Darwinism and Pesticide

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Once upon a time, a lovely old man named Charles Darwin brought forth the idea of the 'survival of the fittest'. We thought it fantastic for years, we applied it to our modes of thought and modes of action, yet as of late, I feel that it is eliminated because we are cheating. 

We are mistreating some animals, indeed. We are sending millions of animals to slaughterhouses a day in order to keep our iron levels up, indeed. We are putting live animals in little contraption hanging off keychains to sell - well, at least the Chinese are - indeed, however there is one thing above all that I am referring to, and that is we are not giving pests a chance.

I just killed off an insect that was drowning in the soap area on my bathroom sink. It was floating there, its wings caught in a bubble. I looked at it and all I could see, from the accumulated fear built up inside of me, was a puddle of brown around it. It was not really there, though my immediate reaction was to get rid of the bug and the puddle of water it was in. So I flooded it out, sending it to its death faster.

And I felt horrible. I felt a sense of relief from being far away from that insect, however I began to reflect on all of the insects and bugs whose deaths I am responsible for, and I felt rather awful. Are insects not animals? Do they not deserve rights as well? 

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Most of the insects we kill are utterly harmless to us. If anything, they are only responsible for our temporary adrenaline rushes. I have seen some people handle tarantulas like they are pancakes and I have seen people who scream at the sight of a little ball of fluff mistaking it for a spider. I think the difference is how family members react to insects while these people are young. If I was raised to not mind spiders I would have a pet snake instead of a pet bird. 

It is interesting to see what animals we consider 'pests'. I wonder what Charles Darwin would have thought of this.