Evolution - are we done?

bonkey

I know Captain Cyborg is a deluded media-appealing pseudo-scientist, but one of the points raised from his rantings struck a chord with me - because I've seen it arising in other places as well recently.

There is speculation that evolution no longer needs to play a part in our species - that we now control our environment sufficiently that evolution will effectively become a thing of the past. Couple this with the very real (although slightly more distant that CC would have us believe) eventuality that electronic implants will be able to compliment, improve, or even replace many biological functions, and we seem to have removed the need for evolution - at least while our current phase of civilisation doesnt self-destruct.

Personally, I'm not so sure.

Looking at life today, what (if any) evolutionary changes are being prompted? Are we as well suited to our current environment as we would believe, or are our bodies still playing catchup to cater for todays lifestyle. As civilisation progresses, will things remain stable enough to remove the need for future evolution?

Clearly, if man ever ventures into space on a large scale, there would be a massive change potential for off-earth colonists - even in moderated environments, the simple difference in gravity and day-length, sunlight intensity, and so on would all be major factors for change.

Space exploration and colonisation on this scale, however, is beyond our grasp for the next while, unless one believes the most optimistic opinions.

So - what does that leave? We have a society which for the first time is rapidly becoming homogenous - instead of being a planet of tribes, we are seeing the emergence of the first true trans-global tribe - where people no longer spend their entire lives in one environment with limited outside exposure, and instead travel more often, meet a more diverse group of people, etc. Will this homogenisation prompt or retard the evolutionary process?

Within all of this, we must remember that to the best of our knowledge, evolution is a very slow process. Lifetimes are not enough to witness significant change, which makes the entire argument somewhat speculative.

I'm just interested in people's opinions. I seem to recall Typedef favouring the "no more evolution" standpoint in some thread at some point, where I did not.

Anyone else got an opinion? I have some ideas as to why evolution will continue, but for the moment, I'm waiting to see what else (if anything) people will offer as ideas...

jc

azezil

Evolutionary changes occur in a species so that they may adapt to their surroundings, some may argue that because of modern transport we may no longer need strong legs for walking, that because of the holes in the ozone layer our skin will become darker to counter act the uv radiation exposure, and so on.

But we, as a species have taken it upon ourselves to adapt to our surroundings, we nolonger wait for nature to sort us out.

Another argument may be that we will dispose of organs / parts of our attomey that we nolong use, but to do this would require changes to our entire structure. Such a profound change is unlikely.

The argument that we have reached our evolutionary peak is strong, if current trends remain we may not need to evolve further, but however if a time came that for whatever reason our environment changed in such a way that we were powerless to technologically adapt perhaps then we would have no option to evolve.

---

And then there's the whole issue of people living off world, e.g. in low gravity environments, different types of athmostpheres etc. but i don't have the time to get into that!

bonkey

Originally posted by azezil
The argument that we have reached our evolutionary peak is strong, if current trends remain we may not need to evolve further,

Here's where I disagree.

Our circadian rhythm makes our bodies want to work in specific time-frames. Unfortunatley, we live in a 24-hour society, where changeable sleep patterns are common, not to mention jet-lag, shift-working, and similar effects which all put massive stresses on our hormonal system.

I believe that if we maintain our current ability to adapt our environment to ourselves, we still have to evolve to meet our current lifestye more appropriately. The ability to do so, should it ever emerge, will probably in and of itself provide us with a new vector to modify our society around, which in turn will provoke more evolutionary changes.

Evolution is a slow process, and it may not be possible to disrput our circadian rhythms. It may, however, be possible to become less susceptible to them. This area alone, however, pretty much ensures that there is scope for evolution for quite some time to come.

[
but however if a time came that for whatever reason our environment changed in such a way that we were powerless to technologically adapt perhaps then we would have no option to evolve.

This is generally accepted in the "no more evolution" concept, as is the exclusion of off-planet colonisation.

jc

davros

Originally posted by azezil
Evolutionary changes occur in a species so that they may adapt to their surroundings, some may argue that because of modern transport we may no longer need strong legs for walking, that because of the holes in the ozone layer our skin will become darker to counter act the uv radiation exposure, and so on

This is where you have to be very careful and precise in your language when talking about evolution.

Changes (mutations) in individuals of a species are entirely random. The changes might confer an advantage or might not. "Evolution" then, is when the more advantageous mutations get to breed where the others don't.

The question you have to ask then is, if some chap has slightly weaker legs than average, is he more likely to have kids than chaps with normal or stronger than average legs. If not, then the weaker-legs trait will not become dominant and we will not evolve in that direction.

Generally, I believe that medical science will have a far bigger effect on evolution from now on than natural selection. The beginning will be where we screen embryos for hereditary diseases, thus removing them from the gene pool. It's a short step from there to encouraging other "desirable" characteristics. I feel it's inevitable we will begin to design ourselves for longevity, intelligence, health, etc.

Gargoyle

Excellent post bonkey - very thought provoking. davros generally danced around what I wanted to say, which is that evolution is essentially tied to natural selection. Right now, there really is no natural selesction that one could look at and say that it is going to advance the human race.

In fact, the very people currently the least equipped to deal with the new changes in our world are the very ones reproducing most, creating a kind of devolution, if you will.

The only country that I am aware of that has ever instituted a policy for advancing natural selection is Singapore. Singapore's government instituted a policy of providing generous tax incentives to university-educated women who had children. At the same time, they instituted a program that gave generous financial incentives for uneducated women who opted for sterilization. Not surprisingly, many in the west were shocked. Another perhaps unsurprising consequense was that Singapore's students recently outperformed the rest of the world in dramatic fashion in a standardized test given to industrialized countries in the areas of math and science. I tabulated the results and found out that Singapore's students were a full standard devation above the next place country, Korea, and almost 3 standard deviations above the mean in math! Not bad for a tiny country the size of a typical irish county at 637 km^2.

Still, most of the bleeding hearts in the western world would never stand for such programs. And as such, the only real way I see humanity changing at this point is through cybornetic technology or genetic engineering. I have no problems with research in either of these and. In fact, I think they are essential and necessary as they only real means left to improve the human race.

I tend to think Stephen Hawking's position is correct:

Professor Hawking argues that the increasing sophistication of computer technology is likely to outstrip human intelligence in the future. He concedes that the scientific modification of human genes could increase the complexity of DNA and "improve" human beings.

"In contrast with our intellect, computers double their performance every 18 months," says Hawking. "So the danger is real that they could develop intelligence and take over the world."

The full story is here:

Link Here

azezil

Originally posted by bonkey
I believe that if we maintain our current ability to adapt our environment to ourselves, we still have to evolve to meet our current lifestye more appropriately.

I don't think so, we may adopt new patterns in our lifestyle (sleeping patterns, eating etc.) but I don't see the need to make physical changes to our current structure.

Are you saying that as we ever increase our dependence on technology to adapt our surroundings will result in our bodies perhaps becoming frail? Or perhaps our cranial capacity increasing to cope with the higher levels of knowledge expected of us?

If we look at it from a reproduction standpoint which is a woman going to choose, a tall muscular athlete or some scrawny guy with a big head! We’re too depended on physical appearance, at present anyway, to allow any noticeable change in our physical structure.

davros

Originally posted by Gargoyle
The only country that I am aware of that has ever instituted a policy for advancing natural selection is Singapore.

Ahem... Germany? There was also a huge scandal in Sweden in the last year or so when it was revealed that 60,000 "inferior" women were forcibly sterilized up to the 1970s. "Inferior" turned out to be women with learning difficulties or just poor.

And Sweden wasn't the only country. The Norwegians and Swiss were also at it. And did I hear Australia too?

Gargoyle

Well, Germany's program had nothing to do with intelligence and all to do with ethnicity. After all, Hitler's program encouraged the exodus of Einstein, among others...not exactly the desired result.

The program in sweeden, I wasn't aware of. However, if they forcibly sterilized women and that's all, this solution doesn't encompass nearly as full a spectrum like that in Singapore. Eliminating a very small percentage of women at the low end of the spetrum from reproducing would be is nowhere as comprehensive as offering large incentives to have all university-educated women reproduce and all non-educated women to be sterilized. You could argue statistics demonstrate this, I suppose. In fact, Singapore in either 1999 or 2000 was named the world's most competitive economy by some agency, surpassing the US (sorry its late and I don't have the energy to look it up, but if you do, I'm sure you'll find it).

Where as a program similar to Sweeden's would take many generations to produce results, a program like Singapore's produces results in one generation (not to mention the fact that Sweeden's program totally ignore's the rights of the people it sterilizes).

bonkey

Originally posted by Gargoyle
Where as a program similar to Sweeden's would take many generations to produce results, a program like Singapore's produces results in one generation (not to mention the fact that Sweeden's program totally ignore's the rights of the people it sterilizes).

I think the Singaporean approach is very interesting. On one hand, people are given the option to do something - I dont think it was ever more than an incentive-based encouragement program. On the other hand, one must question the amounts of money being spent by the government to promote a "next-generation superior race" and ask whether or not there were better uses for the money.

What surprises me is that I was never aware that intelligence was considered hereditary. In fact, although I'm open to correction, I thought intelligence was almost definitively non-hereditary.

If that is the case, then how do we explain Singapore's incredible results. My guess would be that it actually has to do with environment. University-educated people, in general, are coming from and living in a better social stratus than those who were encouraged not to have kids. The end result is quite possibly that the demographics of children's environments were shifted by the experiment/system, and that this is what led to an improvement in test scores.

If this is the case, then unfortunately, its neither evolution nor a particularly good long-term solution, unless the Singaporean's maintain the same approach ad infinitum. This, of course, may prove impossible.

jc

Gargoyle

I was not aware that intelligence was not considered a hereditary trait. Perhaps this argument is still up for debate. In any case, I agree that the approach Singapore uses, while worthy of praise, is probably not applicable long term for a number of reasons.

So, I refer back to my original position - that the only real way to "improve" the species is by taking control over aspects of our own design through genetic engineering or cybornetic enhancement. I'm not takling about BORG here, but who wouldn't want the fast twitch muscles of a cheetah or the vision (resolution) of a hawk and the vision (color differentiation) of a hummingbird? Or a memory upgrade so as to never forget anything you see?

Anyway, its highly probable that even if considerable effort were invested in researching such things, none would come to fruition in my lifetime. Still, its fun to dream!

Besides, my great grandfather, in his lifetime, has gone from no electricity and transportation by horse and buggy to the era of microcomputers and space flight...who knows what our future may yet hold?

davros

Originally posted by Gargoyle
You could argue statistics demonstrate this, I suppose. In fact, Singapore in either 1999 or 2000 was named the world's most competitive economy by some agency

I don't think that particular statistic demonstrates it since Ireland regularly tops those rankings too. Without sterilizing anybody.

I'm really interested to find out more about this Singapore policy and whether studies back up its effectiveness. I'm very sceptical myself.

I leafed through the Singapore government's annual report for 1996 (the only one I happen to have) looking for educational policies that might explain high achievement. One possibility is the relentless streaming in schools. After just 4 years of primary school, pupils are streamed according to ability and it continues like that throughout secondary. Pupils of above-average ability are taken out and put into advanced programmes.

So Singapore's success may be nothing more than extracting the full potential from each student.

Gargoyle

Originally posted by davros
I don't think that particular statistic demonstrates it since Ireland regularly tops those rankings too.

Perhaps not, but is at least complementary evidence. Maybe you missed the main evidence (see my previous posts in this thread). I don't think you really appreciate how huge the difference of 3 standard deviations above the mean is. Its incredibly statistically significant. I personally don't believe such a large difference can be attributed to streaming. However, this is really getting off the topic.



By the way, in what study(s) is Ireland routinely named the worlds most competitive economy. That's news to me.

davros

Originally posted by Gargoyle
I personally don't believe such a large difference can be attributed to streaming. However, this is really getting off the topic.

I don't think we are off topic here. We are talking about directed evolution and whether Singapore has managed to do this.

It took me a while to find some numbers on the Net. They are probably the ones you referred to earlier. They are the results of the Third International Maths & Science Survey (TIMSS). Some reports available here.

I'll summarise the interesting bits...

For 8th grade students (early secondary, I suppose):

Mathematics Scores
Singapore 643
2nd Place 607 (Korea)
Ireland 527
International Average 513

Science Scores
Singapore 607
2nd Place 574 (Czech Republic)
Ireland 538
International Average 516


OK, that is damn impressive and I can well believe your 3 standard deviations.

The question is still why. I have to do more work on that. I need quite a lot of proof before I will admit that voluntary child-bearing and sterilisation is a significant contributor. I'd like to know, for example, how many people accepted the offer and in what proportion of those did it actually change their behaviour (i.e. perhaps they would have had / would not have had children anyway).

But we need to know the answer to this anyway, for the sake of our educational system. We have the same population as Singapore. No way we should lag so far behind.

By the way, in what study(s) is Ireland routinely named the worlds most competitive economy. That's news to me.

Here's a link for that... ranking. By the way, I didn't mean that Ireland was the best, just that they were among the top countries.

Many criteria are taken into account for those surveys - tax system, openness of economy, etc.

Victor

Genetics meets the environment here: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=45581&goto=nextnewest

And to answer the question, no evolution is not done, it is merely a matter of being better able to control our environment (and now our genes). One day, there will be another 'dino-killer' and it will get (most of) us.

shotamoose

Human evolution is not going anywhere significant in affluent societies because most of us are reaching reproduction age without any real selection going on on the basis of our genes. Darwinian evolution proceeds by selection by the environment, and our environment is not really selecting.

This is not the case in some parts of the world, where 'environmental' factors like famine and disease continue to kill a lot of people before they have children. Given some stability in these factors and a period of dozens of generations, we might begin to see adaptations that enable people to better survive. But that stability is not likely as much of this famine, disease, etc. is either partly down to or could be relieved by human activity.

What IS changing, I think, is human development. One example is how in America, a lot of children seem to enter puberty sooner than children in other parts of the world and to physically develop faster. Another example is how children's thumbs seem to be more developed these days in affluent socieities, due to their being used for playing games a lot. These might look like developments due to evolution, but they're not.

GuanYin

I don't thnk evolution is a sentient event that says, "Oh well, they don't need me anymore, I'll just sod off and develop the beetles a little more".

Humans have continued to evolve, but what you must remember is, in evolutionary terms, we haven't been around much longer than an eyelid flutter of other species. The thousands of years that we have existed in our current form isn't really long enough for any of the evolutionary changes most people imagine when they think of "evolution". Still we are changing.

Human height is one thing that has increaced significantly over the past thousand years or so, mostly due to diet and our bodies more efficient use of the higher nutritional suppliments available to us.

If you are looking for significant changes, I would imagine that most of our continued evolution will take place with increased brain capacity or mental ability.

DadaKopf

Ok, so modern living has altered our bodies. That's what bodies do. It's my impression that Darwin's theory of evolution (and I presume other people's theories) makes us see evolution under 'natural' circumstances as correct and desirable over and above any evolutions which might result from modern technology, by industrial man.

I just wonder whether this distinction between 'natural' and 'artificial' is actually sound.

It seems that any value judgements of physiological change due to GameBoys or whatever depends on that distinction which strikes me as incorrect. Change is change is change, all we have to be concerned about, evolutionally, is whether our own activities threaten our own survival. Protecting the environment beyond that sphere is, surely, preference and not necessity?

handyandy

Has natural selection been replaced by 'the draft'.

GuanYin

Originally posted by DadaKopf

I just wonder whether this distinction between 'natural' and 'artificial' is actually sound.
It seems that any value judgements of physiological change due to GameBoys or whatever depends on that distinction which strikes me as incorrect. Change is change is change, all we have to be concerned about, evolutionally, is whether our own activities threaten our own survival. Protecting the environment beyond that sphere is, surely, preference and not necessity?

Well I think people over simplify Darwins Theory a little too much. Evolution happens within a species as need arises. That is why some animals have evolved lots over a short space of time (i.e. Humans in tens of thousand of years) and other animals have barely changed over a long period of time (crocodiles have barely changed over a few million years).

The thing to remember is, that evolution and more importantly "natural selection" occurs as competition within a species. Lizards don't evolve the ability to change colour to compete against eagles. Were this the case, evolution would expand one species longivity at the expense of another. They evolve and compete against lizards that <i>can't</i> change colour. One way or another, the eagle will still get fed.

In the same way, humans, will evolve among themselves as the need arises. Generally evolutionary changes happen due to a) random genotype mutations and b) adaptivity due to environmental influences. in case a) nature see's life as cheap and will play around until it finds something that works. A case in point is sickle cell anemia. It has evolved in a certain genetic population and manifests itself in either carrier or expressed form. While the expressed form is ultimately fatal (or at least degenerative) there is a very interesting side effect for carriers.
It offers increased resistance to malaria. It is notable that the population that this genetic "disorder" has occured in would have been the population most at risk. And while the expressed condition takes many lives, there is an arguement that the carried genes save many many more. This is a prime example of natural selection within Humans. Those with the mutation do better in an enviroment than those without. And this has happened, by natures clander, in a very short space of time.

This is the way Humans will evolve. If you are talking about evolution of our species to a different form....well this is much slower and if it happens at all, I do believe it will be in greater mental capacity, as need dictates. The more brains are used the more emphesis is put on them for our survival, the more they may evolve. A current arguement has come to light due to some evidence, that the more gifted individuals among us, have what can be termed " a mild form of autism". Thus many believe that autism, is evolutions way of bettering the species. I'm not saying I go with this theory, but I think conditions like sickle cell and other genetic diseases, give us much food for thought.

Scruff

sykeirl points out an interesting point about the sickle cell anemia, but is there not more evidence when you look at more common day occurrences of people needing their appendix or wisdom teeth removed?

Afaik, these were necessary in the earlier stages of evolution when Homo Sapien's diet consisted of a large part of "unprocessed" plants. The Wisdom teeth were presumably used to grind and break up tough plants and the appendix produced ensimes to break them down. No doctor i know of can point out why humans need either of these appendages. Are these just relics of an earlier stage of evolution that humans as a species have not managed to dispense with as of yet?

As an aside, but not wholy irrelevant, It has been documented that some family groups of apes have been seen to grind down some plants with stones or rocks to extract the nourishing juices as opposed to consuming the whole plant. Is this how we lost our dependancy on these appendages?

Victor

Originally posted by Scruff
sykeirl points out an interesting point about the sickle cell anemia, but is there not more evidence when you look at more common day occurrences of people needing their appendix or wisdom teeth removed?

Well even 100 years ago it would have been rare to keep most of your teeth through to age 40, so it is only now that they are becoming superfluous (the loss of teeth would have 'made room' for the wisdom teeth).

Bob the Unlucky Octopus

Appendix removal is a function of appendicital infection, not evolution as such. It is a vestigial organ however, which attests that evolution includes morphological features of digestion as much as appearance or eye color. The sickle cell anemia example is a fantastic one- since the malaria parasite spends an obligatory part of its life-cycle in red blood cells(erythrocytes), and SCA reduces the lifespan of said erythrocytes, it is an evolutionarily favorable genetic condition for those in areas affected by malaria. It is for this reason that it is more common in people of Afro-Carribean descent. Suffice to say evolution cannot be measured on a unique timescale, such a timescale is related to evolutionary pressures, not some natural tendency to evolve.

Occy

IRISHLILY24

It is not possible for evolution to be DONE, when that happens it means the end has come.
I must say I am surprised of all the comments here, its really quite simple....evolution is change, change is required or life will cease to exist.

there.;)

Gargoyle

A: Change does not equal evolution.

B: Evolution will not happen unless there is a method by which natural selection occurs.

C: This is not currently happening.


Conclusion: Evolution of the human race, at least in the classical sense, is dead. In the future, mankind will control his own "evolution" through technology.

bonkey

Originally posted by Gargoyle
A: Change does not equal evolution.

B: Evolution will not happen unless there is a method by which natural selection occurs.

C: This is not currently happening.

I would argue that C is an assumption, rather than a fact. Natural Selection is not limited to straightforward "survival of the fittest", but can also be viewed as "adaption to better fit your surroundings".

The simple fact is that whether or not we want to believe it, our bodies are not ideally suited to our current surroundings. Office workers face a number of health risks simply because of the environment they work in is nowhere near ideal for the human physiology or psychology. Yes, we could change this environment to better match our bodies, but there is also an equal argument to say that over generations, our bodies will adapt to their surroundings.

As I mentioned previously, in an increasingly global world, our circadian rhythms are a root cause of stress and hormonal imbalances. Should a trait emerge which makes us less susceptible to these changes, or less bound to the circadian cycle, then there is a strong case to believe that this would give the individual(s) possessing these changes an advantage. This, in turn, can be a driving force behind evolution.

At the end of the day, humanity will probably never engineer the environment which is perfectly suited to our bodies. Perhaps they will, but until they do, there are numerous areas where evolutionary processes can give an advantage - which is effectively a form of natural selection.

jc

Victor

Saw a documentary on Discovery channel during the week. The current tendency in much of the world towards smallish families of 2-3 children is tending to foil evolution (more particularly survival of the fittest). In particular the pattern of parents 'replacing' deceased children does not allow defective genes to be removed from the gene-pool.

Historically if a particular group had a series of genes that made is particularly successful (socially, economically and more fundamentally reproductively) then from generation to generation the population would increase rapidly. Groups that didn't get to reproduce as much, became a much smaller part of the population.

Example
Strong group, each family (2 parents) having 4 reproducing children
2,000 -> 4,000 -> 8,000 -> 16,000 -> 32,000 -> 64,000 -> 128,000 -> 256,000 -> 512,000 -> 1,024,000 -> 2,048,000

Weaker group, each family having 3 reproducing children
2,000 -> 3,000 -> 4,500 -> 6,750 -> 10,125 -> 15,188 -> 22,781 -> 34,172 -> 51,258 -> 76,887 -> 115,330

Hence over 10 generations the weaker half of the population could become 5% of the population (assuming no interbreeding and no outside influences)

But modern families tend to act more like:

Strong group, each family (2 parents) having 3 reproducing children
2,000 -> 3,000 -> 4,500 -> 6,750 -> 10,125 -> 15,188 -> 22,781 -> 34,172 -> 51,258 -> 76,887 -> 115,330

Weaker group, each family (2 parents) having 2.5 reproducing children
2,000 -> 2,500 -> 3,125 -> 3,906 -> 4,883 -> 6,104 -> 7,629 -> 9,537 -> 11,921 -> 14,901 -> 18,626

Hence over 10 generations the weaker half of the population would become 16% of the population (assuming no interbreeding and no outside influences).

Other factors, such as improvements in general healchcare, assisted reproduction and lack of a challenging 'environment' extends this pattern.