I would guess the thinking of some naive fool was 'If we force em to have Javascript on for the download they must have it on when they complete the form, after all nobody would intentionally turn off their Javascript just to avoid entering personal data would they?'.
I'm sorry but I can't help but disagree, the rough ideals behind the words you mentioned are extremely important but because of the associated words inherent fuzziness they can be easily hijacked and used to justify truly horrendous actions. Those emotions and ideals do make the world a better place but it could be argued the lack of a clear definition for them makes the world a worse one. Why else have linguists poets and philosophers been trying to tie them down since the dawn of language?
To be frank (again) you are wrong, nobody said that evolution is driven by intelligence alone, but to deny its importance is patently absurd the principal difference between man and the 'beasts of the field' is our complicated and varied ability to communicate which is Dependant on intelligence. There is an interrupt on what most educated people would see as evolution, which is commonly seen as the improvement of the species, but thats down to a mis-understanding of the word improvement or fitness to use the Darwinian. Evolution really happens under conditions of adversity, again in Darwinian in times of extreme selective pressure. There simply aren't that many in the present in the 'developed' world, food is plentiful mates are ten a penny and the only real predator is ourselves, its a good time to be a human (in relative terms). There will be some evolutionary movement, but as has been proved many times evolution does happen in fits and starts, think climbing stairs not walking up a slope, and these steps occur in time of trouble. The biggest nastiest threat the human race has faced in recent times was the second world war, who was dying in there multitudes? The poor, the inadequately connected and the Jews (only the latter through no biological fault of their own). I would love top see a decent paper on the results of this enormous selective pressure, if any one knows of one please shout. So in the absence of research supporting my point of view, I would theorise that its was the bright, the good communicators, the adaptable, the knowledgeable who did 'best' out of the terrible situation.
Great point, also worth bearing in mind that the only thing unique about each of us genetically is the combination of our genes, the individual genes are shared by many many others. A unique gene is a rare one indeed. As a result the only unique thing about us is the only thing we can't pass on (till we perfect human cloning, but that'll end badly just look at Aeon Flux that was awful;) ). I believe there is a strong argument that there is more pressure on memetic evolution at the present time, look at the sudden up surgence of powerful fanatical religous memes?? As such isn't passing on your memes more important than passing your genes?
Aside from your un-necessary abuse of developers you make some valid points. However your initial rebuttal is based on a poor understanding/presentation of evolution/logic. I agree in simple terms that if a individual is dead weight then it is logical to drop them. However, this doesn't account for the emotional ties which as anyone will testify often overides the most logical minds. In addition you are also assuming that individuals with "broken but healed limbs, crippling arthritis, debilitating head wounds" are dead weight, which is frankly clobblers.
Lets deal with the extreme case first, someone 'no longer making sense, dribbling into their loin cloth' type mental incapacity, this is most likely to onset later in life due to injury or disease and therefore emotional attachment comes into play. Secondly if nowt else they are likely to either a) able to recognise threats and alert the rest or you or b) not recognise threats meaning whilst they are being eaten the rest of you can make a clean getaway.
With eldery or permenantly disabled individuals the often have life experience, such as 'don't eat the red berries from the blue bush' which can benefit the group enormously and it is a gross simplification, for which read just plain wrong, to say 'If you can't get around, you're no use'.
Finally with broken limbs your arguments reaches new lows, these people are only out of action for a few months and they have years to make up for what they cost the group. You'd dump your best hunter just because a boar broke his arm last time he went out? now that really would be stupid.
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I would guess the thinking of some naive fool was 'If we force em to have Javascript on for the download they must have it on when they complete the form, after all nobody would intentionally turn off their Javascript just to avoid entering personal data would they?'.
I'm sorry but I can't help but disagree, the rough ideals behind the words you mentioned are extremely important but because of the associated words inherent fuzziness they can be easily hijacked and used to justify truly horrendous actions. Those emotions and ideals do make the world a better place but it could be argued the lack of a clear definition for them makes the world a worse one. Why else have linguists poets and philosophers been trying to tie them down since the dawn of language?
To be frank (again) you are wrong, nobody said that evolution is driven by intelligence alone, but to deny its importance is patently absurd the principal difference between man and the 'beasts of the field' is our complicated and varied ability to communicate which is Dependant on intelligence. There is an interrupt on what most educated people would see as evolution, which is commonly seen as the improvement of the species, but thats down to a mis-understanding of the word improvement or fitness to use the Darwinian. Evolution really happens under conditions of adversity, again in Darwinian in times of extreme selective pressure. There simply aren't that many in the present in the 'developed' world, food is plentiful mates are ten a penny and the only real predator is ourselves, its a good time to be a human (in relative terms). There will be some evolutionary movement, but as has been proved many times evolution does happen in fits and starts, think climbing stairs not walking up a slope, and these steps occur in time of trouble. The biggest nastiest threat the human race has faced in recent times was the second world war, who was dying in there multitudes? The poor, the inadequately connected and the Jews (only the latter through no biological fault of their own). I would love top see a decent paper on the results of this enormous selective pressure, if any one knows of one please shout. So in the absence of research supporting my point of view, I would theorise that its was the bright, the good communicators, the adaptable, the knowledgeable who did 'best' out of the terrible situation.
Great point, also worth bearing in mind that the only thing unique about each of us genetically is the combination of our genes, the individual genes are shared by many many others. A unique gene is a rare one indeed. As a result the only unique thing about us is the only thing we can't pass on (till we perfect human cloning, but that'll end badly just look at Aeon Flux that was awful ;) ). I believe there is a strong argument that there is more pressure on memetic evolution at the present time, look at the sudden up surgence of powerful fanatical religous memes?? As such isn't passing on your memes more important than passing your genes?
Aside from your un-necessary abuse of developers you make some valid points. However your initial rebuttal is based on a poor understanding/presentation of evolution/logic. I agree in simple terms that if a individual is dead weight then it is logical to drop them. However, this doesn't account for the emotional ties which as anyone will testify often overides the most logical minds. In addition you are also assuming that individuals with "broken but healed limbs, crippling arthritis, debilitating head wounds" are dead weight, which is frankly clobblers.
Lets deal with the extreme case first, someone 'no longer making sense, dribbling into their loin cloth' type mental incapacity, this is most likely to onset later in life due to injury or disease and therefore emotional attachment comes into play. Secondly if nowt else they are likely to either a) able to recognise threats and alert the rest or you or b) not recognise threats meaning whilst they are being eaten the rest of you can make a clean getaway.
With eldery or permenantly disabled individuals the often have life experience, such as 'don't eat the red berries from the blue bush' which can benefit the group enormously and it is a gross simplification, for which read just plain wrong, to say 'If you can't get around, you're no use'.
Finally with broken limbs your arguments reaches new lows, these people are only out of action for a few months and they have years to make up for what they cost the group. You'd dump your best hunter just because a boar broke his arm last time he went out? now that really would be stupid.