My guess is that the rate of evolution of a human society is decreasing, that is the society is slowing down its evolution by allowing the "weak" ones exist, so hospitals slow down evolution by allowing the people with genetic diseases to exist and most sadly to pass their genes to the next generation, thus lessening the ability of the human to survive. By helping the poor and allowing them to survive we might be allowing the passing of the genes that somehow negatively impacted on an individual and thus he has decided not to venture into life's dilemmas, but rather be homeless. Now...I am talking here of evolution that is actually beneficial to human society, otherwise humans are evolving and will evolve at the same rate as they were...
Hello Mr Cato. Have we met before? My name is Happeh. Is it traditional where you come from to call people names before you talk to them and get to know them?
I don't think he meant to insult you. I think he simply found it more likely that you were playing a joke about being such a gargantuan moron, as opposed to being the real deal.
Well, I never said devolution. I said that humans are evolving to an inferior state. And by inferior I meant individuals being worse than today's humans in the sense that they have more deficiencies, need more drugs, etc. Well, there ARE some populations that are so close to Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium that you may as well just say they're in Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium. That happens when the population is large, when so well adapted to their environment to not need to change, etc. Evolution isn't a progressive process. It's just a change of the frequencies of alleles over time. The population's weak genes increasing in percentage means that the population IS evolving, not that the rate of evolution is decreasing. It may actually be increasing. Oh... I should read the whole post BEFORE starting to reply. Oh well.
there's no such thing as devolution. evolution just describes how organisms change in response to their environment with a bias towards those that are able to pass on their genes. obviously the people who are having lots of babies are going to be having the biggest affect on the overall change in humans. the more children you have, the more your genes are spread through the genepool, as your progeny will have a better chance of mixing with the rest of humanity. because natural selection is so dumbed down by society, there is a better chance for everyone to survive, so its only about who has the most kids.
The general impression I have here so far is : 1) If there is a change to our environment that requires large amounts of people to die off except for a handful who happen to have a specific trait, then the human race will evolve. This is unlikely - in general humans promote mutual survival. 2) The human species will gradually evolve over time. This will not happen either - genetic drift occurs only in small populations, while there are 6.5 billion humans. 3) There will be evolution, but it will be artificially induced. This is the only one that seems plausible. Now, ... 4) The human species will evolve if a certain group of people with certain traits distinguished from the rest of the human population reproduce at a faster rate than the rest. But what group is large enough such that its population size and growth exceeds that which is enough to produce any genetic change in a population of 6.5 billion people? In other considerations, how will this group manage to politically out-maneuver the reproductive efforts of all other groups, who may have different traits?
oh Happeh were hath our noble lord gone? what sins are these that justify you, banned for lifetime from this society?
To see a noticeable change in evolution, first there must be a radical change in the environment and second, there must be mutations that are better suited to the new environment and third, those mutants must be allowed to survive and prolifigate to the detriment of the existing humans that we must assume wouldn't be suited to the new environment. There are many species that appear to have stopped evolving, such as turtles and sharks, but that is only because they are so perfectly suited to their environments. When the environment necessitates a radical change in a life form, it is then that evolution/mutation speeds up and becomes more evident.
as long as we have emotions to stop us from thinking in a constant logical state we cannot evolve any further...but there are some "depressed" childeren that may have evolved past a "normal" human, seeing as the depressed child feels only sadness, and no other emotions
Of course we are evolving, evolution can hardly be prevented. Although the genes are "seeking" a stable state, there are point mutations, copying errors, changing environments and diseases to contend with. Our brains have recently undergone rapid expansion, and are probably only prevented from expanding more by the size of a woman's birth canal. This may be transcended with the technique of cesarian section. Environments are rapidly changing, new diseases uncovered during our physical expansions into new environments, millions of new chemicals, and the cultural environment is changing from week to week. Not only us, but most of the planet's life forms are probably undergoing massive changes and extinctions since the industrial era.
How is it that particular genes can become dominant in 6.5 billion individuals? The world population is huge. Spread any given gene, and it will get diluted. The healthcare system almost certainly guarantees a large enough section of the population to grow up to sexual maturity, even if nearly all of those individuals carry some sort of defect gene. Which is why we have a multitude of genetic diseases. The only way that I accept the fact that humans still evolve is through artificial means, ie, gene therapy.
Simple experiment Just sit in bed at home for a week straight and not do any work then try and do some work the following week, see how easy it is. This is micro evolution. Otherwise go to the gym and pump some irons for a week straight and see your wonderful physic, then try sitting at home for a week straight eating fatty food, see your body deteriorate. Evolution is inevitable, in fact humans in some countries today are already physically and emotionally incapable of walking 10 miles even after shaping up.
Chatha, that is more of a colloquial definition of evolving rather than a scientific one. We may see a current lifestyle favor people with genes that can deal with junk food and little exercise, but it's unlikely since these only become deadly later in life. I think what you are describing is the evolution of memes, or simply the degeneration of local communities by the automobile combined with unhealthy food marketing schemes. Facial, genes make copies of themselves. If they code for a sucessful human that reproduces them, then they get preserved. There are all kinds of selection pressures on people. Not everyone has good access to healthcare, for instance. Selection of favorable genes works on a statistical basis, so even if a particular gene codes for a tiny advantage, then over time it will spread. Remember, access to good healthcare also mean access to contraception.
Confused. Is it still not a form of evolution? Science is about observation, do you not observe any changes from eating hunk food or exercising? If so them its purely scientific, I didn't want to go into the biological evolution jargon they teach in schools. As in business there is the science they teach in school and the one you observe outside school. Good additional thought all the same
the kind of minimal changes you were talking about are due to cell growth, not cell differentiation. you work out and more muscle cells grow. you play a guitar and more skin cells grow on your fingers. evolution concerns change from generation to generation due to variation and recombination of genes. i guess you could call it a result of evolution, our bodies have adapted to react to certain harmful stimuli by growing more cells where they are needed. skin that is rubbed off will grow back thicker. its remarkable how resilient the human body is.
Well, our fatness is probably the result of some genes. Perhaps the ones that made people adventurous enough to take the risk of conquering new territory and reaping the benefits of having plenty of grain. It's probably just the result of genes that gave us the big brains to discover farming (although ants have been doing it for millenia). There is probably a gene that regulates the aquisition of fat cells, and it was an advantageous one, or it wouldn't have survived. It might have allowed people to get through famines.
One recent trait humans evolved is the ability to digest lactose into adulthood, which was favored only after domestic animals made milk an adult food source. Most mammals lose that ability when they grow up, and many people are still lactose intolerant. The majority of people with this trait center around areas where domestication of dairy animals was common and many asians lack it.
