Has our BIOLOGICAL EVOLUTION ended?

[Pyrotex]

Originally Posted by max4236

Sorry I haven't made any offspring yet..

Well, WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?!?!?!

[Nitack]

Originally Posted by Pyrotex

Well, WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?!?!?!

Seriously, the churchys are reproducing in much higher numbers than we are. Can you imagine if scientific thinking were a victim of evolution simply because the people who believed in it were out-bred by the religious zealots???

Get back on the horse and make some junior scientists!

[Pyrotex]

Boerseun,
you said some good words there. (I especially liked "boobs" and "buns").
But you missed a point.
Natural selection may, in fact, have been minimized in its affect upon Human evolution.
But what about Artificial Selection? You know, like dog breeders breeding for hunting ability or for cute, foofy tails?
We are (unconsciously and unwittingly) breeding ourselves for certain qualities. At least, in particular subgroups and circles, we are.

It all boils down to the probability of procreating and passing genes along.

What reduces this probability? Extreme shyness, facial assymetry, untreated diseases and medical conditions, inability to pick up on social cues, inability to feel empathy, inability to deal with social expectations and norms, inability to communicate or barter, lack of charm, lack of humor, lack of math or logical ability.

Right now, it may appear that many who have these failings are breeding like flies. But wait until times get tough. REAL tough. Then they'll be dying off like flies.

The "REAL tough times" should be starting here in the USA in about 48 hours!!!

[HermesThePhilosopher]

This is an interesting question, I got told off by a professor for saying that evolution had stopped in humans, maybe I can make a better argument now

There are three main forces in evolution; natural selection, sexual selection and genetic drift.

Genetic drift will never stop, but, relatively, is not a major force for evolution.

Likewise, sexual selection will not stop as long as we are a bisexual (or more) species, but its forces are not so strong in humans as in other species (there is a relatively low level of sexual dimorphism compared to the other apes for example).

Natural selection can be otherwise understood as the selection of traits that increase one's Lifetime Reproductive Success (LRS): the ability to have offspring and raise them to maturity and for them to have offspring themselves. Thus, most selective pressure acts when a species begins to die before they can procreate. Take the HIVirus for example, it acts slowly, such that even if one acquired it from birth or at a young age one may live to have children. Hence there is a weak selective pressure and very few show natural resistance.

I would argue that natural selection has all but come to a halt in developed countries. Relatively few - compared to history and developing countries - die before reaching maturity, so there are very few pressures acting on the genepool of these people. Modern medical science can bring all but the worst infant conditions through to adulthood, thus the LRS of previously fatal genotypes are now on par with those who would otherwise be deemed genetically fitter.

So evolution has not, and will not stop (at least, we shall probably control it within a certain number of years) but natural selection, the main process that brought us to this state, is certainly on the way out.

[Pyrotex]

I wouldn't say "on the way out".

I would say "is currently being slowed down as a consequence of our civilization and technology".

[HermesThePhilosopher]

OK Agreed
I liked your idea of being so shy you never pass on your genes!

[Galapagos]

Geneticist Steve Jones apparently gave a talk recently in which he gave some reasons for why human evolution has ended:

Leading geneticist Steve Jones says human evolution is over - Times Online

PZ Myers has responded over at Pharyngula:

Pharyngula: Very peculiar

[charles brough]

There is no reason why we need to evolve biologically any further. With evolutionary change taking place in time frames of hundreds to millions of years, what minute change might have occurred in the last 40,000 years is of no significance. What has counted has been the social evolution that has occurred during that time. The process is explained in the Atheistic Science Institute - home page* *

If we take such societies as that of Ancient Egypt, the Greek-Roman society, the Persian, and Muslim societies, we find that they had a sort of life cycle in which, for a time, each dominated the mainstream world. Then, each turned down and weakened. Most of the old societies have died and no longer exist, their "cultures" residing only in museums. What has happened is that natural selection has been going on between these societies. That accounts for the growth of human numbers, culture and technology---not biological evolution.
It is like the Clash of Civilizations.

charles

[Turtle]

Originally Posted by charles brough

There is no reason why we need to evolve biologically any further. With evolutionary change taking place in time frames of hundreds to millions of years, what minute change might have occurred in the last 40,000 years is of no significance. What has counted has been the social evolution that has occurred during that time. ...

charles

We might need -or find beneficial- a larger brain to accomodate the accumulated knowlege that has evolved, as well as for a greater capacity to analyze that data. We could stand to have stronger backs too.

[charles brough]

Originally Posted by Turtle

We might need -or find beneficial- a larger brain to accomodate the accumulated knowlege that has evolved, as well as for a greater capacity to analyze that data. We could stand to have stronger backs too.

A larger brain means a larger cranium. The reason women die during childbirth is often because the baby's head is too large to pass through the pelvis. This is playing a natural selection process on us and has for several hundred thousand years. Actually, the size of the cranium has slightly decreased from that of the Ancient Sapiens some 200,000 years ago. Even so, look at the progress we humans have had during that time! Just because academics don't know what the social---not biological---evolutionary process is that does account for that progress does not mean it is not happening.

Our back problem relates to our upright posture. Most back problems appear after couples reproduce. There is no biological evolutionary mechanism, therefore, that would cause it to change biologically.

charles
__________________________
the Atheistic Science Institute - home page* *