RHETOR 115 Chapter Notes - Chapter 2: Eugenics, Lamarckism, Heredity
Document Summary
Unexplained belief of many people that humans are descended from lower animals. It follows the possibility that our descendents are as different from ourselves as we are different from apes. Chesterton challenges this and characterizes apes as intelligent. He likes to think that if we want a thing hard enough we or our descendants will get it. If a biologist wanted to create a race of long lived beings he would go to the long livers. About one in four marriages between grandchildren of a long liver would produce long livers given the laws of heredity. Long livers: unless they retain their mental flexibility for a greater period than the normal man, they would be a mere nuisance . We should consider what inheritable qualities to be aimed at if man wants to direct his own evolution. Length of time on earth is one of the least important qualities of human life (jesus lived a short life but ideas endures)
