Has our BIOLOGICAL EVOLUTION ended?

[Turtle]

Originally Posted by charles brough

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* *

On the curanium, it could enlarge in length, not girth, and still pass through the 'standard' canal. Or, we might evolve larger canals.

I meant to address the social evolution with my reply in post #5.

On the back, all I know is that mine is killing me, it's from heavy labor, and I hurt it before I reproduced. Pass the aspirin. .......

[charles brough]

Originally Posted by Turtle

On the curanium, it could enlarge in length, not girth, and still pass through the 'standard' canal. Or, we might evolve larger canals.

I meant to address the social evolution with my reply in post #5.

On the back, all I know is that mine is killing me, it's from heavy labor, and I hurt it before I reproduced. Pass the aspirin. .......

If we could and it were beneficial to our growth in numbers, wouldn't we be evolving larger birth canals and lengthier crania? We really are not. The female pelvis spread out so much as to produce other problems compared to that of the male. According to what I have read in Science magazine on line, the cranium is a little smaller than it was some 100,000 or more years ago. Also, one of the most characteristic things about the Neanderthal skull is its more excessive fore and aft length.

Yes, Post #5 did give a good example of cultural adaption. Social evolution is behind our success in the last forty or more thousand years.

And yes, back problems are endemic. I really don't understand how Latin American immigrants are able to do stoop labor in the agricultural fields day after day and manage. Anyone have an answer?

charles
[url=http://atheistic-science.com]

[Essay]

Originally Posted by charles brough

I really don't understand how Latin American immigrants are able to do stoop labor in the agricultural fields day after day and manage. Anyone have an answer?

Because they do it "day after day and manage." Those that don't manage....


.
.
...Gosh, what a great thread:
page 1:
Right on, Pyro!
...and Nitak!

"What continues to evolve is our accumulated wisdom." -Turtle

"What will drive the evolution if the environment is no longer the stressor?" -Kayra

"If the change is extreme enough..., but as a species we're still quite young." -Donk

OP: "It is not races that are the entities which compete to survive! It is mainstream religions." -CB

Wow, I hope page 2 is as good!!!

"...and hunched backs from computers.....its not far off." -Ganoderma

Boerseun! Thanks for digressing!
...but despite the fact that "The environment is humanity's bitch -"
...if we change our behaviour [see Turtle], whip the environment back into shape; and we can pull this out and emerge... Type 1....
???

page 2:
Thanks also Hermes....

OP: "It is like the Clash of Civilizations." -CB
...back on topic? i.e.
OP: "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." -CB

...and what about brain evolution!!!
Just look at the 16 different Myers-Briggs Type Indicators
and their relative proportions in the population (i.e. INFP= 4.4%; INFJ= 13.3%)

...or is that just a part of the whole social thing?
===


Nitak,
Speaking of the whole biological side (i.e. AIDS):
...just wait for this to develop....
MRSA Death
MRSA deaths are on the rise in the United States and around the world. /
In fact, the number of MRSA-related deaths in the U.S. is significantly higher than public health officials once thought.

The MRSA death rate in the U.S. is now higher than the AIDS death rate.
===

OH! ...and Charles B! Thanks for mentioning epigenetics!
Just think what living in houses is doing... and antibiotics... and....

~

[Greg_G47]

As long as there is selection pressure, evolution will continue. The interesting thing is that that selection pressure doesn't operate in the way you'd expect. If you're a healthy middle class parent with two children, a spouse, a job, etc versus a heroin addict with 14 kids who lives in a box, evolution favors the addict (at the moment). The addict has reproduced more, and is likely to produce offspring that engage in similar behavior, thus reproducing more. Being wealthy, resourceful, intelligent, etc. are 'vestigal' behaviors/drives from a time when these things were required to prevent your starvation and ensure your ability to produce reproductively viable offspring. Selection pressure isn't "intelligent", and therefore doesn't know that people who do little other than mass-reproduction require others (who produce fewer offspring) to support them. The cycle resets when there aren't enough competent (and also altruistic) people to feed the 'reproduction only' group. Depressing stuff, but that's my understanding of the selection pressure on the human species. Correct me if I'm wrong, or add whatever you think I might have missed.

[charles brough]

Originally Posted by Greg_G47

As long as there is selection pressure, evolution will continue. The interesting thing is that that selection pressure doesn't operate in the way you'd expect. If you're a healthy middle class parent with two children, a spouse, a job, etc versus a heroin addict with 14 kids who lives in a box, evolution favors the addict (at the moment). The addict has reproduced more, and is likely to produce offspring that engage in similar behavior, thus reproducing more. Being wealthy, resourceful, intelligent, etc. are 'vestigal' behaviors/drives from a time when these things were required to prevent your starvation and ensure your ability to produce reproductively viable offspring. Selection pressure isn't "intelligent", and therefore doesn't know that people who do little other than mass-reproduction require others (who produce fewer offspring) to support them. The cycle resets when there aren't enough competent (and also altruistic) people to feed the 'reproduction only' group. Depressing stuff, but that's my understanding of the selection pressure on the human species. Correct me if I'm wrong, or add whatever you think I might have missed.

You said it all well. That may explain why there is now so little biological evolution going---mostly only temporary epigenetic change. But our "culture" grows because the belief systems that bind us into societies have become more accurate (that is, less INaccurate) over the many thousands of years. Each society based on a mainstream religion built a better civilization than the past ones because of that. Each also learned from and adapted from the past, then improved upon it.

The religions that bind us into these societies eventually grow old while new science and technology fortunately accumulate. This finally makes the old faith obsolete. It is then seen as "false" (that is, more INaccurate). There eventually arises a need to replace the old ideology and the secular doctrines that evolved from it into a totally new ideological system that seems totally secular.

[Michaelangelica]

You still have random collections of mitochondrial DNA with often a little bit added by the male sperm.

[charles brough]

Originally Posted by Michaelangelica

You still have random collections of mitochondrial DNA with often a little bit added by the male sperm.

The males don't add much, do they?

[charles brough]

There is no further human biological evolution occurring in the sense that it accounts for the growth of the human cultural/technological/science heritage and the growth of our numbers.
Therefore, it is a sign of confusion to take each ethnic group or racial type and find ways it has genetically "improved" as an explanation of human "progress."

seems to me the field is obsessed with the idea that it must be due to biological evolution still going on. Most of our technology and population growth has speeded up during the last 40,000 years. Yet, we have no real evidence that people then had any significant differences from us today.

Just because the consensus harbors no adequate explanation of the social evolution that has instead characterized our march into civilization, such as it is, is no reason to focus on a million-year slow process of biological evolution to "explain" it.

[Michaelangelica]

Originally Posted by charles brough

Why not? We don't need biological evolution any more! Some say we are the same creature who emerged some 195,000 years ago.

It Seems to me that humans a three speed genetic evolution system
from the fastest to the slowest
1. Epigenetic (not proven, it is the fastest YET)
2 DNA
3 Mitochondrial DNA

So given our biology we don't seem to have a lot of choice in the matter-or do/will we?
We will continue to evolve, if our antiquated social systems- combined with the speed of technological change, don't kill us first.

I wonder if the Crocodile or Stromatolites, who seem happy the way they are, have a three tiered genetic system?

[charles brough]

Originally Posted by Michaelangelica

It Seems to me that humans a three speed genetic evolution system
from the fastest to the slowest
1. Epigenetic (not proven, it is the fastest YET)
2 DNA
3 Mitochondrial DNA

So given our biology we don't seem to have a lot of choice in the matter-or do/will we?
We will continue to evolve, if our antiquated social systems- combined with the speed of technological change, don't kill us first.

Does the same 3-stage process go on between individual cells in our own bodies? If not, then why would any stages of evolution have to apply to us if what is actually evolving is the societies we live in, that is, our social organisms? There is a natural selection process going on between them that makes genetic change, like single-cell change within us, irrelevant.