Are we the weakest link? (part II)

We in North America consider ourselves to be the leading edge of civilization. We do not face many of the problems that plague the rest of the world. Famine, pestilence, high infant mortality and civil war are included in the list that we regard as 'third world problems'. While large swaths of the world's population struggle with to feed themselves, the rest of us are worrying about where we can find gluten-free baked goods and what the best tasting lactose-free milk replacement is. I find myself embarrassed when I am presented by news broadcasts about the problem of obesity in our schools followed immediately by reports that we may have to face higher turkey prices around Christmas because some poultry producer had to destroy a few thousand sick birds. Our first world problems dominate the media, day after day. Why?

Are we the weakest link? (Part I)

In December of 1831 a small insignificant sailing vessel departed on a routine survey expedition. On board was a young man that was to make a journey of discovery that would eventually challenge the accepted understanding of both the natural world and humankind's place within it. Five years later the HMS Beagle and her crew sailed back into Plymouth Sound. Charles Darwin disembarked that night with a pile of notebooks and specimens that would consume the rest of his life. On the 24th of November, 1859, Darwin released a summary of his life's work in a publication with the cumbersome title, "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life". Somewhat ironically, 13 years later the unworkable mouthful evolved into a more elegant title, "The Origin of Species". Although Darwin's theory of evolution has stirred controversy for over 150 years and has been modified by over a century of new findings and better understanding, his findings have spurred on generations of biologists and anthropologists. One indisputable fact has come from all this study. With few exceptions in the natural world, the strong (best suited) survive and the weak (least adaptable) eventually die off.

At the risk of incurring the wrath of the rest of the creationists that have not already started writing, I would like to point out that humans are not exempt from evolution.