I came from, are remanded to mental health upon arrest. They don’t even go to jail. Often they are out in 48 (or how many statutory ) hours they must be held for.

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Then get rid of such organizations if they aren't doing their stated purpose. In a free market this is relatively easy, with government provided services not so much.
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Then they are back on the streets bugging the rest of society for money.

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Legalization would make drugs a lot cheaper. I've never seen someone beg for money to feed their cigarette habit while they've been legal. Anywhere you make them illegal however (or put really high taxes on selling them legally) black markets come in, and prices rise.

Regardless, privatization of streets solves this problem.

[Rduke55]

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Social darwinism is incredibly important because there aren't any predators that separate the weak from the strong. Because our society has progressed to where mental capacity is more important than being able to fight off a lion effectively, darwinism must manifest itself as social penalties for making incorrect decisions. As for what good it does, drug addicts don't/can't have children that will prosper and are fertile.

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So, based on this logic, drug abusers are being selected against and therefore drug abuse should be extinct soon?

[soon2bepro]

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While many traits and species have taken a tremendous amount of time to evolve, it does not mean that all evolution works on the same timescale.

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I was talking about humans beings. You may get some minor change over 2 or 3 generations, but it doesn't stick or expand if the natural selection process isn't kept for many many generations.


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Also, you may want to rephrase or explain "changes so fast that evolution has no time to adapt." because I am having trouble with it.

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What I meant was that because of enviromental, technological and cultural changes, in a few generations time, the genes that made the fittest may now make for the weakest, or whatever. So the genes don't keep getting passed on more than the others the way it does in darwinian evolution.

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And where did you get the 150 generations number from?

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Okay, that was off the top of my head, but from my understanding of evolution, a couple of generations or even a couple dozen just aren't enough for any relevant evolutionary change to take place.

[arahant]

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I think there is some merit to legalizing marijuana, but as far as the other drugs including some the anxiety and depression medications such as Xanax should remain illegal.

I really don't feel like getting into an argument, but I've got plenty of personal experience to back up my claim.

Marijuana is somewhat harmless. Heroin, Cocaine, X, and Meth are not.

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I like how I can easily, safely, and legally buy benzos off the internet, but have to scrounge around forever to find a friend with a shady pot connection...wtf?

(It's not the same after college [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] )

[Rduke55]

So why aren't humans evolving anymore?
When did this happen?

SOme researchers think if anything, it's been speeding up recently.

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the genes that made the fittest may now make for the weakest, or whatever. So the genes don't keep getting passed on more than the others the way it does in darwinian evolution.

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But since those "weakest" traits aren't being selected against, doesn't that just mean something like that they're more neutral in our current environment? This is not in opposition to darwinian theory.

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Okay, that was off the top of my head, but from my understanding of evolution, a couple of generations or even a couple dozen just aren't enough for any relevant evolutionary change to take place.

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Why not? Think about isolated populations. Think about drastic changes in the environent. Think about disease resistance, metabolic changes, population migrations, etc.

[vhawk01]

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Doesn't work that way. Darwinian evolution no longer happens in humans nowadays.

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Unfortunately, this is a pretty common misunderstanding even among the educated.

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As Richard Dawkins <u>explains</u>, evolution needs thousands of years of continuous natural selection for any relevant change to happen. Nowadays the traits that make some of us survive longer and/or have more offspring than the others changes so fast that evolution has no time to adapt. These factors can change over the course of a couple generations or even less, whereas evolution would probably need at least 150 generations for any relevant change to happen.

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While many traits and species have taken a tremendous amount of time to evolve, it does not mean that all evolution works on the same timescale.

Also, you may want to rephrase or explain "changes so fast that evolution has no time to adapt." because I am having trouble with it.

And where did you get the 150 generations number from?

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Right, even for slow-acting change, its not like it just hums along for a few hundred thousand years and then presto, evolutionary change. Of COURSE evolution is still 'working in humans.' How could it not? Its working in all things that are imperfect replicators, at all times.

[soon2bepro]

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SOme researchers think if anything, it's been speeding up recently.

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I'd definitely like to know more about that. Can you cite any sources?

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But since those "weakest" traits aren't being selected against, doesn't that just mean something like that they're more neutral in our current environment? This is not in opposition to darwinian theory.

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Some of they are being selected against, some aren't. But As long as they're not strongly being selected for, they won't survice and reproduce more than the other genes, which is what makes large evolutionary changes possible.

I feel kind of stupid explaining this to you, because I'm sure you already understand it, but it seems to me like maybe you making a mistake along the line. A major evolutionary change only happens after many, many generations of small steps towards it. Natural selection is what drives a population towards this particular change. Be it longer legs, more accurate vision, larger brain capacity, or whatever. If completely different traits are selected for in every consecutive generation, you're not going to get very far, because over a single generation there's so little that can reasonably mutate without dramatically altering the chances of survival. So if any major evolutionary change is to naturally take place in such an scenario, it'll be on based on random chance alone, not natural selection.

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Why not? Think about isolated populations. Think about drastic changes in the environent. Think about disease resistance, metabolic changes, population migrations, etc.

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None of these happen often enough on a large scale, nor make for a major change to be selected for. I guess a major event like an extremely contagious, world wide, short-term mortal disease or a severe change in all of earth's natural enviroment could change the way things are going, but that's not the point.

Did you watch the video? Really, Dawkins is a much better professor than I am. And you don't seem to be attacking my arguments (or his for that matter).