the apes evolved but we don't!

[freeztar]

Originally Posted by charles brough

INFINITE LAURIE AND ECLO:

This is a quote from my initial post that started this thread:

"Its time to concentrate on social evolution to explain what is going on and quit fiddling around grasping for biological evolutionary straws that don't exist."

Even the so-called examples of human biological evolution so far presented here are mostly race ones, and surely you are not all implying that the teleological change we call "progress" is due to changes that make one race teleologically (I use this word now for you Eclo) "better" than the other, are you?

We have to have acquired the culture that has enabled us to populate the world through a process of natural selection, but you have shown no evidence that the process that accounts for all that change ("progress") that we see is biological.

What I propose is that the natural selection process is social, that societies are life-like entities bonded by mainstream ideological systems and that there is a natural selection process going on between them.

And I suggest we all avoid being condescending . . .

So are you referring to social Darwinism, Charles?
If so, how does that jive with the title of the thread?

[charles brough]

Originally Posted by freeztar

So are you referring to social Darwinism, Charles?
If so, how does that jive with the title of the thread?

Freeztar,

You are correct if you are saying that I stated we are NOT evolving and then, in my last posts I said we ARE! I should have stated in the title that we are not evolving biologically and that what biological changes that do occur are not necessarily beneficial or lasting. All that is evolving is our "culltural systems." That is, the whole ideological systems like Hinduism, Christendom, Islam and all the earlier mainstream religions that built their own civilizations. There is a natural selection process going on between them that differs from biological processes.

My whole point in the thread is to emphasize that the means to understanding how we, as Homo Sapeins Sapeins, have taken over the world is to focus not on biological evolution but the natural selection process going on between societies and how to define what a society is. Without that process going on, we would still be few in number and living in stone age conditions.

[freeztar]

Originally Posted by charles brough

Freeztar,

You are correct if you are saying that I stated we are NOT evolving and then, in my last posts I said we ARE! I should have stated in the title that we are not evolving biologically and that what biological changes that do occur are not necessarily beneficial or lasting. All that is evolving is our "culltural systems." That is, the whole ideological systems like Hinduism, Christendom, Islam and all the earlier mainstream religions that built their own civilizations. There is a natural selection process going on between them that differs from biological processes.

My whole point in the thread is to emphasize that the means to understanding how we, as Homo Sapeins Sapeins, have taken over the world is to focus not on biological evolution but the natural selection process going on between societies and how to define what a society is. Without that process going on, we would still be few in number and living in stone age conditions.

Hey Charles,

Thanks for the clarification.

I agree with you on the premise that "modern man" is more culturally evolved than biologically evolved, but at the same time it is hard, if not impossible, to qualify/quantify that.

[charles brough]

When examining the history of ferral children and how effecient the social evolution process is, once you understand it, I am convinced that the epigeneitic and possibly even small genetic changes have contributed nothing to the process and, indeed change with the process.

[Rincewind]

Apparently we are still evolving, and quite rapidly, according to some recent research.

Humans evolving faster than thought

Tuesday, 11 December 2007
Will Dunham
Reuters

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.

from this science news article, which includes some links: Humans evolving faster than thought (ABC Science Online)

[charles brough]

Rincewind:
There are a number of such articles all claiming credit for their great success in providing an explanation for human for what is inferred as progress. Resistance to one disease by one race, etc. is supposed to be "immense human genetic change."

Yet, stone age people in the last couple centuries have become part of modern civilization. One is contending now for President of the U.S. Yet, ferral children in various continents have been observed to be able to absorb only a small part of our modern way of life.

Do these genetic researchers claim that their little genetic or epigentic changes actually make one race or ethnic or lingual group better able to handle or contribute to civilization? They dare not make such a foolish claim, yet they infer it by the undue emphasis they place on their findings.

Even they admit, as the article says: ""Even with these changes, however, human DNA remains more than 99% identical, the researchers note.""

"More than 99%" can and probably does mean 99.99%

charles

[paigetheoracle]

Sorry to throw this in but wouldn't an analogy help here? Think of genetics or even social behaviourism as a paint palette. You can create an infinite variety of different shades from mixing the basic colours but eventually you're going to run out of even subtle differences, so that everything stagnates rather than evolves. Evolution is the interplay not only of materials but ideas and the transport of goods and thoughts, across cyberspace, TV and physically but what happens when every corner of the globe is in contact with each other over a period of time? Where is the new thought and material going to come from? Evolution requires a mixing of minds and bodies, to create a meld of something new that is part of each host's body/ mind - without this union there is no creativity but separation is also necessary to have something 'different' to interact with in the first place and therefore to discover anew (mystery to pursue - knowledge to accumulate or art and science, politics and religion, medicine and education).