Nearly everyone in this world likely has been educated in Darwinian thought, and many generally assume, rightly or wrongly, that “struggle for existence” is the same as Darwinian “survival of the fittest.” But have we ever thought through what that means? And is life actually a survival of the fittest? And is that what we are destined for? And finally, do we really think that is a wonderful thing, that somehow, we can become “more and more highly evolved” through this “struggle”?

这个世上几乎每一个人都被灌输过达尔文的思想，无论对错，很多人都认为“为生存而奋斗”和达尔文的“优胜劣汰，适者生存，弱肉强食”同理。但是我们是否深思过其中的意义呢？生命真的是优胜劣汰吗？难道那就是我们所追求的？另外，我们真的意识到通过这样的“奋斗”我们“越来越向高级进化”是一件多么美妙的事吗？

If life was really survival of the fittest, we should get rid of handicapped people, and we should get rid of pediatricians, and specifically get rid of pediatricians who take care of weak newborn babies (like me). Of course, we should have abortions everywhere freely available, when we don’t “need” any more “less than perfect” children. And obviously there is no need for fetal surgeons, who even operate on ill or deformed babies before birth! Why are we trying to save all these children who are “not so fit,” when the “natural order” of events, which should be very good, “nature’s mandate,” is the survival of the “fittest.” Let nature take its course! Its “natural” course!

如果真的是优胜劣汰，我们就应该消灭残疾人，消灭儿科医生，尤其是像我这样的照顾生命垂危的新生儿的儿科医生。当然，当我们不想要更多的“不够完美”的孩子时，我们可以毫无顾忌的堕胎。显然更不需要给生病的或畸形的胎儿在出生前做手术的胎儿外科医生！为什么我们要努力去拯救那些不够完美的孩子，事物的自然法则是非常好的，“自然的授权”才导致适者生存、优胜劣汰。让自然按照正常的秩序进行！也是自然的秩序。

As a pediatrician, I feel this issue very passionately. Of course! In particular, I was a pediatrician looking after newborn babies, especially very sick premature babies and handicapped babies. And I was founding director of one of the first Perinatal Research Institutes, which in today’s major centers, now include a big program of fetal surgery. Why should we be doing all of this, if good “mother nature” knows what she is doing!

当然，作为儿科医生我对此非常有感触。尤其是我是一个看护新生儿，特别是病情危重的早产儿和残疾婴儿的儿科医师。我还是第一任围产研究所所长，现在大的医疗中心都设有围产研究，它还包括了胎儿手术这样的大项目。如果好的“自然法则”发挥其围产效果，我们做这些工作干嘛呢？

Plus, get rid of all patients who are chronically ill, people with diabetes, tuberculosis, and leprosy, people on respirators, people in wheelchairs. There is a huge list of people that we can dispose of, along with the doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and assistants etc. looking after them. We would certainly save a lot of money for the country, and we would be a stronger nation! Or would we?

另外，消灭掉所有的慢性病人，如糖尿病人、结核病人、麻风病人，带呼吸器的人和坐轮椅的人。有一大堆病人需要我们联合医师、护士、药师和照料他们的助理等人去处理掉。我们自然为国家节约了一大笔费用，我们会成为更强大的国家！我们会这样吗？

In point of fact, there would really be no need for human rights, and no need for altruistic lawyers protecting those who are disadvantaged, or those who are poor: they should simply all be eliminated, because they waste so much energy, and there is really no need for them at all. In fact, our nation would be much greater without these! Indeed, this is what happens in North Korea, what happened in Nazi Germany, and what happened during dynasties upon dynasties of “great” emperors. Surely let the fittest survive, which basically means those with power, strength and military might, they are the only people who should survive! Oppress the rest, squash them, eliminate them! Only the mighty kings should reign, it is their right and their reward. Why should there be even justice? There is no need for that, since only the fittest survive.

实际上，实在是不需要人权，不需要维护残疾人、穷人的权利的无私的律师，因为残疾人、穷人浪费了大量的能源，根本不需要他们，他们应该统统被淘汰。如此，没有了这些人，我们的国家会更强大。事实上，这种事北朝鲜发生过，纳粹德国发生过，强大的帝王引起的朝代更迭时发生过。好吧，让优胜劣汰、适者生存吧，他们正是那些有权势、有强力和军事才能的人，只有他们才能生存下来。压迫其他人，碾碎他们，消灭他们！只有强大的君主才能统治，这是他们的权利也是他们的回报。谈何正义？既然是优胜劣汰、弱肉强食，何须那些。

I’ve been reading about the Russian Jewish experience of immigrating to New York City in the late 1800s, when these immigrants had to fight their way up from the bottom of the ladder, to be finally successful in the clothing industry, and Wall Street. It was described as a dog eat dog experience, a survival of the fittest, and among them there were people who were the fittest, and who “therefore survived.” Unfortunately, many people’s experience of “surviving in the big city” is very similar, whether it is in Hong Kong, or Mumbai. So, is this the norm, is this what we are destined for?

我读过俄国犹太人在18世纪末移民到纽约的传奇经历，这些移民从最底层一路打拼最后在制衣业和金融业取得成功。这真是弱肉强食，优胜劣汰，他们都是最强大者，因此生存下来。不幸的是，许多人“在大城市存活下来”的经历无论是在香港还是孟买，都是非常相似的。因此，难道这就是规则?难道这就是我们命中注定的？

In fact, for thousands of years, it did seem that the world was like that for many people. It seemed that the only way forward was to scramble and scramble, and to basically claw your way up the ladder, over the dead bodies of others. Then came a Jewish man named Jesus who showed up, and declared that, “Blessed are the poor, blessed are the meek, and blessed are those who seek for righteousness.” What he thought and taught was basically “ridiculous” and totally radical.

事实上，数千年来，对许多人来说世界都是那样的。要前进就只有不停的爬，爬过死人，踏踏实实的一个脚印一个脚印的从底层爬起。名叫耶稣的犹太人出现了，他宣称：“穷苦人有福，温柔人有福，寻求公义的人也有福”。他所想的、教导的多么荒谬，相当激进。

He even taught that we should forgive our enemies. Forgive our enemies! Instead of hating and killing them. What an upside-down thought! And for saying all that, the mob, the great religious leaders, the mighty Roman officers, all came together and pronounced him as a dangerous rebel who should be killed in the cruelest way, to die an excruciating death, on a crude wooden cross, a punishment normally reserved for the most wicked. So indeed, the fittest were supposed to survive, and those who tried to teach the opposite deserved to die!

他甚至教育我们要原谅我们的敌人。宽恕我们的敌人！而不是憎恨和杀掉他们。这真是黑白颠倒的思想！因为他说了这么多“荒谬”的话，暴徒、宗教大领袖，权势熏天的罗马官员，聚集在一起宣称他是危险的造反分子，应处以极刑，在为邪恶的人预备的粗糙的木头十字架上折磨至死。因此，事实上，强大者可以生存，而那些试图教导弱者的人却该死。

Then amazingly, some parts of the world began to change. A new species of humans, followers of Jesus, rose up, and started preaching about love, caring for each other, and picking up neglected babies thrown away in rivers, on streets and in garbage. And when great and terrible plagues swept through Europe, the population panicked and most ran away from the city, except for loving Jesus believers who went around to treat the sick in the streets, and to bury those who had died, in spite of the tremendous risk to their own health.

惊讶的是，世界上一些地方开始改变。耶稣的追随者像一个新的人种起来了，开始教导爱、彼此关怀，把扔到河里、大街上和垃圾堆的弃婴捡起来。当大瘟疫横扫欧洲时，人们惊慌失措，纷纷逃离城市，只有有爱的基督信徒走出来，不顾自身健康所冒的极大风险照料街上的病人，埋葬死者。

And thus was born a totally new force, a force of love and care, that literally changed the world, preparing the way for hospitals and educational facilities throughout the world, and preparing the groundwork for science and reason in the West. A new system, that stared dark instincts in the face, and tried to bring love and compassion into a hurting world. The sick, the disabled, the feeble began to be looked after in a tender way, and society began to change.

由此产生了一种全新的力量，爱与关怀的力量，逐渐改变了世界，为全世界的医疗和教育机构创造了条件，为西方的科学和推理创造了基础。一种新的系统，直面黑暗，把爱和同情深植于受伤害的世界。病人、残疾人，弱小者被温柔关爱，社会开始变了。

This philosophy was best portrayed in many paintings and sculptures as the shepherd carrying his hurting sheep in his arms, binding its broken limbs, just like the statue in the historic archway of the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, one of the foremost children’s facilities in the world. The new heaven’s mandate, tianyi, was radically, to care for the weak, the poor and the suffering, and often not the fittest! So that the weak, the “unfit,” will survive, instead!

这个观念在许多的绘画和雕塑中得到完美体现，如牧羊人怀抱受伤的羊，包扎受伤的肢体，就像世界上享有盛誉的儿童医疗机构—–辛辛那提儿童医院的历史悠久的拱门上的雕塑所表达的。新的上天的旨意—-天意，最根本的就是要去关怀弱小者，贫穷者和受到伤害的人，往往不是强大者！因此反而是弱小者、不那么强大者也会生存。

So, let me ask you, what is your preference? Would you like to live in a “Darwinian society?” Or would you prefer to live in a Jesus foundation derived society? And why? Wouldn’t it be better to live in the “natural way,” the way that supposedly will always make us “better and better,” and just evolve our way into supreme beings ultimately?

那么我来问问您，您的选择，您是愿意生活在“达尔文社会”还是耶稣基督的精神所主导的社会？为什么？“自然法则”下生活不是更好吗？它不是总被认为会让我们“锦上添花”，而且帮助我们最终成为“超级力量”吗？

In the history of mankind, “survival of the fittest” has just been a slogan for oppression, and not truly a biologic fact, no matter how we have been brain-washed. The concept and principles preceded Darwin by thousands of years. There is no evidence that this way of life evolves us into “higher” creatures. And, certainly, I do not want to live in a land of the strongest! I have no doubt that I, and I think you also, would like to live in a land of survival of the kindest, the peacemakers, the most loving; which will necessarily include the autistic, the Down’s syndrome babies, and those with missing natural limbs. Please give me a loving society that treasures survival of the “not so fittest,” which seems, without a doubt much more in synchrony with what we are really “meant to be.”

在人类历史上，不管我们被如何洗脑，“优胜劣汰”都是压迫别人的借口，并不是真正的生物学现象。这个观点和原则早于达尔文数千年。没有证据表明这种生活方式会让我们进化为更高级的生命。同时，我当然也不愿意生活在优胜者之间！毫无疑问，你和我一样，愿意生活在和睦的、和平的、充满爱的国度，这个国度一定能容纳孤独症儿童，唐氏综合症患儿和那些有先天肢体缺陷的孩子。请给我一个爱的世界，这个世界能珍视所有这些“弱者、不够适合者”的生存；这样看起来，毫无疑问，这和我们按照我们被创造时的初衷认真去做是一致的。

Footnote: But, you might say isn’t capitalism just a form of Darwinian survival of the fittest? I would like to think that capitalism is a competitions system where everyone can compete, and it could indeed become “Darwinian” struggle and survival, but it need not be. If capitalism works in a society with a Jesus ethic base or influence, the antithesis of Darwinian “survival of the fittest,” as we have described above, then it could work well, and theoretically not be cruel! Which means to care for the disadvantaged, to have justice, and to respect the rights of each human being created in the image of God, all of which are core Jesus teaching concepts. But these are big topics for future discussion!

脚注：但是，您会说资本主义不就是达尔文的优胜劣汰的一种形式吗？我想：资本主义是一个竞争的体系，人人都可以竞争，似乎它会成为达尔文主义者所主张的“奋斗和生存”，但它却不一定是。如果资本主义在我们上述所提到的达尔文“优胜劣汰”的对立面—-耶稣的伦理作为基础或影响的社会中运行，它会运行的更好，而且从理论上讲一点都不残酷！它意味着关怀弱者，有正义，尊重每一个按照上帝的形象制造的人的权利，这些都是耶稣所宣导的“基督观念”的核心。但是它们是未来要讨论的大题目。