With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated; and those that survive commonly exhibit a vigorous state of health. We civilised men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination; we build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed, and the sick; we institute poor-laws; and our medical men exert their utmost skill to save the life of every one to the last moment. There is reason to believe that vaccination has preserved thousands, who from a weak constitution would formerly have succumbed to small-pox. Thus the weak members of civilised societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. It is surprising how soon a want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to the degeneration of a domestic race; but excepting in the case of man himself, hardly any one is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed.[6]
Some think your article builds a strawman. It seems as if Chuckie "hisself" also thought we were in this same struggle except that civilized men cheated and ought to stop doing so. If he did not think we were under the same rules as the other living creatures why would he mention what he did? Why would he make a strawman to pummel?
Darwin complains that we humans are behaving as if his theory were false, and we should quit doing that and get back to the business of living human life as if his theory were true. Quit defying Darwinism and get back to the universal, inexorable struggle for survival !!
People call it a “strawman” argument because it is based on manifestly untrue premises. In reality man is not the only social animal. Other species can and do cooperate. Someone who takes care of their families IS more likely to pass down their genes to subsequent generations than someone who is purely out for themselves, (unless he makes up for his lack of quality with a lot of quantity). The claim that ruthless competition is the only way to maximise your chances of survival is wrong. In fact, ruthless competition can reduce your chances by causing others to regard you as a threat.