Meanwhile my ecology professor is literally teaching that survival of the fittest is about genetic superiority and that evolution is about working towards that ‘goal’. This is incorrect and bad science that is rooted in right-wing ideology that was disproven decades ago.
This is not what survival of the fittest means by the way. There is no such thing as a genetically superior being, as ‘fitness’ is totally subjective, as well as dependent on your environment. A lifeform that reproduces well in the ocean will still die if you put in the vacuum of space, no matter how ‘fit’ it was for ocean life. Not to mention the idea that nature has some sort of conscious goal is anthropomorthising a concept and again, bad science.
I really want to do something about this, but I feel like complaining will get me failed or known as a shit stirrer.
I fucking hate capitalist education.
On the plus side, our next lecture is on mutualism
Even Richard Dawkins, who started this whole shit, opposed this. Send your ecology professor his documentary.
Dawkins is a fuck now but it’s useful to have the person who literally wrote the book your ecology professor is mis-teaching (The Selfish Gene) call him out on it.
The doc: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7n0igh
I’m not a biologist so I don’t know how well it holds up as actual science, but I found the concept of “the selfish gene” fascinating. The idea that individual genes are “trying” to reproduce as another form of selection in addition to entire strands of DNA “trying” to reproduce is pretty fucking wild.
It’s certainly interesting stuff, completely misinterpreted and abused by assholes.
And then they went even further and invented some shit about evolution of consciousness that just 4000 years ago our ancestors were collectivist like animals and now we are properly egoist humans. Even then i was like “wait a sec sis, that’s some calipers levels of pseudoscience”.