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Interesting Stuff Thread

12467…132

Comments

  • #152
    Flamed Diving
    Closed Accounts Posts: 6,609 ✭✭✭Flamed Diving


    sink wrote: »
    Bingo, answered your own question, but there is more to it.

    What is interesting about our species is that we no longer rely upon our physical bodies to do work. We build specialised tools to suit all situations so we do not face the same pressures that all other lifeforms face and these are the pressures that drive evolution. So in effect we have stopped evolving to a certain extent.

    How can we 'stop evolving'?


  • #153
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 4,630 ✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    Flamed Diving wrote: »
    How can we 'stop evolving'?

    Because we, humans, don't necessarily have as strong an external force as natural selection acting upon us anymore. Technology and science have basically, to a high level anyway, freed us from natural selection.


  • #154
    Flamed Diving
    Closed Accounts Posts: 6,609 ✭✭✭Flamed Diving


    -JammyDodger- wrote: »
    Because we, humans, don't necessarily have as strong an external force as natural selection acting upon us anymore. Technology and science have basically, to a high level anyway, freed us from natural selection.

    I get ya, but I think it is a bit strong to state that human evolution has stopped. There will always be selective forces. Sexual selection doesn't disappear, for example.


  • #155
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 4,630 ✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    Flamed Diving wrote: »
    I get ya, but I think it is a bit strong to state that human evolution has stopped. There will always be selective forces. Sexual selection doesn't disappear, for example.

    Yah, I'd agree. It just doesn't affect us as much as it used to. We can, in some ways, control what external forces affect us, thus, controlling our own evolution to some extent.

    Anyway, this is getting a bit off the topic of this thread - don't want to get in trouble with Dades:p


  • #156
    kiffer
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,097 ✭✭✭kiffer


    -JammyDodger- wrote: »
    Because we, humans, don't necessarily have as strong an external force as natural selection acting upon us anymore. Technology and science have basically, to a high level anyway, freed us from natural selection.

    I disagree...
    1, We're only looking at short term human scale situations...
    2, The removal of selection pressure allows all sorts of mutations which would be bad enough to prevent an individual from reproducing to be come established.
    Once selective pressures return some of these might be useful...

    So when the Zombie Apocalypse comes... those of terachromatic women will be able to spot the zombies faster than normal people and have an advantage.

    I guess the question is ... what selection pressures, if any, will we encounter in the future.


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  • #157
    sink
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,314 ✭✭✭sink


    Flamed Diving wrote: »
    I get ya, but I think it is a bit strong to state that human evolution has stopped. There will always be selective forces. Sexual selection doesn't disappear, for example.

    That's why I qualified it by adding 'to a certain extent'. In addition to sexual selection viruses and bacteria are still forcing our immune system to evolve. However both of these are being limited by cosmetics and medicine. So while we haven't broken free from evolution completely we have limited it's effects to a massive extent.

    I think that we will begin to evolve ourselves at some stage in the future, through genetic engineering. This will happen out of necessity for we will need to replace the process of natural selection which kept our species genes fit for survival with an artificial process. If we don't the human race will gradually get sicker and less fit as more and more people are born with degenerative disease who through the help of medicine live to pass on their less fit genes compounding the problem.


  • #158
    Dave!
    Closed Accounts Posts: 27,857 ✭✭✭✭Dave!


    Here's part 1 of a rather interesting David Attenborough documentary on evolution
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MW1IZB9ThA

    Follow the links to parts 2-5!

    Also, apparantly humans and chimps are more similar than one type of yeast is to another
    http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090213114325.htm


  • #159
    ChocolateSauce
    Registered Users Posts: 2,892 ✭✭✭ChocolateSauce


    As we are no longer struggling to survive (some of us anyway), evolution will invariably slow down to a near halt in humans, except that I think in the future, possibly starting this generation, we will grab the reigns and start unnaturally selecting ourselves.

    As was discussed in a thread last week, this leads to many moral questions, but by and large I see no problem in humans making themselves immune to disease through genetic manipulation etc. The important thing to avoid at all costs a situation where there are genetic haves and have-nots.


  • #160
    Flamed Diving
    Closed Accounts Posts: 6,609 ✭✭✭Flamed Diving


    ChocolateSauce wrote: »
    As we are no longer struggling to survive (some of us anyway), evolution will invariably slow down to a near halt in humans, except that I think in the future, possibly starting this generation, we will grab the reigns and start unnaturally selecting ourselves.

    As was discussed in a thread last week, this leads to many moral questions, but by and large I see no problem in humans making themselves immune to disease through genetic manipulation etc. The important thing to avoid at all costs a situation where there are genetic haves and have-nots.

    I don't get this, I have a simple equation in my head:

    Mutation + Natural Selection = Evolution

    I don't see how either of these can simply stop having an effect on humans. Is there any literature to back your statements up?


  • #161
    Scofflaw
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 23,283 ✭✭✭✭Scofflaw


    ChocolateSauce wrote: »
    As we are no longer struggling to survive (some of us anyway), evolution will invariably slow down to a near halt in humans, except that I think in the future, possibly starting this generation, we will grab the reigns and start unnaturally selecting ourselves.

    As was discussed in a thread last week, this leads to many moral questions, but by and large I see no problem in humans making themselves immune to disease through genetic manipulation etc. The important thing to avoid at all costs a situation where there are genetic haves and have-nots.

    Hmm. Evolution isn't a question of who survives, but of who breeds. There is usually extremely rapid evolution in a population that has moved into a relatively unexploited environment - and in humanity's case, that's where we are. When the glaciers retreated, we moved into a whole range of environments, with which we have yet to come into equilibrium.

    That's borne out by studies showing that human evolution is currently very fast - starting about 40,000 years ago, and picking up even more with the development of agriculture. See here, for example.

    It's easy to think that because most of us (in the rich world) aren't really subject to lethal selection pressures, there are therefore no selection pressures - but in fact there are, amongst other things, large differences between family sizes in different human communities.

    cordially,
    Scofflaw


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  • #162
    MrPudding
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,788 ✭✭✭MrPudding


    Flamed Diving wrote: »
    I don't get this, I have a simple equation in my head:

    Mutation + Natural Selection = Evolution

    I don't see how either of these can simply stop having an effect on humans. Is there any literature to back your statements up?
    Particularly mutation. Correct me if I am wrong, but selection pressure, or lack thereof, would have no effect on mutation? Mutations will occur whether or not the mutations are being selected for or against.

    Also, there may not be much in the way of life or death selection happening in the human race but I think there is still selection.

    MrP


  • #163
    Flamed Diving
    Closed Accounts Posts: 6,609 ✭✭✭Flamed Diving


    MrPudding wrote: »
    Particularly mutation. Correct me if I am wrong, but selection pressure, or lack thereof, would have no effect on mutation? Mutations will occur whether or not the mutations are being selected for or against.

    Also, there may not be much in the way of life or death selection happening in the human race but I think there is still selection.

    MrP

    Well mutation is simply a copying error in DNA. So as long as DNA performs these errors, there will always be mutation. People seem to think that because humans have created civilisation, this means that NS is factored out. Why? Because we don't have bears and lions chasing us anymore? I have huge doubts as to this kind of thinking. NS is driven by the environment, the environment is anything that exist outside of 'the self', this will never cease to exist. Maybe people can enlighten me on this matter. But I think it is nonsense.


  • #164
    Dave!
    Closed Accounts Posts: 27,857 ✭✭✭✭Dave!


    Flamed Diving wrote: »
    Well mutation is simply a copying error in DNA. So as long as DNA performs these errors, there will always be mutation. People seem to think that because humans have created civilisation, this means that NS is factored out. Why? Because we don't have bears and lions chasing us anymore? I have huge doubts as to this kind of thinking. NS is driven by the environment, the environment is anything that exist outside of 'the self', this will never cease to exist. Maybe people can enlighten me on this matter. But I think it is nonsense.
    I agree... I'm not terribly educated on the subject (just interested in it), but to me the idea that we're "finished evolving" seems extremely humano-centric.


  • #165
    MrPudding
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,788 ✭✭✭MrPudding


    Dave! wrote: »
    I agree... I'm not terribly educated on the subject (just interested in it), but to me the idea that we're "finished evolving" seems extremely humano-centric.
    My thoughts exactly, I am only educated to a "read a few Dawkins books and all of Atomic Horror's posts" but it just seems wrong.

    For a start, sexual selection is alive and kicking.

    MrP


  • #166
    robindch
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,420 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch


    MrPudding wrote: »
    sexual selection is alive and kicking.
    Indeedy.

    I asked my niece a year or two back why she liked that unbelievably crappy orange foundation -- the stuff that's lobbed on with a table-tennis bat in the bedrooms of the nation's teens. She said that she didn't like it herself (er, cough, cough), but that "all the girls who used it had boyfriends".

    'nuf said.


  • #167
    MrPudding
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,788 ✭✭✭MrPudding


    Quite scary. Does that mean that women with a slightly orangy natural hue to their skin are more likely to reproduce? I have to say, when I think about how humans will look in a few thousand years bright orange faces did not feature...

    MrP


  • #168
    robindch
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,420 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch


    MrPudding wrote: »
    Does that mean that women with a slightly orangy natural hue to their skin are more likely to reproduce?
    A horrible thought, but as it stands, I think it's more likely that a tendency to wear dangerously crappy makeup is going to spread throughout the population.

    Perhaps it already has...


  • #169
    Galvasean
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 30,746 ✭✭✭✭Galvasean


    While I wouldn't go so far as to say evolution has stopped in humans, it certainly isn't being directed (if that is the correct phrase, bear with me).
    Think about it, as far as sexual selection is concerned there is no major stand out factor for being selected. Pretty people (heck if you are not naturally pretty you can get plastic surgery) can mate with ugly people. Olympic champions can breed with scientists.
    What I'm trying to get at here is that since pretty much every trait is being reabsorbed into the gene pool, nothing is being weeded out.
    Personally I think it would take a long and planet wide catastrophe before humans would start to evolve in a particular direction.


  • #170
    Mickeroo
    Administrators, Computer Games Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 32,392 Admin ✭✭✭✭✭Mickeroo


    Read H.G. Wells' The Time Machine, i think it was well before its time in saying how all our technology etc could effect our evolution.


  • #171
    sink
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,314 ✭✭✭sink


    Galvasean wrote: »
    While I wouldn't go so far as to say evolution has stopped in humans, it certainly isn't being directed (if that is the correct phrase, bear with me).
    Think about it, as far as sexual selection is concerned there is no major stand out factor for being selected. Pretty people (heck if you are not naturally pretty you can get plastic surgery) can mate with ugly people. Olympic champions can breed with scientists.
    What I'm trying to get at here is that since pretty much every trait is being reabsorbed into the gene pool, nothing is being weeded out.
    Personally I think it would take a long and planet wide catastrophe before humans would start to evolve in a particular direction.

    Natural selection requires that a selection is made. Demographics in the affluent west suggest that this isn't happening. Out of all the babies born a very large percentage of them make it to adulthood, and there are barely enough births to maintain current population levels. Conditions that would have been selected against in the past get by, such as diabetes and poor eyesight. Meanwhile conditions that would have been selected for in the past are not out breeding those without, e.g. intelligence, good looks and general health. So while some of the most intelligent and/or beautiful and healthy people on the planet are not procreating and some less intelligent/good looking/healthy people are having multiple children. Where does the genetic selection take place? Evolution theory holds that more mutations are taking place due to our larger population size (although this is in doubt see Steve Jones). But if no selection is taking place all these genetic mutations will persist, whether they are good or bad, It could be that rather than genetic selection, psychosocial factors play the largest role in selection. But what does this mean for the future of our species?

    Of course if you factor in the developing world this idea falls flat on it's face. But it is an interesting idea.


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  • #172
    Galvasean
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 30,746 ✭✭✭✭Galvasean


    National geographic has announced it's top 7 "missing links" that have been discovered since the publication of The Origin of Species.

    You can check them out here.


  • #173
    AtomicHorror
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,888 ✭✭✭AtomicHorror


    MrPudding wrote: »
    My thoughts exactly, I am only educated to a "read a few Dawkins books and all of Atomic Horror's posts" but it just seems wrong.

    For a start, sexual selection is alive and kicking.

    MrP

    As is genetic drift. As has been correctly pointed out, whether natural selection is active on a given trait or not, mutation continues. The chances that NS is not working on any of our traits is negligible. It's not possible to stop evolving without stopping breeding. We are absolutely continuing to evolve unless our understanding of evolution is completely wrong.


  • #174
    AtomicHorror
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,888 ✭✭✭AtomicHorror


    Galvasean wrote: »
    While I wouldn't go so far as to say evolution has stopped in humans, it certainly isn't being directed (if that is the correct phrase, bear with me).
    Think about it, as far as sexual selection is concerned there is no major stand out factor for being selected. Pretty people (heck if you are not naturally pretty you can get plastic surgery) can mate with ugly people. Olympic champions can breed with scientists.
    What I'm trying to get at here is that since pretty much every trait is being reabsorbed into the gene pool, nothing is being weeded out.
    Personally I think it would take a long and planet wide catastrophe before humans would start to evolve in a particular direction.

    How do you quantify evolutionary "direction"? How can a trait be "reabsorbed" into the gene pool? If a trait exists, it's in the gene pool.

    Ugly people can get plastic surgery, if they are wealthy enough. In which case their wealth may already be an adequate incentive for a good mate. Olympic champions and scientist both have strongly favourable traits, but with differing focuses.

    It is very difficult to look at any species, even a thriving species such as humans and pick out how natural selection is currently working, what the pressures are. But it would be a mistake to assume that it is not. It isn't working in the same way that it works on some animal species, but as long as people are dying childless at whatever age, it is working. The million-year retrospective view would doubtlessly be very informative.


  • #175
    AtomicHorror
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,888 ✭✭✭AtomicHorror


    sink wrote: »
    Natural selection requires that a selection is made.

    Nonsense. It requires that you die without having a kid. It's not an active process, that's sexual selection.
    sink wrote: »
    Demographics in the affluent west suggest that this isn't happening.

    Medical technology has shifted selective pressures away from many traits but it certainly hasn't eliminated natural selection's influence on us. The psychosocial arises ultimately from the biological anyway, so even if the influence of genetics is rather broad and fuzzy there, it will still amount to some level of selection on biology.


  • #176
    Goduznt Xzst
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,353 ✭✭✭Goduznt Xzst


    Have we evolved to the point though that sexual selection is starting to have a detrimental affect on our evolutionary progress?

    I mean I remember seeing statistics that indicated that the higher a persons IQ or the greater their ability to achieve success the lower the number of children they would have. Whereas the inverse tended to be true.

    This idea was made light of in the movie "Idiocracy". I'm just curious as to how much bearing members here would put in this idea?


  • #177
    AtomicHorror
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,888 ✭✭✭AtomicHorror


    Goduznt Xzst wrote: »
    Have we evolved to the point though that sexual selection is starting to have a detrimental affect on our evolutionary progress?

    From whose perspective? Things survive to breed or they don't, that's the only judgement present in the system. We may find certain traits undesirable, but our evolutionary progress has nothing to do with the where we think the species ought to be going.
    Goduznt Xzst wrote: »
    I mean I remember seeing statistics that indicated that the higher a persons IQ or the greater their ability to achieve success the lower the number of children they would have. Whereas the inverse tended to be true.

    This might well be correct, but again I think you're coming from an anthropocentric point of view here. You see the uniquely human trait of intelligence as something that evolution "should" be moving us towards. But it doesn't really work like that.


  • #178
    Goduznt Xzst
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,353 ✭✭✭Goduznt Xzst


    AtomicHorror wrote: »
    From whose perspective? Things survive to breed or they don't, that's the only judgement present in the system. We may find certain traits undesirable, but our evolutionary progress has nothing to do with the where we think the species ought to be going.

    This might well be correct, but again I think you're coming from an anthropocentric point of view here. You see the uniquely human trait of intelligence as something that evolution "should" be moving us towards. But it doesn't really work like that.

    I understand that evolution doesn't have a purpose and has no way of considering if a trait is a positive one or negative one and that the only determining factor is which one survives. But I wouldn't go as far as to say that its anthropocentric. Rather our brains have proven to be a beneficial evolutionary step for our species thus far.

    Do you imagine that we have reached a peak where the greater our intelligence gets the less likely we will be to pass on as much of our genes to the next generation as someone with a lower intelligence.


  • #179
    Simon.d
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 316 ✭✭Simon.d


    AtomicHorror wrote: »
    Medical technology has shifted selective pressures away from many traits but it certainly hasn't eliminated natural selection's influence on us. The psychosocial arises ultimately from the biological anyway, so even if the influence of genetics is rather broad and fuzzy there, it will still amount to some level of selection on biology.

    Was looking into this thread from time to time, and was meaning to say more or less the above.. It's completely naive to think we're beyond natural selection, or that we'll ever be.. Just look at the society we live in and you'll see major imbalances with regard to who's having the most children, i.e. those who don't have careers (or even jobs) to worry about are at it like rabbits.. While those with careers significantly impede their own genetic proliferation by indulging in ideas like family planning..

    • Technologies like In Vitro fertilization will have the net-effect of reducing our populations over-all fertility..
    • Laser eye surgery/Contact lenses with make those with genetically poor eye sight more successful with the opposite sex, thereby reducing our populations over all vision quality..
    • Those prone to obesity will become less attractive to the opposite sex, thereby reducing our populations ability to withstand food shortages in the future (Fat storage being quite important at such times)
    • Basically all medical intervention will have the net effect of making all genetically derived diseases more common.
      • Cancers will become more common
      • Heart problems will become more common
      • Could go on all day...
    Essentially we'll continue to form a more and more dependent relationship with technology, meaning one day human survival may be impossible without it..


  • #180
    Fanny Cradock
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 10,245 ✭✭✭✭Fanny Cradock


    Simon.d wrote: »
    Essentially we'll continue to form a more and more dependent relationship with technology, meaning one day human survival may be impossible without it..

    An interesting thought. One would imagine that we - or a proportion of the population - are already at such a stage. For instance, I wonder what chaos would ensue if a massive solar flare was to obliterate much of our electronics. Probably best discussed in another forum.


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  • #181
    robindch
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,420 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch


    Fanny Cradock wrote: »
    I wonder what chaos would ensue if a massive solar flare was to obliterate much of our electronics.
    Well, there'd be thousands of boardsies out on the street instead of fulminating in the safety of their own padded bedrooms.

    Chaos seems inevitable.


  • #182
    Fanny Cradock
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 10,245 ✭✭✭✭Fanny Cradock


    Mercy, you are correct! Think of all the real live trolls without the internet to tap their ire and maleficence.


  • #183
    Simon.d
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 316 ✭✭Simon.d


    Fanny Cradock wrote: »
    An interesting thought. One would imagine that we - or a proportion of the population - are already at such a stage.

    Much of our population's survival (and their respective phenotype) has absolutely been dependent on modern technology.. The environment we've grown up in has enabled a significantly higher proportion of us to reach adulthood, which is somewhat proven by contrasting survival rates here to other technologically deficient regions on the planet..

    The infant mortality rate in Ethiopia is (82.64 deaths ) / (1000 live births), while in Ireland the infant mortality rate is (5.14 deaths ) / (1000 it live births).. i.e. 16 times more children survive infancy in Ireland than in Ethiopia.. Meaning it could be inferred that 75 out of every 80 people born in this country owe their survival and the survival of their genes to modern technology.. (It's not a perfect comparison, as the Ethiopian environment is quite different to Ireland's + their gene pool is a bit different, but I'd reckon the real figure would be somewhere in that region)


  • #184
    darjeeling
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 962 ✭✭✭darjeeling


    You can find concerns over human genetic decline expressed by writers as far back as the eras of classical Greece and Rome. I think these fears unfounded.

    Arguably, humans have been under pretty strong selection for much of our recorded history. We've lived in constantly increasing numbers, packed together in ever growing cities, allowing epidemics to spread as never before. We've surrounded ourselves with domesticated animals that have been a source of many new and lethal diseases. We've fought each other viciously on battlefields all over the world, and enslaved and trans-shipped each other in horrific conditions. For most of this time we had no functioning medicine, and even today billions have little or no access to healthcare and other technologies. Has this had an effect? Well, now we can look, we're actually beginning to see the genetic signatures of infectious disease-driven selection in our genomes.

    The scenario of genetic erosion due to comfort and technology really only applies to the wealthy nations, and even then, only to the last hundred to two hundred years or so. That's precious little time to allow any real genetic change*. I think it's more a sense that we have offended the natural order with our licentious living, and that we will have to pay a price. Were I to be mischievous, I might call it a religious instinct.

    As for intelligence dying out, I'm not convinced we have anything to worry about. If the ancient Greeks were right to fear this, we mightn't expect to have progressed much in the 2000 years since, and I'd say we've done rather better than that.

    And for the future - if we go further in embryo screening, and even tinkering with our genomes to put in bits we want and take away bits we don't - well perhaps I won't open a whole new can of ballgames.

    *[science] It was suggested that >6 billion people means more chances of mutation, leading to greater mutational load for all of us. In fact, population genetic theory says that while more people = more chances for (once harmful, now neutral due to technology) mutations to happen, nevertheless when they do occur, they'll spread less rapidly due to the larger population, hence fixation rate for new neutral mutations is equal to mutation rate, and independent of population size. [/science]


  • #185
    darjeeling
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 962 ✭✭✭darjeeling


    Simon.d wrote: »
    The infant mortality rate in Ethiopia is (82.64 deaths ) / (1000 live births), while in Ireland the infant mortality rate is (5.14 deaths ) / (1000 it live births).. i.e. 16 times more children survive infancy in Ireland than in Ethiopia.. Meaning it could be inferred that 75 out of every 80 people born in this country owe their survival and the survival of their genes to modern technology..

    995/1000 (Ire) vs. 917/1000 (Eth), so 995/917 = 1.1 times as many surviving infancy here, not 16. It should have been 78/1000 more surviving here, not 75/80.


  • #186
    Goduznt Xzst
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,353 ✭✭✭Goduznt Xzst


    Pretty good series of videos giving a good foundation about evolution

    http://www.youtube.com/user/potholer54


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  • #187
    Simon.d
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 316 ✭✭Simon.d


    darjeeling wrote: »
    995/1000 (Ire) vs. 917/1000 (Eth), so 995/917 = 1.1 times as many surviving infancy here, not 16. It should have been 78/1000 more surviving here, not 75/80.

    Got it the wrong way round, thanks! :o Just did a quick comment on figures pulled from google, thought it sounded a bit large (I blame tiredness!) .. Anyhow, I suppose the point still stands, figures just a lot less.. i.e around 10% of our population owes their survival beyond infancy to modern technology!


  • #188
    darjeeling
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 962 ✭✭✭darjeeling


    Simon.d wrote: »
    Got it the wrong way round, thanks! :o Just did a quick comment on figures pulled from google, thought it sounded a bit large (I blame tiredness!) .. Anyhow, I suppose the point still stands, figures just a lot less.. i.e around 10% of our population owes their survival beyond infancy to modern technology!

    Yes, the additional number of us surviving infancy - and considerably more surviving childhood - is still pretty striking. This table shows global infant mortality by country for 1960 and 2001, showing that it fell on average from 126/1000 to 57/1000. The 2007 report shows that in the least developed countries, though, one child in ten dies before the age of one, compared with one in 200 in the most industrialised countries.


  • #189
    MrPudding
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,788 ✭✭✭MrPudding


    robindch wrote: »
    Well, there'd be thousands of boardsies out on the street instead of fulminating in the safety of their own padded bedrooms.

    Chaos seems inevitable.
    Our Evil Atheist Conspiracy (TM) secret underground lair is fully EM shielded.

    MrP


  • #190
    ChocolateSauce
    Registered Users Posts: 2,892 ✭✭✭ChocolateSauce


    Regarding my statement about our own evolution via natural selection slowing down:

    We are a population of middle-to-large animals numbering almost 7 billion and spread across the world. Because of our incredible, unheard of geographic diversity (except perhaps for the rat), coupled with our newfound mobility, even if a major evolutionary shift were to occur in one place, it would be totally absorbed into the overall population, and rather than becoming a dominant trait which allowed one group of us to survive at the expense of others, it would cease to be, or at the very most not pass beyond the community whence it came.

    In evolutionary time, it is just an eye blink away before no one is struggling to survive, thanks to technology (assuming, as I like to, that in 1000 years we won't have destroyed ourselves and will have ended war and famine). Yes, in just 30,000 years we've gone from black skin, to red, white and yellow and loads of in-betweens, but this was a major change carried by a small number of highly isolated individual tribes who faced extremely harsh conditions. That kind of struggle is over, and without the extreme duress of that struggle, major changes across the whole human population are not going to happen. I also think that unnatural selection will totally out pace natural selection. Today we have issue with modifying the human genome, but who can say what people in 30,000 years (about how long we've been beyond Africa in our present form) will think of the idea?

    Or maybe I'm way in over my head and need a lesson in human evolution?


  • #191
    AtomicHorror
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,888 ✭✭✭AtomicHorror


    Goduznt Xzst wrote: »
    Do you imagine that we have reached a peak where the greater our intelligence gets the less likely we will be to pass on as much of our genes to the next generation as someone with a lower intelligence.

    I think that it's possible that higher intelligence could be selected against under many circumstances. As could any trait we expect to be "positive". Whether that is happening now is hard to say. Ask me in a million years.


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  • #192
    darjeeling
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 962 ✭✭✭darjeeling


    ChocolateSauce wrote: »
    Regarding my statement about our own evolution via natural selection slowing down:

    We are a population of middle-to-large animals numbering almost 7 billion and spread across the world. Because of our incredible, unheard of geographic diversity (except perhaps for the rat), coupled with our newfound mobility, even if a major evolutionary shift were to occur in one place, it would be totally absorbed into the overall population, and rather than becoming a dominant trait which allowed one group of us to survive at the expense of others, it would cease to be, or at the very most not pass beyond the community whence it came.

    In evolutionary time, it is just an eye blink away before no one is struggling to survive, thanks to technology (assuming, as I like to, that in 1000 years we won't have destroyed ourselves and will have ended war and famine). Yes, in just 30,000 years we've gone from black skin, to red, white and yellow and loads of in-betweens, but this was a major change carried by a small number of highly isolated individual tribes who faced extremely harsh conditions. That kind of struggle is over, and without the extreme duress of that struggle, major changes across the whole human population are not going to happen. I also think that unnatural selection will totally out pace natural selection. Today we have issue with modifying the human genome, but who can say what people in 30,000 years (about how long we've been beyond Africa in our present form) will think of the idea?

    I draw a distinction between the notion that we are genetically undermining our species through breeding without regard for good genes - that way lies eugenics - and your suggestion that we in the technological world currently don't face the same selection pressures we might have even just a couple of hundred years ago.

    Under Darwinian evolution, we adapt to fit our environment. However, we can now also adapt our environment to fit ourselves. Our success in doing so means our environment now includes clean water, abundant food, vaccines, antibiotics, surgical operations, central heating etc., meaning a lot more of us can rub along. Take away our healthcare and sanitation systems, our on-demand food and energy supplies, and I think we'd go back to the lifestyle of the middle ages, with its attendant high mortality from disease, famine and toil. I don't think, though, that our species would necessarily die out due to our having enjoyed a few generations when the going was good. I believe we're not so long out of our old way of life that we can no longer hack it genetically if civilisation follows banking over the cliff.

    As to where evolution will take us if we continue on our present trajectory, I have no idea, particularly if we start choosing our children's genomes à la carte. And turning to where people think evolution ought to be taking us - that one really is for the philosophers.


  • #193
    AtomicHorror
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,888 ✭✭✭AtomicHorror


    darjeeling wrote: »
    Under Darwinian evolution, we adapt to fit our environment. However, we can now also adapt our environment to fit ourselves.

    Indeed, but so do many other species with varying degrees of success. Just look at all the varied species that use tools. As with many traits we consider unique to humans, this one is just another example of taking an old trick to a new level. We alter our environment, which alters us and around we go.


  • #194
    Dave!
    Closed Accounts Posts: 27,857 ✭✭✭✭Dave!


    There was a good quote I heard, possibly by Dan Dennett, about how scientists are reluctant to attribute technological advancement and ingenuity to evolution. He said something like "Beaver dam, yes. Hoover dam? No. Spider web, yes. World Wide Web? No."


  • #195
    Goduznt Xzst
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,353 ✭✭✭Goduznt Xzst


    AtomicHorror wrote: »
    I think that it's possible that higher intelligence could be selected against under many circumstances. As could any trait we expect to be "positive". Whether that is happening now is hard to say. Ask me in a million years.

    Am I right in assuming that evolutionary theory doesn't really concern itself with where a species or genus is going, rather where it has come from and where it is? Is this more to do with eugenics or transhumanism in regards to our own species?


  • #196
    ChocolateSauce
    Registered Users Posts: 2,892 ✭✭✭ChocolateSauce


    Eugenics is a load of BS, and hasn't really got any basis in science. It's just people who don't understand genetics trying to make certain humans "better".


  • #197
    darjeeling
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 962 ✭✭✭darjeeling


    Goduznt Xzst wrote: »
    Am I right in assuming that evolutionary theory doesn't really concern itself with where a species or genus is going, rather where it has come from and where it is?

    I think that's basically right.

    In the short term, you can predict that if you hammer a bacterium with an antibiotic, or a mosquito with an insecticide, there's a good likelihood they'll evolve to become resistant.

    In the long term, things are far less predictable. If you could go back 50 million years ago to north-west India where the little deer-like Indohyus lived, you'd have a hard job predicting that some of its descendents (or those of its close relatives) would evolve into blue whales. There are just too many factors involved, many of them down to chance.


  • #198
    AtomicHorror
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,888 ✭✭✭AtomicHorror


    Goduznt Xzst wrote: »
    Am I right in assuming that evolutionary theory doesn't really concern itself with where a species or genus is going, rather where it has come from and where it is? Is this more to do with eugenics or transhumanism in regards to our own species?

    Evolutionary theory by itself doesn't really have the power to predict how any given species will evolve in the future. Its predictive power lies more in its ability to extrapolate transitional and intermediate forms in the past. The reason for that is because we can get a good idea of what came before and after a given unknown form in the fossil record and/or genetics as well as having at least some information on the other species present and the environment at the time.

    The problem with trying to use the theory to look forwards is that we only know the starting point and we know nothing at all about the future environmental and technological parameters. Before we can use evolutionary theory in this way, we'll need to develop means to accurately predict these other elements of the equation. The system is essentially chaotic (ie not practically predictable) beyond the very near future. The number of possible outcomes for a given species rapidly becomes mind-boggling.

    None of this stops some futurist types from attempting to extrapolate our future evolution anyway, but it would be a mistake to label that "science". It's speculation.

    Eugenics and transhumanism are another matter entirely, though they may be just as foolish. Both are attempts to shape our future evolution. So desirable outcomes are defined on our terms. The problem with this is that what evolution finds fit and what we judge it to be will automatically differ (otherwise why would we need to pursue these methods at all?). In the long term, evolution will always win that particular fight. But also we once again run into the problem of predictability. There are so many parameters (20,000 genes interacting with each other, with an environment with unpredicatble properties, with technologies with unpredictable growth and direction) that we really have no clear idea how any of the changes we make will do in the long term. In the short term, perhaps these are things which can be used to solve immediate problems (such as using GM crops in a drought), but the notion that we may meaningfully shape (or predict) our future evolution is very naive.

    It's a beautiful but maddeningly complex system, even when you look backwards.


  • #199
    darjeeling
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 962 ✭✭✭darjeeling


    AtomicHorror wrote: »
    Evolutionary theory by itself doesn't really have the power to predict how any given species will evolve in the future.

    One thing we can do is look at an ecological level, and predict that in most ecosystems there will be photosynthesising organisms, grazers that eat them and predators that eat them in turn. And we can predict some of the attributes that we'll find in organisms in each group. However, predicting which of today's species might come to inhabit a particular niche in any future ecosystem would again be much more difficult, if not impossible.


  • #200
    AtomicHorror
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,888 ✭✭✭AtomicHorror


    darjeeling wrote: »
    One thing we can do is look at an ecological level, and predict that in most ecosystems there will be photosynthesising organisms, grazers that eat them and predators that eat them in turn. And we can predict some of the attributes that we'll find in organisms in each group. However, predicting which of today's species might come to inhabit a particular niche in any future ecosystem would again be much more difficult, if not impossible.

    Generally, I guess we can, so long as we know enough about the current and starting conditions. Our prediction is rather nebulous though.


  • #201
    Goduznt Xzst
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,353 ✭✭✭Goduznt Xzst


    ChocolateSauce wrote: »
    Eugenics is a load of BS, and hasn't really got any basis in science.

    Really? I thought it was widely accepted that Artificial selection and the prediction of phenotypes can work under quantitative genetics. Examples being the Belgian Blue cows, race horses or breeds of dog. If eugenics has been thrown out as having no basis in science I'd be interested in reading about it if you have any sources.
    darjeeling wrote: »
    In the long term, things are far less predictable. If you could go back 50 million years ago to north-west India where the little deer-like Indohyus lived, you'd have a hard job predicting that some of its descendents (or those of its close relatives) would evolve into blue whales. There are just too many factors involved, many of them down to chance.

    But do we not have enough information to run simulations? I mean given enough parameters can we not predict how humans will evolve under certain circumstances?


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