Quote:
Originally Posted by evman150
If you cannot reproduce, your life has no purpose in the grand scheme of things, yes. But that is selling life short. One can still make themselves a great life independent of our evolutionary goal. But by not being able to reproduce, technically you're a failure as a human. Doesn't mean you can't still do a lot of good in the world though.
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I know what you're getting at here, but within a number of species, those who cannot reproduce are still valued members of society, and in some cases the scoeity could not actually exist without them. Most obvious example would be colony insects like bees and ants: in a hive, only a tiny fraction of bees actually reproduce. Does this make the great majority of worker bees who actually build and maintain the colonies 'failures' as bees?
Similarly, in many forms of animals from primates to fish to rodents, animals not directly involved in the reproductive process are invaluable to the existance of the society through food-provision, nursing/caregiving, or even security/surveillance.
When you state that the purpose of life is to reproduce, I think it's a defensable statement (though I don't personally agree with it). But stating that a particular life is a failure simply because it doesn't lend its genetic material to an offspring, that's a flawed notion even from a strictly evolutionary perspective.