Progress Supersedes Human Preservation

Out of the gate my Friend Pro stated, “I will be defending the ideal that progress supersedes the preservation of human life. This mentality entails the full concept of the survival of the fittest,...”During this celebrated weekend of our independence, allow me to entertain the idea that Herbert Spencer got it wrong with his popular phrase of “survival of the fittest” on his take of Charles Darwin's work, but Thomas Jefferson got it right 80 some years before Darwin came on the stage. That is, Jefferson's claim that all humans have Unalienable Rights of “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” Unbeknownst to Jefferson, and many today, he stated the basic primitives found in all living-systems. Those primitives on the living-system level follows: once alive (“Life”), has the freedom (“Liberty”), in the pursuit of survival; otherwise, there is no life. Survival is a form of positive-feedback for all life. For humans, survival is a prerequisite for “Happiness.” Those basic life primitives are like a bio-program having a natural tendency during the struggle of survival to support, prolong, and improve Life. At the same time, there is an inherent drive to increase freedom (“Liberty”), with an ongoing effort to reduce and optimize the energy expended during the pursuit of an objective, with the desire to explore new levels of positive-feedback, for us humans, Happiness, fulfillment, pleasure, etc; hence, evolution.Just think of the historical possibilities: If Darwin embraced “survival of the happiest,” when Social Darwinism became popular at the beginning of last century. Perhaps, the world today would be a happier place. But I digress, during the natural selection process species come and go. Throughout evolution, nature is not cruel or kind, just indifferent relative to a specie's balance within the Laws of Nature. One example, is Pro's reference to some youtube video on “The Wit & Wisdom of Cancer.” During the video, my focus was at the beginning and the end, where the end showing the name “Gaia” on the armband of the dying patient. “Gaia,” aka mother nature, aka the Laws of Nature, the Laws us humans desire to have a cerebral relationship with. At the beginning of that video, observe all that human “Progress” in medical technology not to “Supersede Humans,” but to embrace “Human Preservation” in prolonging, improving, and clearly demonstrating how “Intrinsically Valuable” human life is. Through life's bio-program of Unalienable Rights, humanity injected order into the natural selection process putting human evolution on an “exponentially greater” achievement, relative to the random nature of natural selection in other species. Such order is a manifestation from morality adding depth to humanity's bio-program of “Life, Liberty, and the moral pursuit of Happiness,” resulting on an elevated path of progress from that desired emotion of Happiness. This progress embraces human preservation by the fruits of technology, food production, and medicine, the stables of human existence throughout the world today. A compelling example when our Unalienable Rights are free to morally operate within the awesome machinery of Nature. In closing, I'll try to answer Pro's question, “Is progress worth forsaking/dis-valuing in order to preserve our ability to be incorrect?” It is not progress that forsakes or devalues as much as the illusion in dogmatic worth, from both political and the dark ages, appears to be “our ability to be incorrect” that supersedes human preservation, from the bloodshed, suffering and tyranny found throughout the ages, and in the world today. Necessary Conclusion: Progress ultimately improves the standard of living through technology, food production and medicine by placing human life on the road to utopia, where politics and dogma are simply potholes on said road often superseding human preservation.