Natural Selection and Human Beings
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If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
A_Wanderer
ONE love, blood, life
Traits involve gene expression of a sequence/sequences of DNA, whether a gene is on or off can be controlled. Within an animal all the way from the earliest stages of development ther areinteractions within a network of different genes that may control things like timing a developmental stage (heterochrony) etc. It's when these processes get disrupted/altered and genes get turned on or off at a different time that we can get significant morphological changes in the absence of significant genetic variation.
An animal is the product of both it's genes and the way that it's development is regulated, it is fair to say that changes in gene frequency within a population are important but it's also good to look other options and test them out.
Basically your right, with the stipulation that current research into genetic novelty is finding that developmental pathways play a bigger part than once thought.
Some questions about evolution that I want to answer.
> Is evolutionary stasis or change the product of a species genes.
> What makes a species conservative to change - does a conservative genome stay the same across different environments.
An animal is the product of both it's genes and the way that it's development is regulated, it is fair to say that changes in gene frequency within a population are important but it's also good to look other options and test them out.
Basically your right, with the stipulation that current research into genetic novelty is finding that developmental pathways play a bigger part than once thought.
Some questions about evolution that I want to answer.
> Is evolutionary stasis or change the product of a species genes.
> What makes a species conservative to change - does a conservative genome stay the same across different environments.
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Varitek
Blue Crack Addict
A_Wanderer said:
Right but dread asked about recently - this period in which we have been intelligent enough to engineer the environment and potentially (this was his question) to engineer our way around natural selection.
Varitek
Blue Crack Addict
A_Wanderer said:
When I mentioned selection for other traits, I wasn't talking about fecundity. I was saying that perhaps avoiding natural selection gives us added value - cultural, societal, maybe intellectual - that is not considered by the operation of natural selection. In combination with society developing, period, allowing some people to develop arts and culture while others grow the food, perhaps these "weaker" lines are developing and it is enhancing the human experience (distinct from the survival of the species, though I can't imagine, given that there's plenty of food on the planet, that it is harming the species).
As for the lactose thing, the article I read that I am too lazy to find (last 2 weeks, either NY Times, Washington Post, or Boston Globe) was clear that scientists have classified this evolution as culturally/societally influenced because lactose was not consumed by the people in which the gene developed until quite recently and was only a result of globalization and trade forces. It was interesting on several levels: that it had evolved/been turned on so quickly, that it was human-engineered (though not with intent of course) and not environmentally engineered, and that different genetic methods of lactose tolerance had developped in different populations, but with the same effect.
Caroni
Rock n' Roll Doggie
A_Wanderer said:
I see 
I´m a biologist but I´m more oriented to water treatment and ecology Hope everything goes rigth for you
A_Wanderer
ONE love, blood, life
But it's all about sex, well at least maximising the ammount of genes that you pass on, differential reproductive success underpins selection both natural and artificial.Varitek said:
My own thoughts on human evolution is that as the world has become so connected gene flow has increased as well as environmental conditions - both of these factors homogenise populations to a greater degree so as a species we will remain, now there is the chance that humanity will change in time naturally I don't think it's happened on the level for a new species or sub species, although race may be an interesting relic of geographic seperations. Genetic engineering will be the driving force of human evolution this millennia and we, or at least the wealthy, will have the means to become post-human.
Varitek
Blue Crack Addict
A_Wanderer said:
God I hope not.
A_Wanderer
ONE love, blood, life
That's a very bioconservative attitude, we could do away with degenerative diseases and improve intelligence and physical abilities.
Caroni
Rock n' Roll Doggie
People just like to watch mankind from an "animal" point of view, maybe we will evolve in a different way from animals, perhaps genetic engineering is that way, but we have to look at this very carefully...
Well maybe mankind will destroy it self before we can evolve in any way
Well maybe mankind will destroy it self before we can evolve in any way
A_Wanderer
ONE love, blood, life
The only way to guarantee survival is to expand away from Earth, right now were a target for a mass extinction but if we have several different outposts then chances are improved, now in order to survive long term on other planets with lower gravity we will probably need a way of preventing muscles from degenerating too much or augmenting ourselves to suit it better.
gherman
New Yorker
Read
Beak of the Finch and The Selfish Gene
This will help you in your though process towards NS.
Beak of the Finch and The Selfish Gene
This will help you in your though process towards NS.
A_Wanderer
ONE love, blood, life
What Evolution Is by Ernst Mayr
gherman
New Yorker
A_Wanderer said:
We might as well go for the bible then
Origin Of The Species
No... not Original Of The Species
Assuming that mankind currently has been able to halt evolution and the weeding out of undesirable traits, there's nothing to say that evolution cannot be "restarted" if civilization collapses and humanity is required to fend for itself all over again.
If the "Toba catastrophe theory" is to be believed, we've already done this once before 75,000 years ago, as a supervolcanic eruption 3,000 times larger than Mt. Saint Helens is thought to have severely reduced the global human population to around 1,000 to 10,000 individuals or so. Essentially, we migrated "out of Africa" twice, as a species. There's nothing to say that we can't do it a third time, metaphorically speaking.
If the "Toba catastrophe theory" is to be believed, we've already done this once before 75,000 years ago, as a supervolcanic eruption 3,000 times larger than Mt. Saint Helens is thought to have severely reduced the global human population to around 1,000 to 10,000 individuals or so. Essentially, we migrated "out of Africa" twice, as a species. There's nothing to say that we can't do it a third time, metaphorically speaking.
A_Wanderer
ONE love, blood, life
If humans colonise other planets it will create founder populations from which we would eventually get new species of humans, I imagine that genetic engineering (and please, we are dealing with a future in which interstellar space travel exists) could make that process quicker (in the thousands of years).
Varitek
Blue Crack Addict
A_Wanderer said:
I don't see stem cell therapy, which I fully support, as effecting evolution. I do not agree with eugenics, which is essentially what genetic engineering to select for intelligence and physical abilities would be.
A_Wanderer
ONE love, blood, life
You say eugenics like it's a bad thing, when we have the technology it should be used by those that want to, it's an inevitability. If there are people willing to embrace a post-human future and groups willing to provide it then it shouldn't be stopped.
Kieran McConville
ONE love, blood, life
People say it like it's a bad thing, Wanderer, because you make it sound like a very bad thing (while also making it clear you consider it a good/neutral thing).
Angela Harlem
Jesus Online
Ernst Rudin showed why it's a bad idea. Very fucking bad idea, actually.
A_Wanderer
ONE love, blood, life
Yes brilliant comparison, pseudoscientific race pride versus the augmentation of willing participants; I fail to see whats wrong with using technology to it's full effect; you make it sound like I want to weed out some sort of inferior subspecies, that I am using an implausible threat of dysgenics to justify a form of eugenics - which I am most certainly not.
Humans have been enhancing ourselves for a long time, when the time comes that can be done on a genetic level I say bring it on.
If it's wrong because it's unneccessary then why not ban cosmetic surgery when the person isn't scarred etc. If it's wrong because it enhances them with technology then why not ban pacemakers. What is the root problem here? The idea that it wouldl create a social divide or that it violates the order of things?
Humans have been enhancing ourselves for a long time, when the time comes that can be done on a genetic level I say bring it on.
If it's wrong because it's unneccessary then why not ban cosmetic surgery when the person isn't scarred etc. If it's wrong because it enhances them with technology then why not ban pacemakers. What is the root problem here? The idea that it wouldl create a social divide or that it violates the order of things?
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A_Wanderer said:
Excuse me.
Humans have shown, since the inception of time, that they can't even handle living respectfully on this planet. We don't respect each other, we don't respect the animal kingdom and we don't respect the environment.
Heaven forbid we start colonizing other places as well. It sounds like a horror story.
Varitek
Blue Crack Addict
A_Wanderer said:
Yeah, brilliant. Let's just allow those with enough money to make their offspring smarter, stronger, and better than the offspring of everyone else. THAT won't create a subservient class at all. Willing participants or not this is a frightening concept, and I refer to eugenics as if its a bad thing because IT IS. Your eugenics WILL create "some sort of inferior subspecies" whcih if it isn't then weeded out will be made inferior/subservient/indignified.
And yeah, there is nowhere in the history books, or the respectable history books, that "dysgenics" and "eugenics" have been separated as you attempt.
A_Wanderer
ONE love, blood, life
It;s our capacity to change the environment to suit our needs that has enabled our survival, frankly colonising uninhabited dead worlds seems a lot better than continuing to leave ourselves dependent on the Earth and all the resources and life on it.anitram said:
A_Wanderer
ONE love, blood, life
that is because you are talking about the late 19th and early 20th century and not the modern transhumanist movement. I think if anybody will be discriminated against it will be the minority of those who recieved such augmentation; at least judging by the responses from the majority of posters here.Varitek said:
Varitek
Blue Crack Addict
"transhumanist movement?"
frightening.
frightening.
