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Has our BIOLOGICAL EVOLUTION ended?


charles brough

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Charles, Are you saying that to make you consider changing your views, all we have to do is to chronicle 40,000 years of human history, listing each mutation and providing supporting data?

 

Is that all? I'd do that right now, except that something has come up. Sorry. Maybe next week.--lemit p.s. Maybe not.

 

I am certainly glad you have not taken up that challenge!! LOL I would not have the time to read it!

 

No, but I've done it with the main changes using ideological systems and the natural selection process going on between them to explain the gross changes in both history and prehistory. Do you really think you could explain history (if you did have the time and were amply paid!) using genetic mutations as the causation????

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The problem here is that you see only a few of the steps. You see viruses affecting human immunity, but that changes with one race and group or another all the time but does not affect the ability of any people to advance civilization. It is a millions of years-long progress that has had no significant effect on the total human race in the last 40,000 years. You cannot seem to see that natural selection is going on much faster between the ideological systems that bind people into groups, nations and societies or their civilizations. That has replaced the pathetically small biological evolution you see as a few steps. It accounts for the rise and fall of civilizations.

 

Just to be clear, I'm not in disagreement about the profound effect that human civilization has had on the advancement of our species. I'm simply disagreeing with the thread title. It seems you are as well when you say, "It is a millions of years-long progress that has had no significant effect on the total human race in the last 40,000 years". It's implicit that you concede that biological evolution has never stopped, but argue that its effect is insignificant.

 

So, a better question might be, "How significant is biological evolution?" or "Does Social Evolution trump Biological evolution?".

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Just to be clear, I'm not in disagreement about the profound effect that human civilization has had on the advancement of our species. I'm simply disagreeing with the thread title. It seems you are as well when you say, "It is a millions of years-long progress that has had no significant effect on the total human race in the last 40,000 years". It's implicit that you concede that biological evolution has never stopped, but argue that its effect is insignificant.

 

So, a better question might be, "How significant is biological evolution?" or "Does Social Evolution trump Biological evolution?".

 

Thank you. I've felt for a long time that we've been arguing about usage instead of substance. I'm just too dumb (science dumb) to be able to say it.

 

But there might be another level. It might be that all change must be filtered through biology. In other words--in fact in words that have been used in this thread many times--no matter what the cause, the effect is still going to be biological. I don't quite see that in your post. Am I missing something, am I just continuing to be science dumb, or do we still need to address the fact (yes, fact as in actuality, not just a piece of information) that all effects on human biology are still effects on biology?

 

I'm beginning to feel like I can't write the English language anymore. The idea that biological effects aren't biological effects but instead are social effects is just confusing to me. If our genetic profile is changed, that can't ever be sociology; it must always be biology.

 

Sorry for the rant. I think I'm just tired of the concept that the effects to this dead horse that we've been beating--let's see, the effects would be bacterial and possibly fungal(?)--I just don't see how these effects can possibly be social. I think the maggots on the horse have already become flies and have flown away. I don't know why we can't move on too.

 

Sorry, Freeztar. This isn't really directed at you. You just happen to be in the line of fire.

 

--lemit

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Charles,

 

Are you saying that to make you consider changing your views, all we have to do is to chronicle 40,000 years of human history, listing each mutation and providing supporting data?

 

Is that all? I'd do that right now, except that something has come up. Sorry. Maybe next week.

 

--lemit

 

p.s. Maybe not.

some of these have been listed on other threads

"Darwin revisted" perhaps.

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Thank you. I've felt for a long time that we've been arguing about usage instead of substance. I'm just too dumb (science dumb) to be able to say it.

 

It's indeed hard to argue substance when the terms used are inaccurate or poorly defined. :phones:

 

But there might be another level. It might be that all change must be filtered through biology. In other words--in fact in words that have been used in this thread many times--no matter what the cause, the effect is still going to be biological. I don't quite see that in your post. Am I missing something, am I just continuing to be science dumb, or do we still need to address the fact (yes, fact as in actuality, not just a piece of information) that all effects on human biology are still effects on biology?

 

I agree with this of course. Changes to our genome are certainly biological effects, regardless of their beginnings.

 

I'm beginning to feel like I can't write the English language anymore. The idea that biological effects aren't biological effects but instead are social effects is just confusing to me. If our genetic profile is changed, that can't ever be sociology; it must always be biology.

 

No need to fear, you've got it right.

 

Sorry, Freeztar. This isn't really directed at you. You just happen to be in the line of fire.

 

It's cool. Just remember that no one is firing here. :loser:

 

I think it is safe to say that social evolution can profoundly impact biological evolution. This is not to say that social evolution can trump biological evolution though. Then again, maybe it will one day and we'll all be greek-character caste-members in a "Brave New World". :crying:

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I think it is safe to say that social evolution can profoundly impact biological evolution. This is not to say that social evolution can trump biological evolution though. Then again, maybe it will one day and we'll all be greek-character caste-members in a "Brave New World". ;)

:hihi:

"Roof!" He flung open the gates. The warm glory of afternoon sunlight made ... "Oh, roof!" he repeated in a voice of rapture.
~ :)
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Just to be clear, I'm not in disagreement about the profound effect that human civilization has had on the advancement of our species. I'm simply disagreeing with the thread title. It seems you are as well when you say, "It is a millions of years-long progress that has had no significant effect on the total human race in the last 40,000 years". It's implicit that you concede that biological evolution has never stopped, but argue that its effect is insignificant.

 

So, a better question might be, "How significant is biological evolution?" or "Does Social Evolution trump Biological evolution?".

 

You have put that all very well and I understand what you are saying. It is just that I think a little differently than you. I think about it and realize I cannot think of anything that has come to a complete and total end. To say something has ended means it has ended "for all practical purposes." We live in an un-arbitrary world in which all is relative.

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G'day from the land of ozzzzzz

 

Natural selection has not been tested in the last 40,000 years in the case with humans.

 

Medicine has allowed some genes to remain in the population.

 

We need some extreme Virus or bacteria to kill off the many so that the few can go on with the genes.

 

Maybe extreme radiation, a few coments .

 

The few mutations have not been allowed to breed.

 

So all in all we are heading OK.

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  • 1 year later...

http://www.ted.com/talks/harvey_fineberg_are_we_ready_for_neo_evolution.html

 

About this talk

Medical ethicist Harvey Fineberg shows us three paths forward for the ever-evolving human species: to stop evolving completely, to evolve naturally -- or to control the next steps of human evolution, using genetic modification, to make ourselves smarter, faster, better. Neo-evolution is within our grasp. What will we do with it?

 

 

About Harvey Fineberg

Harvey Fineberg studies medical decisionmaking -- from how we roll out new medical technology, to how we cope with new illnesses and threatened epidemics.Full bio and more links

 

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  • 5 months later...

Contrary to your opinion, the human body has and does continue to evolve. The jaw bone has gotten smaller and left less room for the wisdom teeth to grow normally, the appendix no longer serves whatever function it did in the past, the tonsils and adenoids no longer serve a function, and the little finger is becoming smaller and less functional and may disappear altogether eventually, and Sickle cell anemia developed as a way of fighting Malaria.

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  • 6 months later...

Evolution is, in part, dependent on the environment. In the natural world, plants, animals and ecosystems are optimized to their environments; natural selection. With humans, we can control the environment and thereby set the conditions for selection. If you add human subjectivity, to the picture, humans can also alter the environment in an irrational way to allow unnatural selection. The selection choices do not have to be natural if you can control the environment. Humans will continue to breed and evolve via DNA, but selection will be a combination of natural, unnatural and artificial. The result is and is not evolution. It is evolution in terms of DNA, but not in terms of natural selection.

 

For example, if we had a large number of ferrel dog breeds, roaming the streets, left to their own devices, they would interbreed and reduce down to mid-sized mutts over time. This is natural selection. Humans can control the dog environment and make this natural selection path take a detour. The selection process could be driven by the subjectivity of social fad, and be long hair today and short hair tomorrow. The final result still uses DNA but the result is no longer natural selection. It is all form instead of function whereas natural is functional form.

 

In nature, the weak and sick become food for other animals; into recycle. The resources go to the strong and fit, which then breed and pass on their genes. Humans, due to morals and ethics, put a lot of resources into the sick. The result is still a selection process, but it is no longer natural; follows the rest of nature. If this selection process was the only variable, one would expect human to become extinct this way.

 

Try an expedient with animals, where you remove all the fit animals and leave only the sick in the ecosystem. The local population would go extinct. The reason this choice does not lead to extinction decline in humans, is because civilization can control the environment, so even the sick can survive and thrive, while also providing extra for all the rest.

 

This is a delicate situation. The control of logistics allows even an unnatural situation to succeed. If the logistic of civilization were disrupted, different rules of fitness would apply. It would revert back to natural selection causing a massive adjustment until natural selection is enforced again. Humans would start to control the environment again, until they divert and fall off the path of natural selection. But they would again provide the logistics that can compensate, so even unnatural can be supported. Subjectively, we might call it natural since it appears to thrive. But again it is all made possible by the logistics of civilization.

Edited by HydrogenBond
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Unfortunately, is not as easy as "Evolution has stopped" or "Evolution has not stopped".

I definitely side with Boerseun, though I do admit that Pyro's comments were also spot on (esp. about or ability to self evolve - aka like dog breeding).

 

My response to Charles is "claiming evolution" has stopped on something measured in 1000's generations (maybe millions) such that this is like saying "the continents have stopped their motion on the earth" or "the Himalayas are no longer being thrusted upwards. The one difference is we are able in specific periods of time able to measure the difference geologically. Genetically we can measure the distance from then to now. You can not directly infer the current rate of change. There is though one researcher - he wrote the book "Seven daughters of Eve" (forget his name). In this book, he mentions a genetic drift rate on Mitochondrial DNA per thousand years. If you use that yardstick. Then we must be still evolving.

 

Of course you could a contrarian and just wish to disagree for its own sake. <_<

 

maddog

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My point really was, in starting the thread, that any such evolution that does occur does not explain human "progress" and that it would take a lot more than a mere 40,000 years to evolve us in any significant way! ---more like a million years. . .

I thought that was my point and you were on the "opposite side". Excuse me. I guess I did not see the way the "lines" were drawn in the conversation. :rolleyes:

 

maddog

 

ps: even if our civilization doesn't survive. The biological survivors will carry on into the future.

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