How could we have stopped evolving?

[Michaelangelica]

Originally Posted by charles brough

Really, you guys! Can't we have shorter and more concise posts? I would love to know what you are thinking but is it worth all that reading? I am partial to just two or three paragraphs. I guess I'm an "outsider" there and will have to pick up on a different thread . . .

HEY
This is Hypography
Well known for its verbosity!

Do you want a 10-15 second TV take?

Verbosity RULES

(but it would be nice if you all broke up your posts into little bits so that those born post 1960 can cope)

A few gaps, and some punctuation, would help

[Michaelangelica]

Do these articles pop up becuse you are more aware or what? spooky though-what do we miss?

Humans evolving faster than thought
Tuesday, 11 December 2007 Will Dunham
Reuters
moving forward

Human evolution has been moving at breakneck speed in the past several thousand years, far from plodding along as some scientists had thought, researchers say.

In fact, people today are genetically more different from people living 5000 years ago than those humans were different from the Neanderthals who vanished 30,000 years ago, according to US anthropologist Assistant Professor John Hawks of the University of Wisconsin.

The genetic changes have related to numerous different human characteristics, the researchers say in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Many of the recent genetic changes reflect differences in the human diet brought on by agriculture, as well as resistance to epidemic diseases that became mass killers following the growth of human civilisations, the researchers say.

Humans evolving faster than thought (ABC Science Online)

[Brinnie]

Originally Posted by charles brough

In March 2007, Cochran/Hawks in World Science reported that the main genetic changes that have taken place in us in the last almost 200,000 years have merely been a slight shrinking of body and brain size and changes in metabolism!

So, what explains what has happened to us in all that time? What caused us to build up such a cultural heritage and expand in numbers to fill, indeed, even crowd the Earth?

Social theorists have no concensus on that. Some resort to "meme"s as an "explanation." Others just won't believe it and insist that is can all be explained by some sort of biological evolution going on somehow somewhere.

Why hit our heads against the wall? The explanation is available in
HOME PAGE Natural selection has been occuring between societies---not the races as the Social Darwinists and Sociobiologists claim. Not economic systems as the Marxists claim. It is between religion-bonded entities we call "societies," "cultures" or "civilizations but which are distinct entities that compete with each other for survival.

Of course, religious believers hate that idea because it gives religion a natural cause evolutionary purpose! Natural selection working on religions!

im sumwot religious & i love that idea!!

so let me get this strait:

basically, since we can rely on technology 2 do lots of stuff, we r selecting 2 use certain regions of our brain more than others.

over the course of time, less used regions shrink due 2 lack of stimulation or whatever, slowing down physical evolution??

[Michaelangelica]

Originally Posted by CraigD

Before this claim can be accepted, it’s necessary to show that it actually is the consensus of evolutionary biologists that H.Sapiens.S. has not evolved since becoming a species.

Aside from the difficulty of defining a distinct event of “becoming a species”, I don’t think this is the conseusus.

I tend to agree.
'Sapiens' can't just be reduced to 'brain size"
no increase in brain size=no evolution.
Do falling Olympic records point to an evolutionary process, perhaps not yet, but we have eons to go before we sleep (Sorry Mr Frost).


There are probably more nerve endings in our stomachs than the brain.
Look at the human animal as a Gestalt, a total unit, that responds to a changing environment.
Humans are probably a bit slow on the evolution highway compared to bacteria, viruses or fruit flys, but in terms of generations probably not.
It is all a matter of your perspective of time and I think God has plenty of that with which to tweek her creation. (If that's your bag)

The very intelligent stomach has learnt in merely the last 10,000 years to disassemble the complex lactose sugar molecule to make usable brain fuel and also turn the irritating substance gluten in grass seeds into more brain fuel. Not everybody interestingly, some ethic groups haven't managed it yet as they haven't needed to (no stomach stressors?).
Very energy demanding, the brain, sometimes you wonder if the stomach would be better off without it.

It is also interesting to look at how the first trimester of birth can effect factors like body weight. A malnourished foetus in the first trimester will result in fatter male children/adults. Why not girls? (see Obesity thread for details look up hungerwinter).
I am sure there are there are many more human traits that can be put down to epigenetic stressors like this.
In nature, simple stressors, like heat, can have dramatic effects on gene expression even down to the determining of the sex of the animal.
It also seems to have interesting effects on a human protein expression possibly crucial to evolution.
Protein 'Shocks' Evolution Into Action
God knows what heat does to the Australian Brain

Has Homo sapiens really become intelligent?
I recently posted this on "Quality Jokes.." thread, but really; it is not funny.
We seem to have along way to go with this evolving caper.

[HydrogenBond]

One paradoxical source of evolution and de-evolution is medicine. On the one hand, medical care can make the body better. But on the other hand, it can lower the ability of the body's own natural defenses. Nobody even heard about being allergic to peanut butter a few decades ago, since it wasn't common. Now it seems to have gotten far more common. This can't be evolutionary since humans are omnivores.

The affect could be analogous to a bionic prosthesis affect. One could strap bionics onto the legs to make us run faster. But because the bionics is doing all the work, the leg muscles don't develop naturally. The next generation ends up with skinny legs requiring the bionics even more.

Another affect, due to medical care, is more in line with religious ethics, but not in line with evolutionary theory. If there were no medical assistance, the weak would be expire, while the strong would pass their genes onto the future. Just like Darwin says. By helping the sick and weak, humans make it possible for sick genes to remain in the gene pool. Again from the religious ethics point of view this is good, since all life if precious. But from a purely selective advantage and survival of the fittest philosophy of evolution, it doesn't follow the rules. Science can't seem to agree on this.

One only has to take this situation out of the human element and use animals, so we don't take things too personally. Say we had a herd of deer. In nature, the predators get the weak, sickly and old. The ones that are left are healthier. Among these is competition for breeding. The results are the best genes moving the herd to the future. Instead of the natural path, we will do it differently. We will make it so all the sick, weak and old are sheltered from the predators. We will even give them extra food and medical care. We will also assure that not just the most fit reproduce, but will allow even the second and third string to reproduce. What would happen to this herd of deer, and would its evolution to the future slow?

One way to address this medical preference for religious ethics over the Darwinian approach, even if there is a Darwinism de-evolution, is that human evolution is not connected to the body, but to the brain and mind. Even a sick person can have a good brain and mind. This is what is being preserved, since this is the center of what is evolving. Humans have sort of broke out of Darwin evolution and are evolving quicker. Darwinism is only good for animals and vegetables, but doesn't apply to humans. If it did, then medical care is an enemy of Darwinism, since it perpetuates genes that are not in line with the fastest path toward Darwin style evolution.

[freeztar]

Originally Posted by HydrogenBond

One paradoxical source of evolution and de-evolution is medicine. On the one hand, medical care can make the body better. But on the other hand, it can lower the ability of the body's own natural defenses. Nobody even heard about being allergic to peanut butter a few decades ago, since it wasn't common. Now it seems to have gotten far more common. This can't be evolutionary since humans are omnivores.

The affect could be analogous to a bionic prosthesis affect. One could strap bionics onto the legs to make us run faster. But because the bionics is doing all the work, the leg muscles don't develop naturally. The next generation ends up with skinny legs requiring the bionics even more.

Another affect, due to medical care, is more in line with religious ethics, but not in line with evolutionary theory. If there were no medical assistance, the weak would be expire, while the strong would pass their genes onto the future. Just like Darwin says. By helping the sick and weak, humans make it possible for sick genes to remain in the gene pool. Again from the religious ethics point of view this is good, since all life if precious. But from a purely selective advantage and survival of the fittest philosophy of evolution, it doesn't follow the rules. Science can't seem to agree on this.

One only has to take this situation out of the human element and use animals, so we don't take things too personally. Say we had a herd of deer. In nature, the predators get the weak, sickly and old. The ones that are left are healthier. Among these is competition for breeding. The results are the best genes moving the herd to the future. Instead of the natural path, we will do it differently. We will make it so all the sick, weak and old are sheltered from the predators. We will even give them extra food and medical care. We will also assure that not just the most fit reproduce, but will allow even the second and third string to reproduce. What would happen to this herd of deer, and would its evolution to the future slow?

One way to address this medical preference for religious ethics over the Darwinian approach...

Yep. I was good up until this point.

...even if there is a Darwinism de-evolution, is that human evolution is not connected to the body, but to the brain and mind. Even a sick person can have a good brain and mind. This is what is being preserved, since this is the center of what is evolving.

Do you have a source for this?
I don't think that people on the left side of the bell curve of intelligence stop reproducing, or even slow down.

Humans have sort of broke out of Darwin evolution and are evolving quicker. Darwinism is only good for animals and vegetables, but doesn't apply to humans.

Natural selection still occurs, it's just much more complicated now.

If it did, then medical care is an enemy of Darwinism, since it perpetuates genes that are not in line with the fastest path toward Darwin style evolution.

"Fastest path"? How are you determining that? What if all the people ill-adapted for life in our modern Earth environment ended up having genes that resisted a viral outbreak that killed most people off. Natural selection would then favor those same people that you are calling "ill" (medically treated).

Medicine is a boon for human evolution. More people (and more accessible) means more combinations of genes, more allelic drift, more natural selection.

[Michaelangelica]

Originally Posted by HydrogenBond

One paradoxical source of evolution and de-evolution is medicine. On the one hand, medical care can make the body better. But on the other hand, it can lower the ability of the body's own natural defenses. Nobody even heard about being allergic to peanut butter a few decades ago, since it wasn't common. Now it seems to have gotten far more common. This can't be evolutionary since humans are omnivores.

This may be the case but there are other explanations
1. The battering our immune systems are getting from over 60,000 new chemicals floating in the environment
2. The history of medicine has been marked by a steady "unravelling" of big global medical terms to more specific ones. Madness becomes schizophrenia,autism, personality disassociation, brain tumour, Alzheimer's etc
"The Cold" becomes bacterial, viral ,strain number 1, 2 ,etc Sinusitis, allergies Asthma etc.
More global disease names become specific (Often named after the guy who discovered it Lou Gherigh Alzheimer etc)

By helping the sick and weak, humans make it possible for sick genes to remain in the gene pool. Again from the religious ethics point of view this is good, since all life if precious. But from a purely selective advantage and survival of the fittest philosophy of evolution, it doesn't follow the rules. Science can't seem to agree on this.

It is a double edged sword. If you kill off people who are not adapted to the current society or times, what happens in 100-1,000 years time when those genes may be important?
Who can predict that with changing environments was was once seen as madness may be genius?

It is interesting we have been doing this, (culling the heard). for along time now; yet we still have a lot (the same #?) of genetic "abnormalities".
You wonder if the transcription process is not just likely to have .01% (pick a number) of genetic disorders no matter what.
We seem to have done a bit better with selective animal breeding (?)

In nature, the predators get the weak, sickly and old. pen to this herd of deer, and would its evolution to the future slow?

I have read a number of articles which ask the question Why do humans live so long? What is the genetic advantage to the race/species?
Some say it allows parents time to 'hunt and gather' while children are being cared for by the Old. Perhaps even being taught skills by them. In China for example your kids are your Social Security System. One of the reasons the 'one child' policy is a problem there. You thought the Yank social security system was bad -China has none.
If you read "Are Older People Capable of Rational Thought" thread you would think all oldies should be composted in the West.

One way to address this medical preference for religious ethics over the Darwinian approach, even if there is a Darwinism de-evolution, is that human evolution is not connected to the body, but to the brain and mind. Even a sick person can have a good brain and mind. This is what is being preserved, since this is the center of what is evolving. Humans have sort of broke out of Darwin evolution and are evolving quicker. Darwinism is only good for animals and vegetables, but doesn't apply to humans. If it did, then medical care is an enemy of Darwinism, since it perpetuates genes that are not in line with the fastest path toward Darwin style evolution.

Your logic seems a bit wonky, confused and contradictory here.
If the brain is being preserved isn't this "selection" never mind who does the selection -us or nature. Many would argue that humans are "nature" too ( I don't).
In my view humans have broken out of the Natural selection rat race because they can directly manipulate genes at the source-DNA. they can also medically manipulate reproduction.
Also I feel there are more processes at work than "Natural Selection" in evolution although I can 't prove that. (My attempts to suggest other things are at work in evolution are at the "Darwin re-visited" thread).

[HydrogenBond]

If you look at human evolution over the past ten thousand years, most of it have involved the brain and mind. With the mind and brain comes culture and the environmental changes needed to help improve the body. Nature does not make farms for good food. That took the human mind and brain. It is not the body mutating genes that is causing medical discoveries. It is the environmental potentials set by the human mind that is doing this.

For example, if you go to a fourth world culture there is less human mind based involvement in manipulating the environment. From this lower degree of forward mind potential there is less push to evolve, degenerating to Darwinism. If you go to a first world culture, there is more environmental push due to culture and the human brain. If first world cultures went to social Darwinism, they would regress.

One of the problems I have with the current version of evolution is it does not fully coordinate with reality. For example, if you look at any natural ecosystem, it is a highly integrated system. It is not a bunch of random events subject to the laws of chaos. Everything has a rational connection. If it was random based we could add random with little impact. In reality is we add chaos, and alter the ecosystem in some random way, we mess it up. This original integration is based on something like 3-D logic. Yet modern evolution theory prefers to think of evolution with chaos and statistics, which has little use in an integrated environment.

Even if we mess up the 3-D logic of any ecosystem with chaos, it will eventually reform another 3-D logic system that is integrated. Evolution may adapt to change caused by chaos, but it always tries to head into a rational schema of 3-D integration. What that means is the genetics is also trying to be part of that 3-D logic. It has to be or the system won't integrate.

If you took two similar ecosystems, one we will give an environmental perturbation, and the other we will keep the environment the same and allow genetic chaos to rule. Which of the two will evolve faster? The current theory places all the merit on the genetics leading, but the environment leads faster. Once the environment stabilizes, the genetics move in the direction of a new integration.

Maybe what the problem is, is that the 3-D logic of an ecosystem is too difficult to do with rational math. So we approximate it with irrational math. This is very useful and helpful to the progress of science. But this useful approximation has mistakenly led to the conclusion it is random. The conclusion I have drawn is this is only an approximation. Nature is actually based 3-D logic as evident in ecosystems; so is evolution.

[HydrogenBond]

I would like to expand on this. Say we we have an integrated ecosystem. The entire thing is in a symbiotic balance; it is not random but predictable. Say we add a random mutation that is progressive in one of the animals, it can create a level of chaos in the environment. The rest of the ecosystem will see the perturbation. If we had to wait for each of the dozens of species to have their own progressive mutations to coordinate with the original, it would take forever for the system to reintegrate. Instead the DNA of the dozens of other species will see the push and move in the direction that lowers the potential of the entire system; reintegration. If it didn't, there would not be both evolution and integrated ecosystems.

In nature, there is a constant variability, i.e., over time, in the environment due to weather and geological variability. Ecosystems constantly see stress that requires some degree of re-adaptation to regain integration. Even if there were few genetic mutations to lead the change, the affect of the environment would provide a constant push to evolve. Mutations are sort of like a transition states, in chemical reactions, that offer the possibility of reforming a condition for reintegration.

The question is how is this possible? If you look at a cell or a multicellular life form it too is an integrate ecosystem. The cell is not a bunch of random processes but is a highly integrated system. Changes in the external environment have an impact on the cell system integration. It creates a wild card variable and the cell has to readapt in an attempt to regain an more integrated state. The DNA is part of that integration. The DNA is not independent of this integration, but is also put into the flux.

[Michaelangelica]

HB
Perhaps random mutation and pertubations are written into the sytem (?)
Why else have sex?