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crunch
Social climber
CO
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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!!!!!!!!!!!!
Too late; I'm here already....
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
-A race of corn eaters
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Great thread. All of these are wonderful topics. Very stimulating.
(Best way to keep it on track, largely done so far, is to not feed the trolls. Just a reminder for thread wellbeing.)
Hope to contribute some later. This talk about epigenetics, gene pools, genetic drift, gene pool strengths as a function of human values, micro vs macro, individual vs group, etc. is encouraging esp coming from climbers!
Make Dawkins proud!
.....
Ken, how is it you know Hawking and have spent time with Dawkins and Wilson. Let's hear it! :)
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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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?
I think that is a closer parallel to your 'megaslum' scenario of a 'dirty' (ag-based humans and animals in close proximity) and dense-population pathogen wreaking havoc on a [sparse] 'clean' population.
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Roadie
Trad climber
Bishop, Ca
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Nice thread.
We’re still evolving, for sure. We are getting dumber and fatter, at least in the first world. If you give a non-culturally bias IQ test to a representative population from most remaining hunter gather peoples, the average is about 110. Evolution fails to work in our favor when people aren’t allowed to eliminate themselves from the gene pool- before breeding. People living longer means that medical technology has evolved, not people. People riding their bikes faster, hitting more home runs and climbing 5.17 means better nutrition and better drugs…
Question two seems a bit poorly worded. Altruism…, it seems to me, is a product of cultural evolution, not genetic. Both are important for sure but shouldn’t be confused. Social evolution= history, physical evolution= genetics. History is a stationary bicycle disguised as a bulldozer, evolution is exactly the opposite. I read that somewhere, can’t remember where but I liked it.
I like question three. It would be ridiculous to hold too strongly to any one opinion given our pathetically small sample of one. That being said, for every planet with life (obviously there are scads) I’d like to think about 5% of those planets develop intelligent life, that’s not to say we’d recognize it as such…
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Roadie
Trad climber
Bishop, Ca
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Oh yeah,for those of you who still haven't read: Jared Dimond's Guns Germs and Steel, get on it. Thats only slightly off topic.
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eeyonkee
Trad climber
Golden, CO
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 1, 2013 - 06:45pm PT
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Question 2, as I indicated earlier, requires a little more background reading for most people. It's actually a pretty big and controversial subject among evolutionary biologists. Altruism, is at first blush, not easily explained by classical evolution. Richard Dawkins (building on others' work) presented compelling evidence that altruism in humans is the result of 'selfish' genes. Briefly, since you share 50% of your genes with your siblings and parents, it would be beneficial to your gene legacy if you were to sacrifice yourself for say, three of your siblings. E.O. Wilson, too, suggested that altruism has a genetic basis, but he conceived of a separate level of selection, one at the group level rather then organismic or gene level. Dawkins would claim that group selection requires some mysterious agent that is simply not needed to explain the genetic basis for altruism. This is a super-simplified explanation.
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Roadie
Trad climber
Bishop, Ca
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Thanks E,
Maybe I’m still too hung over for question 2. I think I read one of Dawson’s books (wasn‘t he the ‘THERE‘S NO GOD AND IF YOU THINK SO YOU‘RE A MORON’ guy). I remained unimpressed. Just so angry… And doing such a bad job of trying to prove a negative…
Never the less, I’m standing by my original statement- altruism=cultural…
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Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
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I read one of Dawson’s books (wasn‘t he the ‘THERE‘S NO GOD AND IF YOU THINK SO YOU‘RE A MORON’ guy
maybe, but Richard Dawkins book The God Dulusion
or Christopher Hitchens book God Is Not Great
may be more what you are referring to
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eeyonkee
Trad climber
Golden, CO
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 1, 2013 - 07:19pm PT
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Dawkins is known by the general public more for his anti-religion writings, but he is a well-respected zoologist and evolutionary biologist who authored some very seminal books in the field. I've read at least 10, including his most famous book, The Selfish Gene.
Altruism really is the basis for morality from a genetic standpoint. I really didn't explain the whole selfish gene thing very well. I'm not on top of it enough to summarize in a paragraph or two. For one thing, one should probably throw out the term 'selfish' in a summary explanation, as it is more likely to obfuscate rather than shed light on the subject. I'm hoping somebody who is on top of this will chime in.
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Ken M
Mountain climber
Los Angeles, Ca
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Ken, how is it you know Hawking and have spent time with Dawkins and Wilson. Let's hear it! :)
My graduate work was in genetics at Davis, and I studied with two of the giants of evolution of the last century, Stebbins and Dobzhansky. Just having known them opens doors, much less having worked with them.
I had communicated with Dawkins, who'd read stuff I'd written, and when he came to town to lecture at UCLA a few months ago, we got together to talk for awhile over coffee. A privilege.
It turns out Hawking is a fan of magic, and so am I. When I heard that, I arranged through intermediaries to have him invited to the Magic Castle, a private club for magicians in Los Angeles where I sometimes go, for a private show. To my astonishment, he accepted, and he and his entourage came and had dinner and a great time. I had a chance to talk with him, but it was only for a brief time.
By the way, Stebbins was a climber, and put up first ascents in the Sierra!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ledyard_Stebbins
Dobzhansky's work was instrumental in spreading the idea that it is through mutations in genes that natural selection takes place.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nothing_in_Biology_Makes_Sense_Except_in_the_Light_of_Evolution
Don't know Wilson personally, didn't mean to imply I did.
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MH2
climber
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Of course humans are evolving. Unless we prevent mutation and selection. As long as we are here. Which may not be for much longer.
Michio Kaku said, "100% of Ph. D. candidates in my system are foreign-born."
So what is his system?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michio_Kaku
and why does this video come up after his?
[Click to View YouTube Video]
edit:
It occurs to me that in the brain of Google or whoever is watching over us that Michio Kaku + Boobs = Nerd. Our technology is what needs to evolve now.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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I too would like to hear more about epigenetics and altruism genes.
Certainly the question of whether altruism is genetic or cultural is an interesting one. Considering the densely populated cooperative societies of East Asia and the individualistic and fragmented nature of America gives food for thought. We know that Chinese looking at a group photo scan everyone in the photo and surmise their relationship to each other while Americans tend to focus on one or two individuals with unusual characteristics (perceived interest or dominance) instead. In the social sciences we assume that is the result of culture.
I would love to hear an argument from the gene point of view. Or perhaps they are symbiotic? Individuals who stood out in dense agricultural populations had a greater chance of being rejected, persecuted, or annihilated in these societies by the power structures, and their genes over 6,000 years of history were gradually eliminated? An epigenetics example?
We know from DNA studies that in southern China (south of the Yangtze River), most of the men are northern Han Chinese while most of the women are southern, non Han Chinese. Therefore competitive pressures (and no doubt outright annihilation) altered the gene pool of a large population of non Han males. Human males in most places of the world must have been subjected to this type of selection many times over. Another case of epigenetics?
And what does this say of the relative fitness of men and women? The surviving males should be stronger, able to run faster, and smarter than the women? Or more likely this has contributed to men having more flight or fight reactions and women more accomodation oriented survival strategies with intelligence exhibeted in different ways?
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Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
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As for subject #3, it probably depends for how long and how fast organisms evolve. It took on Earth 500,000 years(?) to produce intelligence. Maybe intelligence is not inevitable but highly probable if given enough time?
moose, what do you mean by 500,000 years?
that our primate ancestors exhibited a higher intelligence about that many years ago?
or that from the beginning of the earth to some point and 500K to what?
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BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
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Life on Earth began at least 3.5 billion years ago.
Depending on how you define intelligence, our lineage began about 2 million years ago and really got going about 50,000 years ago.
So it took almost 3.5 billion years to achieve intelligence if you define it as the first microwave oven or first species in space or whatever wha wha you want to use.
Yes, we are still evolving. Modern medicine does affect this, and would make a good discussion topic on its own.
The real kicker here is that very soon we will be genetically engineering ourselves. We can do it with corn, we can do it with mice, and there is no reason that we can't do it with people.
It is inevitable that we will jump beyond slow natural selection and engineer ourselves. If there is a shortcut, it will be used. The potential advantage of engineering ourselves is actually a conscious and deliberate way to control our evolutoun. Mice with tinkered DNA are being used in all sorts of experiments and drug trial experiments.
The benefits of genetic engineering will be fast and efficient. I leave the moral implications up to the reader.
A paper just came out that showed a genetic predisposition for some of the things that we call "morals," such as altruism. Altruism surprised me.
I think that it is very difficult for an intelligent creature like ourselves to evolve. It doesn't really provide a reproductive advantage for the long haul. Man is facing all sorts of self inflicted environmental and population problems already. If we don't make it, bacteria certainly will.
As far as the beginning of life, from my discussions with others who work in the field of evolution, life appears to have only begun once on this planet. That begs the question of why life hasn't begun many times, given that it happened early on the Earth and the planet is ideal for life of our chemistry.
Their is the universal genome which implies that all life comes from a single common ancestor.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Good question and neat experiment that could easily be performed on Chinese Americans by showing them group photos at different ages.
Eye movement can be easily measured, no matter what the person perceives they are doing. If genetic, very young Chinese children would look all around the photo and then focus on individuals as they grew up and were more acculturated to American ways.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
-A race of corn eaters
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It's cool to see this thread developing.
I'll try to contribute when I've got something to "tweet." No particular rush, right? It's nice that eeyonkee started it so we have it now - for when the interest or inspiration comes.
Ken, that's neat! You probably know, RD is living it up in Antartica now.
P.S. Eeyonkee, I think your questions and descriptions were well posed, I think you hit many of the ongoing issues very well and expressed them validly and accurately. How refreshing around here! :)
P.SS. Ken, I must've unconsciously confabulated, lol, regarding Wilson - when I should've said Hitchens, eh? Lucky dog! :)
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WBraun
climber
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There's no selfish gene.
You guys are dreaming and stuck in body consciousness.
Selfishness is rooted in body consciousness.
This is body mine, the extension of the body is mine, family, country, all extensions from the bodily concept.
But we are not the body but humanity as one whole and simultaneously with difference and individuality.
My country, your country, mine, mine this, and mine that, my religion, your religion, all create selfishness.
All due to poor consciousness of oneness, materialism, and body consciousness.
Such a simple thing to understand and see .......
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BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
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The paper I read said that this gene was also found in primates other than humans. Many animals work together as groups. Some animals mate for life, and somehow most animals know not to have sex with their brood or offspring.
I'm serious with the genetic engineering aspect. It isn't a part of my field, but I read a paper that was in the PNAS that included mice who were engineered without H1 hystamine receptors.
I'll do a little googling on the matter, but if you think about it, since we are still tribal and war with each other for no good reason. A genetic improvement in strength, intelligence, absence of hereditary disease and the like, and then kept it to yourself, within a generation you would be ruling the rest of the human race who were just a tiny bit slower in acquiring these methods.
The first group to do this will dominate. Go watch the idea in the movie Gattica. That film covers much of this, including actual genetic descrimination.
The time is rapidly approaching when we will be able to create our own evolutionary fate.
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