Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie
Hi all! We have been experiencing an issue on site where threads have been missing the latest postings. The platform host Vanilla are working on this issue. A workaround that has been used by some is to navigate back from 1 to 10+ pages to re-sync the thread and this will then show the latest posts. Thanks, Mike.
Hi there,
There is an issue with role permissions that is being worked on at the moment.
If you are having trouble with access or permissions on regional forums please post here to get access: https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058365403/you-do-not-have-permission-for-that#latest

Human Evolution - Are we done??

2

Comments

  • Closed Accounts Posts: 910 ✭✭✭Jagera


    Life has constantly evolved and adapted since the birth of organic life some 3.5 billion years ago.

    It officially stopped last Wednesday. There was a small get together in Rialto.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,467 ✭✭✭Wazdakka


    bw wrote: »
    It officially stopped last Wednesday. There was a small get together in Rialto.
    I'm pretty sure evolution hasn't touched anything in Rialto in years.


  • Moderators, Category Moderators, Music Moderators, Politics Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 22,360 CMod ✭✭✭✭Dravokivich


    Wazdakka wrote: »
    I'm pretty sure evolution hasn't touched anything in Rialto in years.

    more likely to be devolution :pac:


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,171 ✭✭✭af_thefragile


    Saila wrote: »
    understanding of original point fail :(
    the 10% arguement/debate isnt about stating that 90% of the brain is redundant, its about saying at any one time, you are only using 10% or so
    to function and perform tasks.

    Think of it like this:

    a road network, at anyone time you can only use one road at a time, but the rest are redundant according to your reasoning because you are not using them all at the same time, different roads go to different locations
    and the barin is the same principle, only 10% or so of the network are being used at any one time.

    Exactly.

    I said "mental capacity" not brain matter.

    Its like a person like Einstein worked at more than 60%* of his mental capacity when formulating his theory of relativity.

    While Anto works at 0.1% of the human mental capacity when he swipes groceries at the till he works at in Tescos.

    We (or the majority) of us humans are becoming a species that's becoming more and more used to doing what we're told without putting much thought process into it.

    As George Carlin put it, roughly, we're becoming a species who are just intelligent enough to do the task we're employed to do while being dumb enough to keep doing that job without questioning the reducing pay and longer working hours.

    Sure there are some people working highly engaging jobs such as doctors, physicists, economists etc. whose job requires a greater degree of mental input than most other jobs. But the same can't be said for most people.

    Why do you think we don't have people like Plato, Shakespeare and Einstein anymore?

    Maybe cuz people nowdays are too busy doing their menial day to day tasks and have no time to every sit back and think about the larger, more complex things in life... People back in the days had more time on their hands to think of such trivial and abstract things. You didn't really had to worry much about getting on time for you job and making sure you have enough money in your account to be able to pay all your bills and mortgage.


    *that figure is totally made up as there is no way of proving how much mental capacity a person is utilizing accurately.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,463 ✭✭✭Antomus Prime


    Exactly.


    While Anto works at 0.1% of the human mental capacity when he swipes groceries at the till he works at in Tescos.

    Dislike.............. lol


  • Registered Users Posts: 123 ✭✭deereidy


    Ever seen the film Idiocracy? It's stupid, but the idea behind it is good :D


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 28,789 ✭✭✭✭ScumLord


    As far as I'm aware evolution only favours traits that allow the carriers to survive long enough to procreate, which ment in the times before modern medicine only the very strongest survived until adulthood to pass their genes on. Nowadays tho we might be getting weaker without natural selection.
    Of course I'm not a biologist so I'm probably just bullsh*ting here :pac:
    But we get other benefits from not letting natural selection taking someone from us that's of us. Steven Hawkins being the perfect example. By preventing natural selection we've allowed Steven hawking to give us some of the greatest thoughts ever made.
    Exactly.

    I said "mental capacity" not brain matter.

    Its like a person like Einstein worked at more than 60%* of his mental capacity when formulating his theory of relativity.

    While Anto works at 0.1% of the human mental capacity when he swipes groceries at the till he works at in Tescos.
    But I don't think it workds like that. The part of Einstiens brain that he used to come up with his theories may be tiny, his not using he's coordination to do maths.

    Anto may well be using more of his brain to coordinate scanning items while holding a conversation.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,461 ✭✭✭--Kaiser--


    Saila wrote: »
    understanding of original point fail :(
    the 10% arguement/debate isnt about stating that 90% of the brain is redundant, its about saying at any one time, you are only using 10% or so
    to function and perform tasks.

    Understanding fail on your part. The statement has no basis in science whatsoever. It's one of those 'facts' that gets repeated ad nauseum without any basis in reality.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,171 ✭✭✭af_thefragile


    ScumLord wrote: »
    But we get other benefits from not letting natural selection taking someone from us that's of us. Steven Hawkins being the perfect example. By preventing natural selection we've allowed Steven hawking to give us some of the greatest thoughts ever made.

    But I don't think it workds like that. The part of Einstiens brain that he used to come up with his theories may be tiny, his not using he's coordination to do maths.

    Anto may well be using more of his brain to coordinate scanning items while holding a conversation.

    Maybe I should define it further as mental thought capacity.
    The ability of your brain to perform complex reasoning, critical thinking and problem solving. The frontal cortex bit of your brain where all your higher mental functions take place. Stuff unique to humans.

    Physical coordination is different from that. Cats have better coordination than humans yet they don't have a larger mental capacity than us.


  • Advertisement
  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 68,317 ✭✭✭✭seamus


    As George Carlin put it, roughly, we're becoming a species who are just intelligent enough to do the task we're employed to do while being dumb enough to keep doing that job without questioning the reducing pay and longer working hours.
    Actually I think we're becoming entirely the opposite. 200 years ago, you were lucky to go to school, you got a job before you turned ten and worked at that job for the next fifty years before you dropped dead. Your brain was no more exercised than the effort it took to do your work, go home, look after your kids, wash, rinse, repeat for fifty years.

    We have now engineered our own personal freedoms which gives us the ability to effectively do whatever the hell we want and avoid the routine of the day - our minds have never been more exercised and fed with information than they have been over the last fifty years.

    Computers and automated technologies generally don't "dumb down" what we're doing - they remove the mundane and easily-understood parts so that all we're left with is the more complex logic which we can't yet model or perform autonomously.
    But the same can't be said for most people.
    And it never has been. The vast majority of people live their life in mundanity. But that trend has been slowly eroding - how many people do you know have changed jobs over the last ten years, or gone travelling, or done varying forms of training and education? How many people do you think realistically had any of those options 100 years ago?

    Computers turn a 6-hour manual job into a 6-second automatic one. Sure, it means that many previous manual skills fall into decline - think knitting and wood-turning, but that doesn't mean that people are getting stupider or losing the ability to do these things. How many people could carve a good stone spear out of sticks and shale? Do you lament that we've lost the skill of making a quality loincloth from bear skins?
    Why do you think we don't have people like Plato, Shakespeare and Einstein anymore?
    We don't? So we're just paying universty professors and the ESA to sit around scratching their arses all day?
    People back in the days had more time on their hands to think of such trivial and abstract things.
    "Back in the day", you barely had time to take a ****, never mind mull on the trivialities of life. In fact, thinking about things was frowned upon - you accepted what you were told and STFU.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,562 ✭✭✭scientific1982


    msg11 wrote: »
    Doubt it , sure I think there are kid's in Africa been born with a resistance to HIV/AIDS
    Roughly 10% of Europeans have some resistence to HIV and about 1% are immune.


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


    seamus wrote: »
    Actually I think we're becoming entirely the opposite. 200 years ago, you were lucky to go to school, you got a job before you turned ten and worked at that job for the next fifty years before you dropped dead. Your brain was no more exercised than the effort it took to do your work, go home, look after your kids, wash, rinse, repeat for fifty years.

    We have now engineered our own personal freedoms which gives us the ability to effectively do whatever the hell we want and avoid the routine of the day - our minds have never been more exercised and fed with information than they have been over the last fifty years.

    Computers and automated technologies generally don't "dumb down" what we're doing - they remove the mundane and easily-understood parts so that all we're left with is the more complex logic which we can't yet model or perform autonomously.

    And it never has been. The vast majority of people live their life in mundanity. But that trend has been slowly eroding - how many people do you know have changed jobs over the last ten years, or gone travelling, or done varying forms of training and education? How many people do you think realistically had any of those options 100 years ago?

    Computers turn a 6-hour manual job into a 6-second automatic one. Sure, it means that many previous manual skills fall into decline - think knitting and wood-turning, but that doesn't mean that people are getting stupider or losing the ability to do these things. How many people could carve a good stone spear out of sticks and shale? Do you lament that we've lost the skill of making a quality loincloth from bear skins?
    We don't? So we're just paying universty professors and the ESA to sit around scratching their arses all day?
    "Back in the day", you barely had time to take a ****, never mind mull on the trivialities of life. In fact, thinking about things was frowned upon - you accepted what you were told and STFU.
    Compelling!


  • Registered Users Posts: 109 ✭✭draylander


    A few arguments about our species going forward as a whole

    Jedward
    X-Factor
    Facebook
    Fade Street/The hills/MTV in general
    Limerick
    Txt Language
    The irish people (myself in general)....etc etc.


    the list goes on


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 17,661 ✭✭✭✭Helix


    we have no real need to evolve any more, at least not in major ways

    we've got no predators; if we get sick we have medicines; if we are born defective, we can still live perfectly fine lives

    when you start prolonging the lives of people who would otherwise have died due to their particular evolutionary lineage, and they start reproducing, then youre pretty much at an evolutionary standstill

    next is augmentation of our bodies with technology - not natural evolution as such, but we're probably done with that


  • Users Awaiting Email Confirmation Posts: 5,620 ✭✭✭El_Dangeroso


    There is a theory in anthropology that we have been evolving at a much faster rate since the advent of agriculture, the theory goes genetic changes now happen in 30-60 generations, perhaps sooner as the new and exciting field of epigenetics shares more light on the subject.

    We know that changes in diet can influence the genetics in cats and mice in 3 generations or so, pretty much every stimulus given to your body switches on or off a pertinent gene. Maybe in 60 generations we'll be perfectly adapted to eating junkfood as our main source of calories.

    Our environment is changing drastically, our lives have become unrecognisable from even a generation ago, seems only logical that our genes would be affected by this, though the repercussions may be a few generations off yet.

    As for computers removing mundane tasks from our lives: As a person who works in IT all I have to say to that is HA!

    Edited to say that some people seem to think that the only way that genetic changes occur is by some people being eaten by a tiger before they procreate, that's true but it's not the only way our genes change.


  • Advertisement
  • Registered Users Posts: 2,941 ✭✭✭thebigbiffo


    i personally think our brains will evolve at a faster rate than our bodies and we'll have big massive heads with no hair (cos lets face it it's fairly useless atm) with small bodies, big eyes and long fingers to suit our technological advancement. we'll also have very little exposure to sunlight (as we'll have ruined the atmosphere of the planet and will live in specialist artifical environments) so we will have grey skin - couple this with the telepathic powers we'll all have because our superintelligent brains will be fine tuned to the natural energy our bodies give off (aura) and you've basically got this:

    http://crazy-news.net/newspaper/newspaper1/large_grey.jpg

    now, anyone up for a trip to the conspiracy forum to discuss how 'aliens' are actually time travellers?

    btw, i'm dead f'uckin serious...sort of :pac:


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 31,146 ✭✭✭✭Lumen


    the new and exciting field of epigenetics shares more light on the subject...some people seem to think that the only way that genetic changes occur is by some people being eaten by a tiger before they procreate, that's true but it's not the only way our genes change.

    If epigenics does not involve structural DNA changes, what has that to do with evolution?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,463 ✭✭✭Antomus Prime


    ]

    now, anyone up for a trip to the conspiracy forum to discuss how 'aliens' are actually time travellers?

    btw, i'm dead f'uckin serious...sort of :pac:

    Ha ha interesting theory, i should let a mate of mine have a read of this cause he genuinely is convinced that time travel is possible and there's people from the future walking around everyday


  • Moderators, Music Moderators Posts: 12,582 Mod ✭✭✭✭iamstop


    Some of us will evolve camel like humps (no toes) to store water after the global warming reaches tipping point.

    The rest will perish.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,593 ✭✭✭Sea Sharp


    Evolution as we knew it won't be happening anymore.
    Survival of the fittest doesn't apply when the majority of children grow to be adults and smart people choose to not have kids while dumb poor people are multiplying like Irish Catholics.


  • Advertisement
  • Users Awaiting Email Confirmation Posts: 5,620 ✭✭✭El_Dangeroso


    Lumen wrote: »
    If epigenics does not involve structural DNA changes, what has that to do with evolution?

    Who says it doesn't involve structural changes?

    Edited to say: Oops, posted too quickly while skim-reading. Can gene expression not lead to permanent mutation no?


  • Registered Users Posts: 4,466 ✭✭✭Snakeblood


    appendix and little fingers will go next, maybe hair too.

    Then GILLS.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 28,789 ✭✭✭✭ScumLord


    seamus wrote: »
    Computers turn a 6-hour manual job into a 6-second automatic one. Sure, it means that many previous manual skills fall into decline - think knitting and wood-turning, .
    When it comes to this machines take care of the practical side of supplying people with things they need and frees up the skilled labour and artist to create things that are not only better and more interesting. Before the advent of these machines all these things were to expensive to buy and lay people tried to make the best example they could. It's not that they were particularly skilled it's just they had no choice.
    i personally think our brains will evolve at a faster rate than our bodies and we'll have big massive heads with no hair (cos lets face it it's fairly useless atm)
    Tell it to the females because now for the first time in a long time in human history they're back in control of our evolution (because they can decide who they will mate with now).


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,609 ✭✭✭stoneill


    As long as the human race evolves into something that is better than what it currently is.


  • Moderators, Regional East Moderators Posts: 23,233 Mod ✭✭✭✭GLaDOS


    Evolution never stops on a species, except in he case of mass extinctions. Everything looks rosy now, but if there's a massive change in environment, natural selection will kick in.

    Cake, and grief counseling, will be available at the conclusion of the test



  • Posts: 0 ✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    Since in the modern world, what's more important for survival these days is determined by social issues, it's possible that what we'll see by the genetic processes that are constantly going on is more diversity in our species.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 13,039 ✭✭✭✭bnt


    As far as I'm aware evolution only favours traits that allow the carriers to survive long enough to procreate, which ment in the times before modern medicine only the very strongest survived until adulthood to pass their genes on. Nowadays tho we might be getting weaker without natural selection.
    Of course I'm not a biologist so I'm probably just bullsh*ting here :pac:
    No - that's a good way of putting it, I think. I'm not a biologist either, but I read things. All manner of things that used to kill us, before we could breed, are no longer fatal. Recessive genes allow diseases to skip generations, so you can suffer from something that your ancestors didn't - except that you can now survive long enough to breed, thanks to modern medicine.

    Another example is Haemophilia, which was deadly to the ordinary person, and affects far more men than women (for genetic reasons). However, it has long treatable by transfusion if you could afford it, and had a privilieged lifestyle that didn't risk injury - if you were a member of a royal family, for example. The Romanovs suffered from it, and Queen Victoria was a carrier: two of her great-grandsons in the Spanish royal family had it, and died from minor injuries after car crashes.

    Death has this much to be said for it:
    You don’t have to get out of bed for it.
    Wherever you happen to be
    They bring it to you—free.

    — Kingsley Amis



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 32,370 ✭✭✭✭Son Of A Vidic


    Wazdakka wrote: »
    I would have said exactly the opposite. I reckon were killing off our natural immune system by being paranoid and over protective..

    Absolutely, ironically the more 'sterile' our living environments are made.The more weakened our immune systems will become over time.


  • Posts: 0 ✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    Absolutely, ironically the more 'sterile' our living environments are made.The more weakened our immune systems will become over time.

    Although Life Expectancy is growing at a very quick rate so surely the benefits of increased sterility are outweighing the disadvantages of having weakened immune systems.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 28,789 ✭✭✭✭ScumLord


    Although Life Expectancy is growing at a very quick rate
    More to do with medicine than preventative action I think.


  • Advertisement
  • Closed Accounts Posts: 6,075 ✭✭✭IamtheWalrus


    OP, I don't mean to be rude but can you stop thanking the majority of posts?


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,949 ✭✭✭The Waltzing Consumer


    OP, I don't mean to be rude but can you stop thanking the majority of posts?

    Someone needs a thanking!!!! :P


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,463 ✭✭✭Antomus Prime


    OP, I don't mean to be rude but can you stop thanking the majority of posts?

    Lol i was just doing it at the start then when NothinMan decided to bring it up i just kept doing it as a laugh in response to his comment. Have stopped now though. It kept me amused in my boring ass job for a little while


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,047 ✭✭✭Jamiekelly


    --Kaiser-- wrote: »
    This is a myth. No scientific study has ever proved this statement.

    Neuroscientist Barry Beyerstein sets out seven kinds of evidence refuting the ten percent myth:

    * Studies of brain damage: If 90% of the brain is normally unused, then damage to these areas should not impair performance. Instead, there is almost no area of the brain that can be damaged without loss of abilities. Even slight damage to small areas of the brain can have profound effects.

    * Evolution: The brain is enormously costly to the rest of the body, in terms of oxygen and nutrient consumption. If 90% of it were unnecessary, there would be a large survival advantage to humans with smaller, more efficient brains. If this were true, the process of natural selection would have eliminated the inefficient brains.

    * Brain imaging: Technologies such as Positron Emission Tomography (PET) and Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) allow the activity of the living brain to be monitored. They reveal that even during sleep, all parts of the brain show some level of activity. Only in the case of serious damage does a brain have "silent" areas.

    * Localization of function: Rather than acting as a single mass, the brain has distinct regions for different kinds of information processing. Decades of research has gone into mapping functions onto areas of the brain, and no function-less areas have been found.

    * Microstructural analysis: In the single-unit recording technique, researchers insert a tiny electrode into the brain to monitor the activity of a single cell. If 90% of cells were unused, then this technique would have revealed that.

    * Metabolic studies: Another scientific technique involves studying the take-up of radioactively labelled 2-deoxyglucose molecules by the brain. If 90 percent of the brain were inactive, then those inactive cells would be show up as blank areas in a radiograph of the brain. Again, there is no such result.

    * Neural disease: Brain cells that are not used have a tendency to degenerate. Hence if 90% of the brain were inactive, autopsy of adult brains would reveal large-scale degeneration

    If I copy stuff off wikipedia will I get random thanks? :pac:


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,463 ✭✭✭Antomus Prime


    Someone needs a thanking!!!! :P

    The urge to Thank is growing far FAR too strong!!!!!! :p


  • Registered Users Posts: 56 ✭✭chebonaparte


    http://books.google.ie/books?id=j3t1AoCXYDEC&dq=ascent+science&hl=en&ei=uBkJTYjCKqGqhAe23fHEDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCcQ6AEwAA

    if u have grasp junior cert science this will enlighten,

    jacob bronowski had brilliant series on bbc years back too..


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,463 ✭✭✭Antomus Prime


    Jamiekelly wrote: »
    If I copy stuff off wikipedia will I get random thanks? :pac:

    Just cause you asked with Pacman, I can never say no to Pacman!! :D


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,778 ✭✭✭Big Pussy Bonpensiero


    Had this conversation with my science teacher way back in 3rd year. He think it possible that waaaay into the future we'll lose;
    1. Our hair. Serves no function.
    2. Our small fingers. Again, serves no function.
    3. Our teeth. As food is becoming more and more processed our teeth will become redundant.
    I'm not sure about this one but he also thought its possible that we could someday lose our skulls and rib-cages.

    I believe that our immune system will become a lot more resistant to diseases such as aids and cancer (and with the love of God sti's!).


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,463 ✭✭✭Antomus Prime


    THFC wrote: »
    I'm not sure about this one but he also thought its possible that we could someday lose our skulls and rib-cages.

    I would be very interested to hear his theories about loosing our skulls and rib cages????? Did he ever give you and examples of why he believed this?


  • Advertisement
  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,449 ✭✭✭Call Me Jimmy


    ahahaha no.


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,949 ✭✭✭The Waltzing Consumer


    THFC wrote: »
    Had this conversation with my science teacher way back in 3rd year. He think it possible that waaaay into the future we'll lose;
    1. Our hair. Serves no function.
    2. Our small fingers. Again, serves no function.
    3. Our teeth. As food is becoming more and more processed our teeth will become redundant.
    I'm not sure about this one but he also thought its possible that we could someday lose our skulls and rib-cages.

    I believe that our immune system will become a lot more resistant to diseases such as aids and cancer (and with the love of God sti's!).

    Could it be possible that your science teacher was a bald, four-fingered man with no teeth who wanted to level the playing field?

    Evolution should mess around with emotions and leave our hair and teeth alone, like, why the hell do we get embarrassed and blush? What the f**k is that all about? Don't really think that is needed anymore.

    I do wish we had tails though!


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,772 ✭✭✭Cú Giobach


    THFC wrote: »
    Had this conversation with my science teacher way back in 3rd year. He think it possible that waaaay into the future we'll lose;
    1. Our hair. Serves no function.
    2. Our small fingers. Again, serves no function.
    3. Our teeth. As food is becoming more and more processed our teeth will become redundant.

    Noooo!!
    Hair...Go out on a cold day just after a haircut, chilly. Sexual selection-- most men don't fancy bald women and most women don't fancy 18 to 20 something naturally bald men (not 100% sure of that one though).
    Little finger.... what would we scratch the inside of our ears with??
    Teeth ...Try eating a burger and fries (not to mention the nuggets) without teeth. :D


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,778 ✭✭✭Pauleta


    You just have to look at the likes of Usain Bolt and Michael Phelps to realise how much we are evolving. Sports people from 30 years ago couldnt come close to what humans are doing now and thats in all sports. We are getting bigger, stronger, faster, smarter, fitter and more agile by the decade.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 28,789 ✭✭✭✭ScumLord


    Jamiekelly wrote: »
    If I copy stuff off wikipedia will I get random thanks? :pac:
    If it's relevant.
    THFC wrote: »
    Had this conversation with my science teacher way back in 3rd year. He think it possible that waaaay into the future we'll lose;
    1. Our hair. Serves no function.
    2. Our small fingers. Again, serves no function.
    3. Our teeth. As food is becoming more and more processed our teeth will become redundant.
    I'm not sure about this one but he also thought its possible that we could someday lose our skulls and rib-cages.

    I believe that our immune system will become a lot more resistant to diseases such as aids and cancer (and with the love of God sti's!).
    I don't know why the immune system would get better when a lot of people think it's getting worse due to sterilisation.

    Hair, sexual attraction over rules even functionality in most species and hair is useful.
    Small fingers are useful, if you cut yours off you'll see what I mean.
    Teeth are also tools I don't see how not having them would be any sort of advantage they even help with speech which is almost essential in our species.
    Pauleta wrote:
    You just have to look at the likes of Usain Bolt and Michael Phelps to realise how much we are evolving. Sports people from 30 years ago couldnt come close to what humans are doing now and thats in all sports. We are getting bigger, stronger, faster, smarter, fitter and more agile by the decade.
    That's down to science and more free time for professionals.


  • Posts: 0 ✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    THFC wrote: »
    Had this conversation with my science teacher way back in 3rd year. He think it possible that waaaay into the future we'll lose;
    1. Our hair. Serves no function.
    2. Our small fingers. Again, serves no function.
    3. Our teeth. As food is becoming more and more processed our teeth will become redundant.
    I'm not sure about this one but he also thought its possible that we could someday lose our skulls and rib-cages.

    I believe that our immune system will become a lot more resistant to diseases such as aids and cancer (and with the love of God sti's!).

    Nope, that's not really how evolution works. Mutation is a random process, and traits that lead to stronger organisms become more prevalent because they're more likely to survive and mate.

    These days, even if those things are useless, somebody with hair is just as likely to survive as somebody with no hair, and somebody with teeth is just as likely to survive as somebody with no teether, regardless of the utility of these body parts.


  • Advertisement
  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 13,792 ✭✭✭✭JPA


    Have you seen a scrotum OP?
    We have a lot of evolving to do.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,326 ✭✭✭Scuid Mhór


    THFC wrote: »
    Had this conversation with my science teacher way back in 3rd year. He think it possible that waaaay into the future we'll lose;
    1. Our hair. Serves no function.
    2. Our small fingers. Again, serves no function.
    3. Our teeth. As food is becoming more and more processed our teeth will become redundant.
    I'm not sure about this one but he also thought its possible that we could someday lose our skulls and rib-cages.

    I believe that our immune system will become a lot more resistant to diseases such as aids and cancer (and with the love of God sti's!).

    1. hair keeps our heads warm. just ask any bald guy. plus it's help for a sexual nature. have you never watched that episode of friends where ross gets told girls have special chemicals in their hair to attract guys??? okay that last sentence isn't true but the rest is valid.

    2. four fingers makes it harder to hold small items that we are constantly plagued with not to mention a bunch of other things.

    3. by nature, we aren't meant to eat meat but teeth come in handy for that so what hard foods are there that teeth are necessary for? food becoming more processed is the same argument as 'books are going out of style for e-books'. the older option is just better so it's not going to get a hold of our evolutionary destinies.

    4. skulls and rib-cages need to protect our organs. they aren't going to suddenly be able to fend for themselves and become as tough as bone. think of how tough surgery would be.


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


    AFAIK in order for evolution to 'remove' organs or features, they would have to confer a disadvantage on the organism, rather than being merely redundant or unnecessary. I don't think the energy used by our baby fingers would be enough to pressure us into losing them in spite of their lack of utility!

    Sure we have plenty of evidence of vestigiality in most organisms, including humans:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vestigiality#Humans


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 32,370 ✭✭✭✭Son Of A Vidic


    Although Life Expectancy is growing at a very quick rate so surely the benefits of increased sterility are outweighing the disadvantages of having weakened immune systems.

    Well when human immunity/disease resistance is weakened to such a point, that a true global pandemic could inflict a serious global population 'cull'. In this instance increased life expectancy will be irrelevant I feel. Ironically excess sterilisation needs to be closely control.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 7,872 ✭✭✭strobe


    Pauleta wrote: »
    You just have to look at the likes of Usain Bolt and Michael Phelps to realise how much we are evolving. Sports people from 30 years ago couldnt come close to what humans are doing now and thats in all sports. We are getting bigger, stronger, faster, smarter, fitter and more agile by the decade.

    This would be more to do with better nutrition, training and equipment, as well as the fact there is a more concerted effort to find people that can break world records due to the increase in the financial and prestige rewards, as opposed to anything to do with evolution, I would imagine. Just having the right footwear alone, such as modern sprinters shoes with harder soles and specifically tested shapes and materials shaves time off a sprinters PB.

    ==============================================================================================================

    The thing about human evolution now is that natural selection isn't as big a driving force as it was, in so far as it certainly isn't driving humans to be bigger, better, faster, stronger and smarter. It is not specifically the biggest, best, fastest, strongest and smartest humans that are having the most children and therefore passing on those genes into the gene pool. Certainly not in the developed world in anyway. Maybe in third world countries where aid is inadequate or in China with it's one child policy this could still be the case, but not elsewhere.


  • Advertisement
Advertisement