humans to split into two species: which one will you be? [Archive]

Duemellon

28 Oct 2007, 07:47 AM

This is old "new" & was covered before (http://woxy.com/boards/showthread.php?t=41915&highlight=Idiot+evolution+intellects)

What I stated before... (http://woxy.com/boards/showpost.php?p=987509&postcount=15)
"The big things that irked me about this craptacular sci-fi shit is just how self-centric he is.

I like how there are all these bits & pieces that scream about who he is, what he's seen, & shit. I do buy into the concept that our biological needs are taking a backseat to the sociological desires (which is a different argument) meaning we would rather date someone who's physical attributes are in no way reflective of their natural ability to survive & hold the ability to save money in higher regards than the ability to hunt, gather, & build a house.

This means we'll chose someone for their looks over their functionality.

Beyond that, the amount of people born as mistakes still continues to climb. For some reason ugly people and pretty people still fuck, whether it's drinking, drugs, happenstance, or money. After a few millenia of fucking based on asthetics we still have a huge amount of diversity even in one racial group at a time. There's a different ingredient in there.

The myopic view he holds suggested he say the men will get taller, chins will recede, & women will not only get fairer, but their hair will get lighter & shinier. Last I checked this is not the shared world's view of beauty. To suggest the mere introduction of the fair-skinned femme as an option will make people drop what they were doing for them is plain-ol' silly. Then to suggest that tall men are the rage is again, self-centered.

After all is said & done I seriously doubt humanity will have divided so greatly (if they remained on this single planet) they would have formed entirely different physiologies to such a dramatic & consistent degree. Some people will just fuck anything."

akip

28 Oct 2007, 07:56 AM

This means we'll chose someone for their looks over their functionality.

Beyond that, the amount of people born as mistakes still continues to climb. For some reason ugly people and pretty people still fuck, whether it's drinking, drugs, happenstance, or money.

with men the needle still tracks to functionality and women to form.

as for who gets together with who, ha! in the world i live in this is soooo true, but especially for reason number 4---though i'd add power to that piece of the equation.

akip

28 Oct 2007, 07:58 AM

and there's also the factor of cosmetic surgery.

Duemellon

28 Oct 2007, 08:01 AM

To add now:

His view is myopic, Euro-centric, xenophobic, elitist, & completely without application of the most basic of genetic science.

His article appeals to several myths about race which people hold as "basic truths" & this, in turn, gets people who would normally be skeptical to look at it as if it has some merit.

The idea that the European/fairskinned tonal contribution will somehow have an impact on the much vaster amounts of darker skinned people in the world (thus lightening them) speaks to the limited view most Euro-centric people have.

The idea that the rest of the world shares his vision of beauty is to assume there will be one universally shared society that is homogenized in it's perception of sexual attraction & suitable partners for mating. There are societies today where big-penises are a "joke", or completely irrelevent to the mate-chosing process. Arranged marriages or pre-marital sexlessness, pretty much eliminates the ability for penis-size to be a factor. Having a larger penis size than the worldwide norm doesn't appear to impact fertility. Compare Africa & India to see.

Furthermore, due to abuse, genuine love-interest, & circumstance, the idea that one group would become a caste of "untouchables" is further elitism & xenophobia. If we had a group of people who were smarter, prettier, more dominant, & better off, there will be much of that population who will leverage their status to abuse the underclass. Whether it's major abuse (ethnic cleansing, enslavement, sexual abuse) or minor abuse (economic syphoning, psychological campaigns, etc.) they will interact. Interaction will increase the opportunity for interbreeding. As they interbreed a new group begins & where do they fall?

This guy is more of a sci-fi writer than a genuine scientific source. There are so many things wrongs with this projected outcome.

I would really like to know how this article got dug back up? What event took place that put it back on the map after a year passed?

akip

28 Oct 2007, 08:07 AM

Duemellon

28 Oct 2007, 08:18 AM

also doesn't take into account ineffable "sex appeal," which has more to do with forces that rumble (or don't rumble) below the surface---the animal stuff that often gets overlooked, but is powerful as hell.This guy's a moron.

I'm ashamed that there will be people who put any value of what he said. It's embarassing & really does speak to those core myths about racism to work.

akip

28 Oct 2007, 08:34 AM

This guy's a moron.

I'm ashamed that there will be people who put any value of what he said. It's embarassing & really does speak to those core myths about racism to work.

i think you're right about the mythology, though it's not only myths about race. it's a myth that powerful men always choose "beautiful" women over ones with brains. the beautiful airhead might be the mistress, but the energetic, organized one who can play the high stakes game produces the heirs.

edited to add: anybody can buy sex. but the most badass, heavy-hitting business mogols i've ever met rely on their wives, 'cause it's lonely at the top. they may be pricks, but they're still human.

Duemellon

28 Oct 2007, 08:47 AM

i think you're right about the mythology, though it's not only myths about race. it's a myth that powerful men always choose "beautiful" women over ones with brains. the beautiful airhead might be the mistress, but the energetic, organized one who can play the high stakes game produces the heirs.You are right. I know some people might lose the fact I was saying it was also myopic, Euro-centric, xenophobic, elitist, & completely without application of the most basic of genetic science. After all people tend to think Duemellon = "something" about racism.

Another bit to add to you latest statement is that the wealthier breed less. People tend to think that "success" of an organism is based on how nice it's life is. An Elephant has it nicer than a boar because elephants have such fewer predators. A mosquito has it worse than a koala because a koala has a pretty easy life.

However, that is success for the individual organism in that species. When looked at as to whether or not the species is or will be successful the question comes to: Who will successfully create a continuous chain of offspring? An elephants quieter life is in jeapordy when the terrain has some inclines or an elephant-hunting predator is delevoped. A wild pig exists in many different ecologies throughout the world & if the savanna goes away, they're fine. Same kind of thing for a koala versus a mosquito.

It also has to do with which animals are able to dig into more places & take up niches quicker. The greater ability a "model" of organism has to adapt to circumstances the more successful they will be. If the "rich" reduce their numbers by having 1 child per 2 parents & the poor increase their numbers by having 4 childern per 2 parents, then the poor will outnumber the rich each subsequent generation. The poor will face more adversity but will still continue to breed & have offspring who are able to live long enough to have more offspring. The rich? If one child dies then that line dies & their number drops a lot more.

Eventually when/if something disastrous was to happen to the human population those most likely to survive will be the poor. They've sufferred alot & are survivors, breeders,... etc. The rich? They'd die off without their genetic diversity or coping skills.

akip

28 Oct 2007, 08:52 AM

the other thing is that if you are looking at the stereotypical uberwealthy wastrel, you're looking at the offspring squandering the fortune---the guys who make those fortunes are workaholics. statistically, the further down the inherited wealth generational pipeline, the lower the function. so at that point, the energetic people kick em aside pretty easily.

Marlowe

28 Oct 2007, 09:18 AM

why is this so far-fetched? why should the evolutionary switch go to "off" all of a sudden? there were neanderthals and very likely other human-type species who roamed the earth as contemporaries or near-contemporaries. should we really be surprised if things continued to evolve?

i for one welcome our insect overlords!

akip

28 Oct 2007, 09:28 AM

okay, the whitest, dweebiest insect around is software mogol peter norton. he's exclusively attracted to smart, accomplished black women. take a look at him and it's not surprising. maybe HIS kids are the next wave of evolution ;)

Marlowe

28 Oct 2007, 09:38 AM

the Flynn Effect (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect) is an observation that general levels of IQ have been on the rise for the last several decades. this is undoubtedly at least 'partly' due to the fact that so many people around the world have access to adequate protein and calories, and as such their brains develop to be healthy. but that said, there may be something else at play here -- evolution.

it's very true that wealthier countries have lower birth rates than poorer countries do. for example, germany is on a glide path to have about 1/2 its current population within a handful of generations. but maybe that will actually hasten the evolution of the more-evolved species... when you have fewer children, you tend to treat the children you do have as more special and give them greater resources for development.

Buzzstein

28 Oct 2007, 02:42 PM

It's getting to the point where we won't have to wait around very long for evolution to produce noticeable changes in humans. Our technology will allow us to adapt and change very quickly. I wonder how soon "we" will cease to be homo sapiens and become something else? We will probably be wiped out by something before that happens though. But things could potentially get really interesting. For better or worse...

But it's all evolution. Whatever happens it's evolution.

The Sheck

28 Oct 2007, 02:54 PM

H.G. Wells is the new Nostradamus, yo.

patio

28 Oct 2007, 02:58 PM

bestlaidplans

28 Oct 2007, 03:33 PM

Can you say bullshit?

Apparently Curry was spouting off the same crap about the same time last year (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6057734.stm).

PZ Meyers' response. (http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2006/10/utter_nonsense.php)

ms. chevious

28 Oct 2007, 04:14 PM

i thought capitalism was going to render us all superfluous...

Duemellon

28 Oct 2007, 07:17 PM

... general levels of IQ have been on the rise for the last several decades. this is undoubtedly at least 'partly' due to the fact that so many people around the world have access to adequate protein and calories, and as such their brains develop to be healthy. but that said, there may be something else at play here -- evolution.the part about evolution is more conjecture than the previous one about protein & calories. The testing process (as was mentioned in a different thread) is very socio-specific & more than that, it's chrono-techno-sociospecific. Anyone who is in college probably knows more than a renniasiance scholar, & anyone who made it to high school knows more than the pharoahs. That has much less to do with the capacity of those in the past, but the mental challenges & knowledge available to them.

IQ tests are horrible barometers to test capacity, it really only tests what they do know at the time.it's very true that wealthier countries have lower birth rates than poorer countries do.
...
but maybe that will actually hasten the evolution of the more-evolved species... when you have fewer children, you tend to treat the children you do have as more special and give them greater resources for development.Now you're not talking about natural evolution, you're talking about nurture. If we time-travelled some pregger from 1812 to this same time & place I am confident their child would be just as capable as any other one born in the same time (given the "luck of the draw" variance). That's nurture, not nature.

What you may be talking about is the evolution of the society, not the natural genetic makeup, or even talking about the ease at which they live which is not directly related to the success of the genetic mix.

Duemellon

28 Oct 2007, 07:23 PM

It's getting to the point where we won't have to wait around very long for evolution to produce noticeable changes in humans. Our technology will allow us to adapt and change very quickly.Yah, I stated that in that old thread too right here. (http://woxy.com/boards/showpost.php?p=987661) Unlike the rest of the animal world we can intentionally make decisions contrary to instict & based on the abstract. So, instead of a dinosaur finding the ability to find over the course of genetic luck, we just decide to fly & technologically evolve the ability to do so.

No animal we know of (for certain) can survive the harshness of space dispite all the time they've had to evolve in their environment. I mean, some animals took to the sky, why haven't they gone above it? Wouldn't that be very advantageous to avoid predation? However, they don't have a choice, their evolutionary destination is not in their hands. We decided to fly, swim, dig, build, regenerate, etc & so we invent it.I wonder how soon "we" will cease to be homo sapiens and become something else?That gave me an idea! We could call the new group "techno sapiens". How's that sound? We could actually consider ourselves techno sapiens at this point, right? I mean, the homo sapiens didn't have technology, but they did invent it. Now we have been leveraging it greatly.

the happy prole

28 Oct 2007, 07:35 PM

What the hell are you going on about, Due? About the only thing in that article that actually made sense was that interbreeding will produce a bunch of Tiger Woods looking mofos.

As cultural diversity disappears, it is likely that there will be a more homogenized viewpoint of beauty. And probably it will be Eurocentric, because that's where all the money and power and cultural influence come from.

He never said the poor wouldn't keep breeding. In fact they will, but they'll have a whole different set of needs.

For half the world, it really doesn't matter if you've got good resistance to heat or a good immune system or can run 30 miles. In the rich countries, you can get away with a whole lot of characteristics like poor eyesight or asthma that might not do you much good in poor countries.

I think his theory is total conjecture, but it'd be the same for anyone trying to look 30,000 years into the future.

frizgolf

28 Oct 2007, 07:36 PM

Anyone who is in college probably knows more than a renniasiance scholar, & anyone who made it to high school knows more than the pharoahs. That has much less to do with the capacity of those in the past, but the mental challenges & knowledge available to them.

It's all about the availability of knowledge.
I often wonder what we, as a civilization, lost in the burning of Alexandria.

Duemellon

28 Oct 2007, 08:06 PM

What the hell are you going on about, Due? About the only thing in that article that actually made sense was that interbreeding will produce a bunch of Tiger Woods looking mofos.I doubt that's the only result of his to come true. I'm pretty sure none of it will.

It's true cultural diversity is reduced by the increase of transportation & communication technology, but to think the genetic markers for skintone will be so homogenous is part of the xenophobic racism that it feeds. That same clamour to retain identity is what will cause some sections of the world to wall themselves off & create pockets of purists. Also, the huge variants in skintone within the same family even when the parents are the same, should point out that fallacy.

There are more reasons for humanity to retain the variances in skintone than to lose it.He never said the poor wouldn't keep breeding. In fact they will, but they'll have a whole different set of needs.Well, the situation of "survival of the fittest" again is overshadowed by the "survival of the easiest" mischaracterization.

When/if someting disastrous happens the poor will have a better chance of survival for many social & genetic reasons (if they were indeed sealed off from breeding with the upper echelon of races). True, there is the possibility a catastrophy that somehow only targets their race could wipe them out, but if all things were equal & it wasn't a genetic target, in the event of a social collapse, unforseen universal disaster, or in-fighting, the poor will come out ahead.

wileE

28 Oct 2007, 08:25 PM

H.G. Wells is the new Nostradamus, yo.
Yep. Sounds like some scientists were partying it up and started talking about H.G. Wells and decided to write a paper on it.

the happy prole

28 Oct 2007, 09:22 PM

He never said the poor wouldn't survive. They'll just evolve differently. It's the nature of evolution that species differentiate themselves. That could be accelerated by our ability to alter genetic code. And it's quite possible that one of those branches will dead end and become extinct. That also seems to be the way evolution works.

Historically, groups have been isolated according to geography. Differences in skin color are related to the physical environment in which those groups lived. For humans the geographic factor has somewhat been removed. Therefore, it's possible we may differentiate ourselves according to economics.

The poor right now are getting devastated by AIDS. Magic Johnson seems to be doing just fine. Coincidence?

The huge variety in skintone is due to the fact that there simply haven't been enough generations of crossbreeding. We already know that blue eyes and blond hair are recessive genes. They will go away if we keep mixing genes.

As for perky breasts, they're a proxy for youthfulness and health. It's probably a little bit more than just pure cultural circumstance. With plastic surgery, anyone can have any size breasts they want so maybe that will cease to be a genetic advantage. Maybe not.

Same thing with penis size. For apes and probably for mammals in general, we have pretty large penises proportionally. They're quite a bit larger than they probably need to be for strictly reproductive purposes. I would guess a giant penis would be disadvantageous if you really have to run and hunt and subsist in the wild, but with that factor gone there's no problem with being John Holmes.

As of now, there's no real advantage to different skin color for the developed world. It seems logical to presume that races will continue to interbreed. Might there be pockets of dark or light skinned people who wall themselves off? Sure. But they'll start to take a different evolutionary path if they don't crossbreed with the rest of the human race.

It's not like H.G. Wells is the only guy that thought of it. It's in Aldous Huxley and a whole bunch of writers as well.

Of course a devastating nuclear disaster or any number of scientific and/or cultural factors could completely change things. That's why you shouldn't take it that seriously. It's all just wild conjecture based on the present state of things which are unlikely to persist even 1,000 years into the future. The exact state of affairs he describes it probably less than 1% likely to be true. It's just sort of an interesting topic to think about.

Is it whacky? Yes. Is it racist? I don't think so.

Duemellon

28 Oct 2007, 10:09 PM

He never said the poor wouldn't survive. They'll just evolve differently.I haven't been saying the poor would "die off" but I am saying when the shit hits the fan the poor will be better suited due to their diversity... in this cockamamie, convoluted, joke of an idea that author fabricated.Historically, groups have been isolated according to geography. Differences in skin color are related to the physical environment in which those groups lived.Ahem, that's actually a myth as well. It's not entirely true & unfortunately breeds some unreasonable expectations. That's a different subject, different thread, but after thinking about some of the anomolies have a theory that I think explains that. However, we'll talk that a diff time.The poor right now are getting devastated by AIDS. Magic Johnson seems to be doing just fine. Coincidence?Yet we both know MJ has $ which is irrelevent to natural evolution but very influential in social evolution. If it wasn't for society valuing his skills & rewarding him with further exchangable media that difference would be gone too. I know you know, but I just like pointing that out.The huge variety in skintone is due to the fact that there simply haven't been enough generations of crossbreeding.However, in more ancient times there were plenty of societies who had great variations in skin tones. Some of them used them as denotating status & some didn't give a fuck. Those same societies didn't become uni-colored even after the hundreds or thousands of years they existed even though they were very capable of transportatio.I would guess a giant penis would be disadvantageous if you really have to run and hunt and subsist in the wild, but with that factor gone there's no problem with being John Holmes.But they aren't an advantage in our current setting either except for those societies who focus on them. If those people who believe in arranged marriage with no premarital sex for the arrranged couple "won" & were in charge penis size's increase/decrease would be unimportant to the arrangement & unimpacted.But they'll start to take a different evolutionary path if they don't crossbreed with the rest of the human race.If we have indeed become Homo Technos, then walling them off genetically but interacting with everyone through communication will not allow that to happen.Is it whacky? Yes. Is it racist? I don't think so.Wacked? yep. Racist? He's not racist (100%), but he's drawing on xenophobic racism for his conclusions. However, it's not about him fearing or declaring superiority of one group or another, but about him 1st basing diversity on skin color, 2nd playing into the racist hands of "we don't want to lose our race to the mixed breeds!", 3rd suggesting there is some fashion & internal mechanisms that will manifest themselves genetically.

Of course it's the flop for the original racist-theorists who say genetics dictate why certain races are where they are (socialy, economically, educationally, etc.). Instead he's saying the perpetual state of poverty & isolation will genetically alter them & create a genetic schema that inheiretly predisposes them to that lower state.

Marlowe

29 Oct 2007, 12:25 AM

due you're still avoiding the question of why you think that the world's history of evolution should somehow come screeching to a halt.

i strongly doubt we'll see a "devolution" unless there is some sort of nuclear catastrophe, because generally speaking, species over time evolve upward and i don't know of any examples of devolution. so even though i love to think of a LOTR-world, i dout we'll "really" see a troglodyte-type species splinter off from homo sapiens.

but that said, i would not at all be suprised if there were a splintering of homo sapiens in the upward direction to the point where we end up with one species that is more highly evolved than good ole homo sapiens. and, while it's hard for those of us not named Duemellon to peer 100+ thousand years in advance, socioecomic factors would seem to be the most likely location for that fissure to occur, rather than other factors such as race, geography, diet, etc.

classicgrrl

29 Oct 2007, 12:34 AM

patio

29 Oct 2007, 12:47 AM

We already know that blue eyes and blond hair are recessive genes. They will go away if we keep mixing genes.

Not really, that would only be true if the "blending hypothesis" was correct. But its not, dominent geans do not "blend" away the recessive ones. Unless there is some kind of genetic drift all recessive genes will remain at a constant level within a population. An exaple of genetic drift would be a gene that causes someone to die before being able to reproduce and thus would eliminate that genotype.

jneale

29 Oct 2007, 05:50 AM

Same thing with penis size. For apes and probably for mammals in general, we have pretty large penises proportionally. They're quite a bit larger than they probably need to be for strictly reproductive purposes. I would guess a giant penis would be disadvantageous if you really have to run and hunt and subsist in the wild, but with that factor gone there's no problem with being John Holmes.

this is going down a weird road - but the shape of a man's penis has more to do with dealing with removal of a competitor's sperm than it does being in a porn.

think plunger with a purpose - ram it in, pull the other guy's junk out on the pull back - ram it in again & deposit your own. Chimps get around the problem by producing massive amounts of sperm (very large testicles.)

We won't be around long enough to morph into anything - there are too many people - one quick virus & the argument is moot.

akip

29 Oct 2007, 05:56 AM

We won't be around long enough to morph into anything - there are too many people - one quick virus & the argument is moot.

i'd subscribe to this theory with modifications---some people would survive, but it could dampen down the melting pot effects of globalization.

miami2112

29 Oct 2007, 06:57 AM

eloi and morlocks?

Duemellon

29 Oct 2007, 07:08 AM

due you're still avoiding the question of why you think that the world's history of evolution should somehow come screeching to a halt.I never knew that was the question. I was busy talking about how this guy is a moron for allowing xenophobic racism, social myths about evolution, & a Euro-centric view on idealistic mates, make the choice for him. He has a limited & biased view but the world just eats this stuff up becuase it spoke to them on those levels.

I didn't see any reason to discuss whether or not humanity will continue to evolve.

HOWEVER...
Back in the day (the thread (http://woxy.com/boards/showthread.php?t=41915)) when this was a new topic for discussion I made a few posts talking about it. I don't feel I need to repeat myself on those topics especially when I wasn't answering the question this time. It's not a very long thread u'kno, you could read it & catch up to where we were 1 year ago. I already addressed your question with a reference to one of those previous posts, but there's others in there where it goes deeper.[/quote]...because generally speaking, species over time evolve upward...[/quote]That's an assumption & when considering how the world "works" it doesn't even seem likely. There's more detail out there, but unless you say you want to hear the logic I won't bother. I'll just say that's a feel-good myth about evolution....while it's hard for those of us not named Duemellon to peer 100+ thousand years in advance,...Normally, from most people, I'd take that as a light-hearted jab, but from you, I take it a bit more cynically. Oh well, I'll give you the bene of the doubt right now. It'd be stupid for you to feel insulted or slighted by this discussion, so why would you?

Duemellon

29 Oct 2007, 07:15 AM

I would equal socioeconomic factors with gender. If women find a way to reproduce without men, y'all are toast.Done (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaguya_%28mouse%29) & done (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hwang_Woo-Suk#Parthenogenesis). I was obsolete before I even had kids.

Duemellon

29 Oct 2007, 07:17 AM

i'd subscribe to this theory with modifications---some people would survive, but it could dampen down the melting pot effects of globalization.The loss of genetic diversification would practically ensure this would happen.

dragonflier

29 Oct 2007, 07:40 AM

I read the article on Saturday and I think Curry's conjecture is complete crap.

I then looked into his background. He isn't even an evolutionary biologist. He's an evolutionary psychologist working in an economics department. This doesn't give me the impression that he understands much about genetics or biological evolution.

I seriously doubt that you would find many evolutionary biologists that would agree with Curry's hypothesis, other than everybody eventually having olive-brown skin color.

the happy prole

29 Oct 2007, 08:58 AM

Not really, that would only be true if the "blending hypothesis" was correct. But its not, dominent geans do not "blend" away the recessive ones. Unless there is some kind of genetic drift all recessive genes will remain at a constant level within a population. An exaple of genetic drift would be a gene that causes someone to die before being able to reproduce and thus would eliminate that genotype.

The gene itself won't go away, but you'll be much less likely to have actual blue-eyed kids or blonde-haired kids. It's genetic drift that causes the large number of people with that characteristic in the population. Blue-eyed and blonde-haired people tended to breed amongst themselves, and that pigment may have been advantageous in certain climates.

the happy prole

29 Oct 2007, 09:01 AM

I then looked into his background. He isn't even an evolutionary biologist. He's an evolutionary psychologist working in an economics department. This doesn't give me the impression that he understands much about genetics or biological evolution.

Do you know what an evolutionary psychologist is? This is exactly his field of expertise.

mistergugi

29 Oct 2007, 09:15 AM

The split is already occuring between Homo spiens and Homo novii "new man".
H. novii characteristics are: tall, gracile, and IQ of 127 or higher.

Does that meant that those with an IQ of 126 will become the rulers of the subclass? Sweet, my future does look bright!

dragonflier

29 Oct 2007, 09:17 AM

website (http://www.olivercurry.com/) Do you know what an evolutionary psychologist is? This is exactly his field of expertise.

This is from Curry's webpage:

Oliver Curry is a Research Associate at Darwin@LSE, a research group in the Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Science, at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He also teaches Political Theory at New York University in London.

Which of the bolded items suggest that he works in genetics or evolutionary biology?

Go to his website (http://www.olivercurry.com/) and see for yourself. His major research is on morality and his scientific publications don't appear in evolutionarily-focused journals like Evolution or Evolutionary Biology.

miami2112

29 Oct 2007, 09:19 AM

i hope he goes to visit that museum in ky, he's about as full of sh*t as they are.

jneale

29 Oct 2007, 09:22 AM

i hope he goes to visit that museum in ky, he's about as full of sh*t as they are.
have there been any reports of how that is doing? I can't imagine anyone goes....

Marlowe

29 Oct 2007, 09:23 AM

Does that meant that those with an IQ of 126 will become the rulers of the subclass? Sweet, my future does look bright!
in the valley of the blind, the one-eyed man is king, my friend!

dragonflier

29 Oct 2007, 09:25 AM

have there been any reports of how that is doing? I can't imagine anyone goes....
I see a big billboard for it on 75-South near exit 29 everday on the way to work. The idealist in me hopes that one day it will be gone as a sign that they don't have money to budget toward billboards. The realist in me doubts that the idealist's hopes will ever come to fruition.

the happy prole

29 Oct 2007, 10:48 AM

Which of the bolded items suggest that he works in genetics or evolutionary biology?

He's not a geneticist, but he's not approaching things from that level. He's not making predictions based on "Okay, this gene is recessive and this one is dominant, and this one helps people survive cold, etc."

He is taking more of a sociological/psychological approach to it. Like jneale's penis-plunger is right up his alley. Or the stuff that Desmond Morris does.

There are certain things are brains are hard-wired to prefer. There might originally have been evolutionary advantages to them, but it's not so important in the large scheme of things. You look at things like male peacocks or fiddler crabs. They've got stuff that really doesn't help them survive better in nature, but it makes them more likely to breed.

He's just saying that if everyone prefers big johnsons, then eventually we will all have big johnsons. If everyone likes perky breasts, then eventually chicks will all have perky breasts.

So you look at something like why we all have poor dietary habits. It's because storing fat and eating sugar used to be helpful. It's not anymore, but we still have that trait and it doesn't stop us from breeding. So are we going to genetically evolve to not like sugar, or are we going to continue to like sugar but just medically figure out how to not let it kill us?

Or poor eyesight. Obviously there was once a huge disadvantage to poor eyesight. Now there isn't so much. But maybe we will still prefer those with big eyes because in the primitive recesses of our minds it's associated with what good eyesight and that USED to be a useful trait. It doesn't really matter if it no longer confers a survival advantage.

What do humans see as ideal? Not what actually IS ideal, but what we THINK is ideal in our environment. We are no longer hunting and surviving in the bush. It's living in sheltered areas and looking at computers and reading fashion mags and culture and economics, etc.

A lot of things no we longer care about that maybe we that used to, like actual physical strength. Some things still matter as vestiges of older times, even though they don't so much now from a survival standpoint-- like a toned body. You can get calf implants and look all buff, but you're still weak as shit. And some things that used to not matter much may matter more now. Like ability to pick up on the written word or computer skills.

Like any other social science approach, it's open to accusations of biasedness. So I think some of Duemellon's objections are legitimate, but some aren't. You don't have to be racially "equal" when you do sociology. It's kind of about raw power-- financial, cultural, survivability all go into it. For whatever reason, the "European, white-centric" class of values seems to have risen to the top. It's kind of hard to argue that those values haven't been advantageous.

And also a lot of stuff, like perky breasts, they go and do surveys across as many cultures as they can and they find that hey, even in subgroups where a lot of people don't have them, it's still a preference.

Sure, poor people breed a lot. But maybe having 5 kids and none of them really healthy is not such a great strategy compared to having 1 super kid with mad sports skills and smarts because they've had a lot more resources spent on them.

Or maybe BOTH strategies work. If things stay the same, we might have two classes that eventually go in different evolutionary directions. Or maybe one day the rich will just take all their high-tech shit and bomb the crap out of the poor. Or maybe one day the rich will be too pampered and have compromised immune systems or become to specialized within their hi-tech environments and the morlocks will stomp the shit out of them. Or robots. Who knows?

I mean, part of this goofy. You can't go back and interview cavemen and see if they also liked perky breasts. You're just assuming because people like them now, it must be a permanent preference.

At the same time, I think all creatures to some extent shape themselves into the things they want to be, not necessarily the things that help them survive. It's probably even more true for humans, who have both high intelligence and are extremely social. I mean, we've taken all sorts of plants and animals and molded them into what we want to be... why wouldn't we do it to ourselves?

akip

29 Oct 2007, 10:52 AM

hey, everybody knows that the asians will be ruling. like a prescient bum on the street said 30 years ago, a billion chinese will hold hands and walk across the water. ;)

bestlaidplans

29 Oct 2007, 10:58 AM

The Guardian's Bad Science section cuts through the crap.

All men will have big willies (http://www.badscience.net/?p=316)

“All men will have big willies”, said the headline of the Sun. This was the story of Dr Oliver Curry, “evolution theorist” from the Darwin@LSE research centre. “By the year 3000, the average human will be 6½ft tall, have coffee-coloured skin and live for 120 years, new research predicts. And the good news does not end there. Blokes will be chuffed to learn their willies will get bigger - and women’s boobs will become more pert.”

Where did this story come from? And does it stand up? Well, what has been represented as important “new research” is in fact just a rather fanciful essay from a political theorist at LSE, and while it’s not ridiculous, there’s quite a lot to take issue with in the science.

For example, Dr Oliver Curry seems to think that geographical and social mobility is a new thing, and that this will produce uniformly coffee coloured humans in 1,000 years. Oliver has perhaps not been to Brazil, where black African, white European, and Amerindian have lived side by side and bred together for many centuries. The Brazilians have not gone coffee coloured, they in fact still show a wide range of skin pigmentation, from black to tan. This is because skin pigmentation seems to be coded for by a fairly small number of genes and probably doesn’t blend and even out as Oliver - a political theorist, not a scientist - suggests.

What about his other ideas? Like the one that ultimately, through extreme socioeconomic divisions in society, humans will divide into two species: one tall, thin symmetrical, clean, healthy, intelligent and creative, the other short, stocky, asymmetrical, grubby, unhealthy and not as bright?

Dividing into species requires some fairly strong pressures, like geographical divisions: even then, the Tasmanian aboriginals, who were isolated for 10,000 years, can still have children perfectly easily with white Europeans. “Sympatric speciation”, a division into species where the two groups live in the same place, as Curry is proposing, is even tougher. For a while, many scientists didn’t think it happened at all. It would require that socioeconomic divides were absolute, although history shows that attractive impoverished females and wealthy ugly men can be remarkably resourceful in love.

I could go on (the full press release is at badscience.net for your amusement). But the trivial problems in this trivial essay are not the issue: what’s odd is how it became a “boffins today said” science story, all over the media, with the BBC, the Telegraph, the Sun, the Scotsman, Metro and many more lapping it up, without criticism.

How does this happen? The “research” - or “essay” - was paid for by Bravo, a bikini and fast car “men’s TV channel” celebrating its 21st year in operation. Just to give you a flavour of Bravo, tonight at 11pm you can catch the movie classic Temptations: “When a group of farm workers find that the bank intends to foreclose on their property, they console each other with a succession of steamy romps. This might go some way to explaining the “pert breasts” angle of Curry’s “new research”.

More and more, empty “science” stories are being generated by public relations companies, who team up with academics, and commission some spurious piece of “research” that will be attractive to the media, where the company is name-checked. The classic examples are the “equations for” stories. None of Dr Curry’s doubtless excellent scholarly work in political theory has ever generated media coverage like his silly futuristic essay. I spoke to friends on other newspapers (the Guardian didn’t cover the story, mercifully) who told me they had stand up rows with news desks, explaining that this was not a science news story. But the selective pressure on national newspapers is for journalists who compliantly write up this kind of commercial puff nonsense as “science news”, while religious fundamentalism of all varieties is conquering the world. Bravo!

the happy prole

29 Oct 2007, 11:17 AM

Exactly, man. It's not real science, and I don't think it was ever intended to be. It's just one guy's pie-in-the-sky conjecture as sort of an interesting discussion topic. It's more "What if?" than "This is it."

But that criticism of the piece still focuses too much on traditional biological approaches. "Sympatric speciation" is easily possible. There are thousands of different artificially evolved roses growing in people's gardens in the same climate where wild roses still grow.

You can speed up and alter the rate and shape of evolutionary changes quite radically via science. We just haven't done it to ourselves yet.

Duemellon

29 Oct 2007, 11:51 AM

You don't have to be racially "equal" when you do sociology. It's kind of about raw power-- financial, cultural, survivability all go into it. For whatever reason, the "European, white-centric" class of values seems to have risen to the top. It's kind of hard to argue that those values haven't been advantageous.Advantageous but not genetic. They can be passed through hereditary but even inheiretance isn't about genetics. Adoption, surrogates, infidelity, childlessness, & familial spats will dilute the genetic continuity with the wealth & influence. The proximity of those individuals while this division is supposedly happens will prevent it from coming to fruition.And also a lot of stuff, like perky breasts, they go and do surveys across as many cultures as they can and they find that hey, even in subgroups where a lot of people don't have them, it's still a preference.I have never seen those surveys & I doubt they actually exist in a scientific & unbiased way. Not just specifying about perky breasts or larger penises, but a lot of it. The best way to find out what a person prefers is to raise a sample group of feral people & go back to find out. After a few generations of feral life you'd've found out a lot of the mysteries of our instincts. Of course keeping that group "clean" would be hard considering the need to interact with them.Sure, poor people breed a lot. But maybe having 5 kids and none of them really healthy is not such a great strategy compared to having 1 super kid with mad sports skills and smarts because they've had a lot more resources spent on them.Again, back to survival of the fittest v. survival of the easiest. They aren't related to the genetic capacity for an organism to continue it's generations. An easy life doesn't mean one that is genetically successfulAt the same time, I think all creatures to some extent shape themselves into the things they want to be, not necessarily the things that help them survive.Yah that goes back to the other evolution myth that every characteristic of an organism is directly related to it's survival and they are the best suited for the life they'll live.

That one gotta go. So often people will call a tiger or shark "the perfect killing machine" or say some red-crested thingyboober has perfectly fit their bodies to match their niche's needs. But that's all bullshit.

Duemellon

29 Oct 2007, 11:56 AM

For example, Dr Oliver Curry seems to think that geographical and social mobility is a new thing, and that this will produce uniformly coffee coloured humans in 1,000 years. Oliver has perhaps not been to Brazil, where black African, white European, and Amerindian have lived side by side and bred together for many centuries.Yep. Someone else saw it too.Dividing into species requires some fairly strong pressures, like geographical divisions: even then, the Tasmanian aboriginals, who were isolated for 10,000 years, can still have children perfectly easily with white Europeans.
...
It would require that socioeconomic divides were absolute, although history shows that attractive impoverished females and wealthy ugly men can be remarkably resourceful in love.Again, someone else saw another point I was making.

There are so many other reasons this is stupid. Unfortunately, as I said, it appeals to the pseudo-science created when the science of evolution mixes with preconcieved notions of identity, supremacy, & legacy of racist myths.

drougan

29 Oct 2007, 11:56 AM

First off...i just wanna say that it's erroneus to state that evolution moves things upwards within a species. Conceptually, it moves things outwards in the attempt to fill all available niches, chaotically, and is refined by environmental suitability.

All of which is mitigated by human social/intellectual behavior. Nothing on this planet has stopped us from living and breeding in whatever fashion we want. To my knowledge, the human species has remained unchanged for the last 50,000 years, maybe even more. Race has produced a relatively microcosmic layer of diversity which has only basically affected the survivablility of humans in certain environmental situations but by no means all. Even at that, there is still a tribe in central africa that physically resembles populations from all across the world, containing within their population the core of genetic diversity we see throughout much of the species.

What's more likely to happen than this wanker's hypothesis is that somewhere, some population is going to get an edge from the evolutionary mutation game of chance, and I mean a big edge, probably in intelligence that's going to propagate throughout the species, carrying along the physical characteristics of that population with it. Whether that change comes from chance mutation or genetic engineering, its gonna turn the human race on its ear. When it comes down to the suitability of the human race to this environment, there really is only room for higher level reasoning to determine survivability. We've already figured out how to live in every other liveable niche in the world.

the happy prole

29 Oct 2007, 12:50 PM

I guess the thing is, I don't see why everyone takes it for granted that humans will continue to exist as one species. Species differentiation is part of evolution.

Suppose a super intelligent gene is created and starts spreading. Why is it a given that it will continue to spread across the gene pool? Maybe the super-intelligent people will just domesticate the less intelligent ones. It's not slave labor is beyond our capabilities.

Since everyone here is so stuck on physical environment, think about this. If we go to Mars, perhaps we will need to genetically alter some people to help them survive there. You'll have two different "humans" but with significant physical differences that give each of them a huge advantage in their environment.

markalot

29 Oct 2007, 12:56 PM

I don't get why people think natural evolution would lead to higher intelligence. If we alter the environment to such an extent that we can no longer survive then it seems to me the 'smarts' we have to do this isn't the best answer.

I hate it when I keep thinking of Planet of the Apes.

the happy prole

29 Oct 2007, 01:10 PM

That's in the paper as well. It says that perhaps the "elite" species will get too frou-frou and get taken down.

A species exists. That species differentiates itself into one or more branches in order to adapt to insane degrees to fit their environment. They become too specialized, and some of them get wiped out.

We were perhaps on our way to differentiation already. There's lots of traits that are linked to race. Sickel Cell Anemia. Lactose intolerance. We overcome the genetic drift by removing physical and geographic barriers. That doesn't mean drift will no longer occur, it'll just occur based on different things.

The odds of this dude being right are like .0000000000000001%. And so is whatever guess anyone on the boards is making. Because we don't really know very much about our genes yet. oh, and IT'S 10,000 YEARS IN THE FUTURE. We could just all be robotically made and different "models" instead of different species. We could become extinct.

It's like two people trying to guess a number between 1 and 1,000,000. "umm, 23,895?" "No you idiot, it's obviously 512,859."

ohmikeodd

29 Oct 2007, 02:01 PM

Football players will be their own species in another generation...

http://www.daytondailynews.com/n/content/gen/ap/OH_Diet_Prep_Football.html

<quote>
Fourteen players at Stark County's 20 high schools weigh more than 300 pounds, and 46 players weigh at least 270 pounds. Those dimensions were almost unheard of as recently as the 1970s.
The heaviest Ohio State player weighed 278 pounds 25 years ago, and 20 years ago, no player on the Cleveland Browns weighed as much as 300. But this year's Massillon High School football team, which plays about 50 miles south of Cleveland, has six players who top that mark.

"The game has just evolved," said Vic Whiting, head coach at Canal Fulton Northwest. "The running backs are bigger; the quarterbacks are bigger; everyone is bigger."
</quote>

Also, I was listening to some sportstalk thing this weekend and one of the Miami Dolphins players was amazed that they didn't need translators at the London Bowl. :D

dannyboy

29 Oct 2007, 02:07 PM

Suppose a super intelligent gene is created and starts spreading. Why is it a given that it will continue to spread across the gene pool? Maybe the super-intelligent people will just domesticate the less intelligent ones. It's not slave labor is beyond our capabilities.

Conjecture for the sake of argument:

Suppose we, have already been domesticated by super intelligent beings from another planet/galaxy/parallel universe/dimension/time and have been given just enough slack to think we have great knowledge and free will but are in reality, just having our strings pulled for nothing more than sheer amusement of said beings.

akip

29 Oct 2007, 02:09 PM

if god had meant humans to be smart, he wouldn't have given them hormones.

Buzzstein

29 Oct 2007, 05:58 PM

I give this thread 5 stars.

Marlowe

29 Oct 2007, 07:03 PM

hey, everybody knows that the asians will be ruling. like a prescient bum on the street said 30 years ago, a billion chinese will hold hands and walk across the water. ;)
General Tso vs Colonel Sanders... this time the stakes are much higher than just chicken!

dry-gulcher

31 Oct 2007, 12:28 AM

Does that meant that those with an IQ of 126 will become the rulers of the subclass? Sweet, my future does look bright!

Thank you, and please do.
I do not know why Dr. Wyatt came up w/ IQ 127 as the demarcation line.
But he did, he also came up with a height requirement of 5ft 5in for women and
6.0 for men...
If you folks IQ 110 to 126 would be so kind as to rule over the subclass than I can continue to persue other interests like the microbial lifeforms I have found in these Martian rocks.
BTW there seems to be a substantial concentration of these trolls in the D.C. area. :D

Jumbo Shrimp

31 Oct 2007, 01:50 AM

according to recent conjecture (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/technology/technology.html?in_article_id=489653&in_page_id=1965), the human race will one day split into two species, an educated, highly evolved race and a less-intelligent, troll-like race that essentially exists to serve the whims and fancy of the over-lords.

which species will you join?

i kinda hope this is true, as i like to think of a lord of the rings-type future with several different species loping around the earth.

It's pretty much that way right now, isn't it?

akip

31 Oct 2007, 11:17 AM

i think any theory that the dweebs will survive (and rule the earth) due to high IQ is a geek fantasy. half of them are too emotionally dysfunctional to reproduce. :D

bestlaidplans

31 Oct 2007, 11:37 AM

i think any theory that the dweebs will survive (and rule the earth) due to high IQ is a geek fantasy. half of them are too emotionally dysfunctional to reproduce. :D
Hey, I resemble that comment!

miami2112

31 Oct 2007, 11:46 AM

We were perhaps on our way to differentiation already. There's lots of traits that are linked to race. Sickel Cell Anemia. Lactose intolerance. We overcome the genetic drift by removing physical and geographic barriers. That doesn't mean drift will no longer occur, it'll just occur based on different things."
incorrect, actually. its related to the geographic pressure of malaria infection. there exist high incidence of SCA in asia and greece, due to historic high levels of infection.

Duemellon

31 Oct 2007, 12:18 PM

incorrect, actually. its related to the geographic pressure of malaria infection. there exist high incidence of SCA in asia and greece, due to historic high levels of infection.tHP took a shortcut on that one having the assumption we were aware those differences were genetic & came to rise in geographic pockets.

I do want to expand & put in a different thing with what you're specifying 'tho:

Another commonly shared myth about evolution is the idea that creatures developed to fit their environment when it's something different. A creaure may have found it way into the environment & then the mutants came about who found it easier for them due to their mutations. Even though we all know mutations are inheirently random we still continue to characterize the evolved divergent creature as "adapting". In no way did they adapt, they were simply lucky & proved to be the luckiest from their peers. Survival of the fittest means the culling or stagnation of the most unfit too.

So, when people start talking about geographies & such, as well as racial tendecies, sometimes people lose sight of that & start thinking each race "perfectly" evolved to live in their environment &/r if they were moved to another geographic situ they'd start to quasi-proactively adapt over generations to be like the natives of that same area.

There are cases of evolution ending up the same for 2 different groups, but even then it's still chance.

the happy prole

31 Oct 2007, 12:49 PM

"A species adapts to its environment," is just a handy way to describe the process. It's not incorrect in any way, but it fosters the notion that we are talking in the singular: A species adapts to AN environment.

In any environment, there are many species. And unless you're like a Devil's Hole Pup Fish or something, a species lives in many environments (and the Devil's Hole Pup Fish won't be around much longer because of that).

The "environment" isn't just the geophysical characteristic of the location. It includes other species, including your own. The environment and the species are both constantly changing, sometimes by chance, sometimes because one affects the other.

So really the way to look at it is that "Everything is always adapting to everything else." It's not really that orderly. It's unpredictable and messy and a good example of chaos-theory (like that Bradbury story with the dude stepping on a butterfly). Things die, things splinter and shoot off in weird directions. It's a very dynamic system.

It would be amazing to me if the human species were somehow able to maintain order in the midst of chaos and NOT eventually split into separate branches if we continue to exist.

akip

31 Oct 2007, 01:16 PM

right now, because of pharmaceuticals and better medical treatments, more people than ever are surviving childhood. AIDS might have only very recently diminished population rates in in some countries in africa (people were still reproducing faster than they were dying). until that balance tips, it's really not happening genetically, just geographically/economically.

Duemellon

31 Oct 2007, 01:38 PM

It would be amazing to me if the human species were somehow able to maintain order in the midst of chaos and NOT eventually split into separate branches if we continue to exist.It would be surprising to me if they did.

The greatest thing needed for speciation of survivors from a single point would be lasting isolation. Whether that would be artificial, happenstance, or natural, without lasting isolation it just can't happen. Humanity is going further & further away from the days of isolation. Every day transportation & communication gets easier, quicker, & less expensive. This ease of exchange will elminate the isolated pockets of humanity so virtually everyone has access to anyone else. Humanity also adapts the environment to suit them instead of adapting to the environment. The restrictions that would've prevented a cold-weather species from swaping with a tropic species is no longer an obstacle. Add to that the general homogenization of culture/society (even if we don't end up with a singular shared identity we will have established rules of interaction which is the basic of society) & you have very few limitations on reproductive mobility.

I do not foresee any event that could create lasting isolation like the prehistoric times. I especially don't see the type of isolation that had to occur for the gorilla/homo split to have taken place.

miami2112

31 Oct 2007, 01:45 PM

It would be amazing to me if the human species were somehow able to maintain order in the midst of chaos and NOT eventually split into separate branches if we continue to exist.
disagree. humans escape many, if not almost all, pressures that would eliminate individuals before reproductive age. a set of two humanoids sounds more like social darwinism, which is an incorrect application of evolution to societial settings.

the happy prole

31 Oct 2007, 02:18 PM

If that's your assumption, then humans are beyond evolution altogether. Everyone lives and reproduces at the exact same rate across the species, genetic differences no longer matter and we've achieved a sort of species stasis.

We will no longer evolve and we will never go extinct. We are, as a species, effectively Gods.

akip

31 Oct 2007, 02:22 PM

the question is whether we'd last long enough to evolve in ways that would be significant enough to create master v. troll races in some significant HG wells genetic sense. i doubt it.

the happy prole

31 Oct 2007, 02:37 PM

Well he's accelerated the rate of change tremendously to account for human influence so we don't have to last all that long in the evolutionary scheme of things.

But yeah, that same ability to refashion ourselves also manifests itself in our ability to extinct ourselves.

Homsar

31 Oct 2007, 02:58 PM

silentpaul

31 Oct 2007, 03:02 PM

So do we basically agree that humanity as a whole has stopped evolving in the basic sense of the word? That always seems to be how this type of thread ends up.

We have the power! Like He-Man, only with our brains.
It's debatable...

http://cdn.channel.aol.com/aolr/britney-spears-bald-400a030207.jpg

http://blogs.newsobserver.com/media/medium_oreillymad.2_02.jpg

http://www.bryandouglasonline.com/blog/archives/michael%20jackson.jpg

Homsar

31 Oct 2007, 03:12 PM

Actually, those are examples of how humanity has ceased evolving. Those people have no trouble at all reproducing (except maybe for Michael Jackson), and therefore keep their traits more in play than they would otherwise be. Mutations may still happen (again, see the above pictures (joking)), but not one one direction.

akip

31 Oct 2007, 03:23 PM

if humanity splits into 2 species, i think i'd rather party with the trolls.

Buzzstein

31 Oct 2007, 05:31 PM

Of course we haven't stopped evolving. I think the technology we develop is all apart of evolution. Even if humans get wiped out our technology will remain. At the least robots will be our descendants. At some point robots will become much smarter than humans and, for all practical purposes, be “alive.” Hell they might be what kills us off. If that happens it's really our own doing though. Who knows we might be assimilated instead (by choice or through force). It's all evolution as far as I'm concerned.

Let's see...we have robots, robo sapiens, the tall intelligent species, and trolls... What else? Fish people? Elephant men? A species of flying humanoids? The possibilities are endless.

Marlowe

31 Oct 2007, 05:37 PM

dry-gulcher

01 Nov 2007, 12:52 AM

Another commonly shared myth about evolution is the idea that creatures developed to fit their environment when it's something different. A creaure may have found it way into the environment & then the mutants came about who found it easier for them due to their mutations. Even though we all know mutations are inheirently random we still continue to characterize the evolved divergent creature as "adapting". In no way did they adapt, they were simply lucky & proved to be the luckiest from their peers. Survival of the fittest means the culling or stagnation of the most unfit too.

So, when people start talking about geographies & such, as well as racial tendecies, sometimes people lose sight of that & start thinking each race "perfectly" evolved to live in their environment &/r if they were moved to another geographic situ they'd start to quasi-proactively adapt over generations to be like the natives of that same area.

There are cases of evolution ending up the same for 2 different groups, but even then it's still chance.
Due.
Don't go and tell them that!
Now look at what you went and done!

Duemellon

01 Nov 2007, 05:52 AM

no indeed, we haven't stopped evolving. "kids these days" literally have different wiring in their brains than people a mere 3 generations ago, whereby they (on average) can process visual information more effectively. ie, images and motion from video monitors are more readily synthesized because brains have begun to wire themselves to adapt. and their kids will have pre-wiring that will make them even more adept at processing information-age stuff.Uhm... I do belive you're wrong.

Our brains wire differently because our brains are plastic like that. If you did take someone from 3 generations ago (ie: 20 yrs/generation, 1940's) & raised them in this time & age their brain would create the same structure. You can go back thousands of years.

Your brain is a remarkably self-adapting tool. If it needs more capacity it literally can make it. Especially at younger ages. The only thing giving us the abiilty to be smarter than our predecessors is that our predecessors wrote stuff down for us.* Archival communication is one of the greatest inventions ever discovered. Instead of passing on information from person to person directly it can actually hold tremendous amount of information for others to access at a whim. This enables information to be shared with much greater accuracy even after the originator/author has passed

Marlowe

01 Nov 2007, 07:29 AM

no you're wrong. but then, you're not as evolved as i am, so i suppose that's to be expected.

Duemellon

01 Nov 2007, 09:06 AM

no you're wrong. but then, you're not as evolved as i am, so i suppose that's to be expected.You aren't more evolved than I am. You're just more specified for you niche, which is apparently in japery & pursilanimousness.

miami2112

01 Nov 2007, 09:38 AM

no you're wrong. but then, you're not as evolved as i am, so i suppose that's to be expected.
as someone whose job it is to teach evolution and natural selection, it is my contention based upon my reading in the scientific literature (sciencemag.org) that humans have escaped most natural selective pressures. we are not subjected to the variety of environmental conditions that kill organisms in the wild before sexual maturity. we are no longer evolving, in a biological sense.

as due pointed out (yes, i'm agreeing with due) the written word was one of the most important inventions by humanity. our society may be "evolving" but that is vastly different than biological "survival of the fittest".

the happy prole

01 Nov 2007, 10:17 AM

The same could be said for any stable species. Squirrels and ants aren't facing tremendous extinction pressure. Doesn't mean they aren't evolving.

If 99.99% of people with a certain gene reach sexual maturity and breed, while only 99.98% without it do, eventually that gene will be weeded out. If people in Africa are breeding at a faster rate than Americans, then that changes the mix gene pool.

And the idea that as long as you live to reproduce then nothing else matters, is foolish. Those people are still interacting with others in the environment. Bush could push a button tomorrow and wipe out a whole ton of people before they reproduce.

Beyond that, humans are spontaneously mutating all the time, as are viruses and diseases. The environment never remains constant, and neither does any species.

We are social creatures. If our societies change, so eventually will we.