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Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
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eeyonkee,
wasn't it the other day that you commented that if we could take a newborn from as far ago as 50,000 years or so, and transplant that infant to today, that it would have the same intelligence, learning capacity, as we humans have?
that evolutionarily speaking we would have to go back much further in time to perhaps find homo sapiens of significant difference?
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eeyonkee
Trad climber
Golden, CO
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 1, 2013 - 03:03pm PT
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continuing breaking of athletic records--production of exceptional "tip of the iceberg" individuals
continuing lengthening of AVERAGE lifespan--production of better average "stock"
continuing identification of those who in past would have been discarded as misfits or disabled and would have been discarded, but are now seen as genius--Einstein, Hawking, Temple Grandin.
Ken, I would argue that none of these are evidence for continuing human evolution. The first could easily be explained by sheer numbers, better nutrition, and better training techniques. The second by better nutrition and education. The third by education and "civilization" of society.
Don't get hung up on the bigger brain = smarter. Although there is clearly a correlation (when normalized for body mass) I just mean genetic-based greater intelligence.
Norton - I referred to 5,000 years, but it might as well have been 50,000, although now I'm not so sure that 50,000 years wouldn't be long enough to show some clear (average) differences.
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Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
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from wiki:
In the context of human evolution, human vestigiality involves those characters (such as organs or behaviors) occurring in the human species that are considered vestigial—in other words having lost all or most of their original function through evolution. Although structures usually called "vestigial" often appear functionless, a vestigial structure may retain lesser functions or develop minor new ones.[1] In some cases, structures once identified as vestigal simply had an unrecognized function.[2]
The examples of human vestigiality are numerous, including the anatomical (such as the human appendix, tailbone, wisdom teeth, and inside corner of the eye), the behavioral (goose bumps and palmar grasp reflex), sensory (decreased olfaction), and molecular (junk DNA). Many human characteristics are also vestigial in other primates and related animals.
NOT photoshopped
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eeyonkee
Trad climber
Golden, CO
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 1, 2013 - 03:15pm PT
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Cool!
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Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
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The problem with #1 is that we want to see it as something positive. Like bigger brains, or somehow that we're getting "better," and that's not how it works. We're probably evolving to be more tolerant of pollution and sun exposure, higher temperatures etc, possibly at the expense of what we think of as 'good' qualities.
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monolith
climber
albany,ca
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Please don't let Gobee turn this into an evolution vs anti-evolution thread.
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eeyonkee
Trad climber
Golden, CO
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 1, 2013 - 03:46pm PT
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Jaybro, you're preaching to the choir with respect to evolution having no "goals". I get that. My point is, even for, say, tolerance to sun, there has to be some differential survival or occurrence rate for the "good" genes to proliferate in a population. Those with the gene have to either survive more or have more babies. I suppose in third world countries with high populations, this sort of thing is likely still happening. In first world countries, it's not so clear (at least to me).
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Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
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gobee is simply pointing out that deceases such as leprosy can be instantly cured if one just happens to have Jesus show up, take pity, and take care of business.
The problem arises when a leper's path does not cross Jesus's in time for the cure
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eeyonkee
Trad climber
Golden, CO
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 1, 2013 - 04:35pm PT
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GENETICALLY driven evolution is random.
Come on, this isn't true. The mutations themselves are random but natural selection is certainly not.
I've go to bone up on epigenetics. I understand the overall concept, but not certain mechanisms and its relative contribution to evolution.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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1. Our expression (genetic and epigenetic) and that of our symbionts and endogenic viral load is subject to continual environmental and ecological pressure - whether we're still evolving is not even a question. But I would posit that focusing on, or attempting to point to, behavioral or physical traits which have social currency in our society are largely misguided as most of those [inherent] attributes and capabilities were [fully] expressed in modern humans tens of thousands of years ago. I would similarly be largely skeptical of any too-direct a linkage between behavior and epigenetics.
2. We are no less "social" than ants and I suspect that's due to trade-offs associated with the energy budget of our brain and more to do with the evolution of very early primates in general as opposed anything to do with modern hominids.
3. We exist so 'intelligence' is undoubtably 'common' as sknott relative to the total number of planets in life-hospitable galaxies.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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I'll focus on # 1 from a biological anthropology point of view.
Of course human evolution is ongoing and there is every reason to think, based solely on numbers, that Europe and America will have little to do with the final direction of the human race. Our future as a species is being determined in Asia, home of over 50% of us. Later, as the population of Africa continues to grow, they will contribute more also. Europe and North America together are only about 6% of the world's total population
Secondly, as has been pointed out, our values cause many less than physically and mentally optimum people to survive and reproduce, thus weakening the biological fitness of the developed societies. Further, we choose to preserve life at all costs at both ends of the human lifespan at the expense of those of reproductive age.
Thirdly, many of our best nourished, healthiest and educated (presumably smarter) people are failing to reproduce or do so only in minimal numbers.
And finally, we have created such comfortable and clean environments that we have reduced much selective pressure. The teeming masses living in the megacities of the world, especially in Asia, are being heavily selected for certain traits, including widespread resistance to both waterborne and airborne microbes, and heavy chemical and particulate pollution of the atmosphere. Those who survive the slums of these cities are definitely superior biological specimens who reproduce more than our pampered citizens.
As for evolution of intelligence, the obstacles that citizens of crowded developing societies face just to survive, demand much more quick and flexible thinking than our spoiled existence which has the luxury to sit around and debate whether evolution even exists or not.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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And finally, we have created such comfortable and clean environments that we have reduced much selective pressure.
Jan, I believe this is a mistake and one of human-centric social biases. There is no such thing as a "clean and comfortable" environment - there are only 'different' environments with more or less 'novel' attributes. From a microbial perspective, mega slums represent an active competitive environment whereas our "clean and comfortable" environment may be far better suited to the evolution of 'superbugs' given the hostile agents used to achieve these environments. Our first world environments may in fact be be evolutionary 'accelerants'. Similarly, habitat destruction unbalances 'stable' ecologies creating other highly novel incubators.
If a superbug emerges from either our 'clean' environment or a destabilized habitat then it's unlikely mega slum dwellers will be well-suited to survive either other than as more a mutational fluke of pure numbers.
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eeyonkee
Trad climber
Golden, CO
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 1, 2013 - 05:31pm PT
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Ok, I see where you are coming from, Moosedrool. Great post, Jan. I'm with you. But let's just say that all of Asia and Africa were first world countries, with concomitant very low infant mortality and high life expectancy. Would your answer be the same?
With respect to 3, remember, the setup is the emergence of life on one planet and the liklihood of intelligent life (say, capable of technology)emerging on that planet. I'm not asking about the odds of intelligent life in the universe as a whole, which I would put at extremely high.
Sharks have evolved very little in the last 200 million years. Why? Because they haven't needed to. Evolution doesn't do it's magic just because. And there's certainly no reason to believe that given enough time that sharks would involve intelligence on par with humans.
Healje, (respectfully) the premise that because we are here means that the answer to 3 is high seems faulty to me. It smacks of the creationist premise that because the universe is just right for humans that it must have been designed for them.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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healeyje-
I'm not sure I understand what you mean. However, if our current sanitary environment makes us more susceptible to superbugs emanating from other continents, and we die off in great numbers, isn't the final effect of that to reduce our role in ongoing evolution even further?
And yes you're right about "clean and comfortable" being an example of social bias. But really, have you ever tried to live in one of those societies? I am always made aware of what a biological weakling I am compared to my Indian and Nepalese friends.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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eeyonkee: Healyje, (respectfully) the premise that because we are here means that the answer to 3 is high seems faulty to me. It smacks of the creationist premise that because the universe is just right for humans that it must have been designed for them. Naw, I just think that we exist means intelligence is inevitable in some percentage of galaxies which become hospitable to life.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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eeyonkee-
That's a very interesting question and one that's hard for me to imagine given the present state of the world and dwindling resources. For hypothetical purposes however, assuming that all the world becomes as developed and hygienic as ourselves, then yes, the biological fitness of the entire human race would become less than that of our ancestors.
Likewise, if all the elites of the world fail to reproduce, the same effect will be achieved. There are indications of this already happening in parts of Asia as the Japanese and Korean governments are now giving child allowance to encourage reproduction and Singapore has gone so far as to promote social events between highly educated professionals in the hope of increasing marriage and reproduction of those classes.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Jan: I'm not sure I understand what you mean. However, if our current sanitary environment makes us more susceptible to superbugs emanating from other continents, and we die off in great numbers, isn't the final effect of that to reduce our role in ongoing evolution even further?
It works both ways, our superbugs will kill more slum dwellers and a novel pathogen jumping species out of the blue from a destabilized habitat may be equally lethal to both high rise and megaslum dwellers - it's more a question of how novel the microbe is to our exposure to it.
And yes you're right about "clean and comfortable" being an example of social bias. But really, have you ever tried to live in one of those societies?
Yes, and always deathly ill on first exposure as well. Cruise ships are a good example of why there is no such thing as "clean and comfortable" environments despite our social images of them.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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it's more a question of how novel the microbe is to our exposure to it.
Agreed, (and really good point about cruise ships!) but it still seems to me that people whose immune systems are frequently challenged will have a better chance than those whose systems produce allergies as false alarms because they have so little else to respond to.
And I'm wondering if the decimation of the Native American populations wasn't an example of both - superbugs they had no previous exposure to and possibly weakened immune systems from living in sparsely populated, microbially challanged environments?
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elcap-pics
Big Wall climber
Crestline CA
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I think we will screw our earth up and kill ourselves off long before evolutionaly pressure will demonstrate measurable results. Our present population is not sustanable for another 500 years and maybe much less than 500 years. But the good news is that I will have lived at the very best time to be alive and will be gone before the "Crunch". Yeah!!!!!!!!!!!!
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WBraun
climber
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I think we will screw our earth up and kill ourselves off long before evolutionary pressure will demonstrate measurable results.
Will not happen.
The built in over ride will prevent it.
Mankind is not the ultimate controller of the planet/universe as the so called modern eduction is projecting.
Mankind is too stupid to run the planet.
There's an ultimate plan in place regardless what all the mental speculators are projecting.
That ultimate plan is perfectly carried out in the same fashion the seasons perfectly eternally change ......
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