The Death Of Evolution?

THE DEATH OF EVOLUTION.

I have toyed with the idea of this thread for a while now, and with recent announcements regarding synthetic life I thought it may be an apt time to post.
Firstly ‘The theory of evolution’ (and yes it is only a theory)

In biology, evolution is a change in the inherited traits of a population from one generation to the next. This process causes organisms to change over time. Inherited traits are the expression of genes that are passed on to offspring during reproduction. Mutations in genes can produce new or altered traits, resulting in the appearance of heritable differences between organisms. Such new traits also come from the transfer of genes between populations, as in migration, or between species, in horizontal gene transfer. Evolution occurs when these heritable differences become more common or rare in a population, either non-randomly through natural selection or randomly through genetic drift.

That’s wiki’s first paragraph on evolution. Full article here -> LINK

Anyway onto the main point of this thread,

I have often wondered if human medical knowledge could indeed be the death of evolution as we know it. Our doctors are constantly putting right, things that are wrong with people. How do they really know what is a good mutation or a bad one? .. maybe removing gene ‘a’ from a persons genome will hinder a ‘good’ mutation that is destined to arrive in a few centuries?.

I give a simple example .. Sun cream .. yes the sun is bad if your over exposed we don’t want skin cancer now do we? However if we constantly block out the rays how are humans supposed to adapt to an ever changing climate?
Maybe a few cases of skin cancer will eventually allow a natural defense mechanism to evolve. But with using the cream we may never know. ( a very basic example)

The recent threads about synthetic life, creating any body tissue from stem cells (future organ transplants). In my eyes this is going to create a generation of human beings that are all the same, there is no chance for evolution to occur because we will have stopped it, with our constant meddling and tinkering with what we perceive at the current time to be wrong.

We are in fact dabbling in evolution at the base level. I think at first we are going to create a whole load of problems for our species. We are going to get stuck in a rut.

Maybe a whole new branch of evolution will be spawned where we are directly in charge of the process? Merging the biological and synthetic, this initially sounds great but in my limited experience I would rather have mother nature in charge of this process than humans that can easily be corrupted etc (and are limited by human imagination).

So I ask you all to speculate…. Is modern science/medicine the Death of evolution?

Or at the very least is it the death of mother natures evolution?

pls remember to flag and star if you like this thread and ty all for your time in reading this post.

[EDIT to provide another example]

Person 'A' is born with a deformed arm, throughout their lives doctors tell them this is wrong , they are disuaded from having children because it is likely the child may suffer something similar, however in 5000 years time that deformed arm may actually turn out to be a wing? we could be destined to fly but sadly i dont think we will ever find out now. because We dictate what is and what is not normal. thus halting natural evolution.

[edit on 28/1/08 by Quantum_Squirrel]

You may have a point that science may be forcing us to alter our biological destiny because everything that is introduced will always produce unforeseen results. It's the sweet irony of nature.

I may be wondering about something similar to this when it comes to the music we listen to, so I ask.

Are we likewise altering our hearing as a direct result of continually listening to sampled digitized sound/music?
Will our ears no longer be able to distinguish analog sounds?

Originally posted by Alxandro
You may have a point that science may be forcing us to alter our biological destiny because everything that is introduced will always produce unforeseen results. It's the sweet irony of nature.

I may be wondering about something similar to this when it comes to the music we listen to, so I ask.

Are we likewise altering our hearing as a direct result of continually listening to sampled digitized sound/music?
Will our ears no longer be able to distinguish analog sounds?

Its a possability i suppose however the scientists will identify this change as wrong and put your ears right probably , thus halting natural and our self imposed evolution.

You may have a point that science may be forcing us to alter our biological destiny because everything that is introduced will always produce unforeseen results. It's the sweet irony of nature.

Is it altering our destiny? Or is it our destiny to alter our genes ect ect through science?

Originally posted by Quantum_Squirrel

Or at the very least is it the death of mother natures evolution?

[edit on 28/1/08 by Quantum_Squirrel]

i understand everything you have talked about but this hit me.

we are not done evolving. studys show that from then past 500 years our tinest toe on our feet that do nothing has been getting smaller and smaller. meaning in the next 1000 years, we wont have it. its not a large change such as a wing but it is evolution.

not only are we changing physicaly but mentaly. more and more people are starting to show higher brain functions then a normal man 300 years ago. we can do more then we ever could before such as complex math problems, think faster, invent more, see farther, hold are breath longer underwater, run faster, jump higher.

these changes are small and nonseeable but it is there, we are evolving.

Originally posted by Alxandro
You may have a point that science may be forcing us to alter our biological destiny because everything that is introduced will always produce unforeseen results. It's the sweet irony of nature.

I may be wondering about something similar to this when it comes to the music we listen to, so I ask.

Are we likewise altering our hearing as a direct result of continually listening to sampled digitized sound/music?
Will our ears no longer be able to distinguish analog sounds?

No, we are not altering our hearing. Please look up information about what digital and analog is, sampling rates, and the freq range of the human ear.

That question appears to be generated from various misconceptions that you currently hold.

reply to post by ucanneverdie


i understand totally what your saying , my example may have been a little short lived as evolution takes a lot longer than i have professed.

But my example still stands regardless of the time period envolved. look at the big picture.. are we changing natural evolution , or are we just complimenting it ?