Is man still evolving?

Well I more meant that education (or the lack there of) is synonymous rate of pregnancy.

There are 6.6 billion people around and everyone says that there are too many of us. The majority of the western world is not over populated (some western countries are shrinking in populace), the source of the problem is the third world who don't know anything about the dangers of sex- disease & overpopulation.

I'm thinking that that will be the dividing factor. The developed world will have a gene pool distinctly different from the third world.

didnt H.G. wells have a similiar theory? i think he wrote about it in the time machine.

i personally dont believe in evolution, but if i did, i think its only natural to think of humans splitting into different groups. and it may not be limited to intelligence.

i think that man will all way going to evolve into better thing

i think that man will all way going to evolve into better thing

reply to post by miriam0566


You are hilarious. Really. Please stay out of threads discussing evolution if you can't even understand it, as it's impossible for you to add anything of any value to anyone else participating in it. Harsh, but fair.

Originally posted by dave420
reply to post by miriam0566

 

You are hilarious. Really. Please stay out of threads discussing evolution if you can't even understand it, as it's impossible for you to add anything of any value to anyone else participating in it. Harsh, but fair.

ummm no.

i entered this discussion from a completely hypothetical point of view. i did so with respect too and not as a voice of dissension.

if my presence irritates you, then go turn off your computer, and take a deep breath. everything will be ok...

reply to post by dave420


[I mean this of no offence, miriam]

Dave please, please, please don't provoke her into debate!

What's going on in the "Why teaching creationism is a horrible idea" thread needs to stay there. I don't want to see it spill our over here. It's senseless.

Miriam.

I'm very aware that you don't believe in evolution. I just read through all of the other thread and was looking forward to talking with ya, but you opted out before I could.

So if you could keep on the hypothetical mentality, that'd be great.

[edit on 9/16/2008 by Good Wolf]

human evolution will be more mental than physical, the fact that some people can eat everyday at McDonalds and still survive shows that our digestion system has evolved.

If there will be any more physical evolution it will be genetically engineered and not by natural selection.

(for example removing the appendix genetically)

I think the human brain will become more evolved since we only use a small percentage, the technological progress might one day find a way to give us more brainpower.

No disrespect to this thread it is a good debate but i don't understand why man has a history of 100,000 years yet the earth has been in existance for 4.5 billion years. I'm a firm believer in extreme human antiquity and i doubt whether we've changed much in appearance there has just been a cycle every few thousand years. (26,000 years??) and the civilisation is taken back to the beginning of technological advances and has to start over again.

reply to post by Good Wolf


Of course we evolve. A single human won't see the evolutionary process since it takes longer than a human lifespan.

reply to post by wellsybelieves


Well i'm not a believer in human ancient antiquity, so I guess you are going to have to take the standing scientific theories as hypothetical for your posts to contribute to this thread.

K. Thnx. Bi.

i think the question raised would be exactly what is responsible for the evolution...

if its mutations, then we have no idea when or how change will occur.

if its environment (which i think is the most likely of the possibilities), then any progression man has made to a ¨separation¨ is being undone by globalization. like chinese look distinctly chinese because of breeding primarily with other chinese. these chinese are distinctly different than for example spanish. but globalization creates an influx of people moving to other countries and assimilating. this may create a situation where diversity of the human race lessens.

another factor is what if humans make it to space? will someone who is born, lives, works and dies in a zero g environment going to evolve differently?

what if they colonize a planet with heavier gravity?

another possibility is scientific manipulation. this would create all kinds of diversity. imagine if a man like ¨enigma¨ could modify his genes to his liking. there would be a definite change in how humans look over time.

Originally posted by Good Wolf
Well I more meant that education (or the lack there of) is synonymous rate of pregnancy.

Ah. I see. Well, that is kind of where I am going with the hoping for more altruism and cooperation in humanity. I am hoping we can find agreement with each other to stabilize our population and help to avoid conflict over resources, famine, etc.

Interestingly enough, although you are correct that education and lowered birth rates are correlated, Edward O. Wilson has shown that when women are simply given access to birth control, and the information and freedom to use them effectively, birth rates drop. Correlation, does NOT equal causation. What appears to be more accurately viewed as a causative agent is merely giving females the right to choose and use birth control.

Religion, consequently, because so many of the dominant religions are opposed to females having the power to choose their own reproductive rate, are more a factor in many places than education. In the Western world, it just so happens that education correlates both to women being "liberated" and having the right to choose their own destiny, greater economic resources, (including access to birth control,) AND education also tends to make people choose reason over traditional religious doctrine. It is not education that causes this alone.

www.pbs.org...

Edward O. Wilson: I think that’s fundamentally right. Where the birth control, you know, organized birth control methods and making contraceptive methods available comes in is that it enables people, particularly women, but it’s apparently a universal human response and particularly female response, that once one gets a certain level of security in their lives, and in the case of women a sufficient empowerment so they make their own decisions, they opt for a small number of quality children as opposed to, well, just producing big families.

www.hofmann.org...

One sign of hope is that the worldwide average of children per woman fell from 4.3 in 1960 to 2.6 in 2000. (The number required to attain zero population growth is 2.1.) The primary factor in this decline is the gradual empowerment of women, which has led them to choose to have fewer children, a development which Wilson describes as a "fortunate, indeed almost miraculous gift of human nature to future generations." It could have gone the other way, he notes, with liberated women choosing larger families: "Demographers of the future will, I believe, point out that humanity was saved by this one quirk in the maternal instinct."

It seems that many people assume that those that breed excessively are the ones who will win the "survival of the fittest challenge." I question that. This will only be the case if the "over breeders" are not allowed to suffer the natural consequences of their reproductive choices, which is war and starvation.

Most studies I have seen on Altrusim say that altruism trumps selfishness IF, and only if, the altruists exclude the "free riders" or those who do not cooperate from the benefits of altruism. If the "selfish" are allowed to benefit from altruism, but never actually act altruistically themselves, they win out over the altruistic virtually every single time.

In a world where food production were seriously curtailed due to climate change, those who are willing and able to cooperate with one another and lower their population peacefully are much more likely to continue on with technology, which has enormous survival benefits to humans. Those who breed out of control are much more likely to end up in violent conflict over resources, bringing with it war, and the disease and technological breakdown that tends to follow war.

reply to post by miriam0566


Well it's both. Mutations are random and Natural Selection is very selective (hence the name).

But the fact is that the vast majority of mutations are completely neutral. They’d have to be because, according to the National Center for Biotechnology Information, there is an overall average of 128 mutations per human zygote! So apparently, in creationist terms, “very rare” means “more than a hundred per person right from the point of conception”. Because those are just the mutations we start out with. Our cells will mutate again 30 more times over the course of our lives, and some of these subsequent mutations can be passed on to our children too –usually with no more effect than those we recognize as family traits.

Its hard to find one rigid set of numbers from any laboratory for a constant rate of how many mutations are beneficial versus those that are detrimental, because these are determined by variable environmental conditions. But there is a general consensus that they’re nearly equal with deleterious mutations being slightly more common. They’re also more profound too. But there are plenty of cases where a definite advantage has been identified and positively linked to a specific mutation.

[8th Fundamental Falsehood of Creationism/Youtube version]

As to living in space, we will not live in Zero-G because the body can't handle it. It can't even adjust to it because we evolved to live upright. There is no upright without gravity. So man would have to continue to synthesise gravity like they do with current astronauts.

As for globalisation, you're right. Ethnicity is the exact same thing as 'breeds' for hunums. Just like with cat breeds, for example, we can all interbreed (meaning we haven't been isolated long enough to experience speciation). But I see that as changing in the future.

The developed world ethnicities will blend (dissolving the past distinctions) and the undeveloped world will continue on their divergent evolution.

Eugenics is the process of selective breeding in hunams, as a way to produce a "super race". This process is very intentional, but I see unintentional selective breeding in humanities future- the deviding between the developed and the undeveloped.

At first I thought it would be limited (in the developed world) to just the blending of ethnicities but if you throw GE in their, then things are going to get complicated.

The undeveloped world will continue to experience natural selection just like the rest of life on earth.

[edit on 9/16/2008 by Good Wolf]

reply to post by miriam0566


Mutations provide the choice, and the environment and pre-existing selections make the selection from those mutations. The most apt to the environment in which an organism finds itself will be the ones more likely to succeed. It's not brain surgery - it's so exquisitely simple it's beautiful.

If an animal has slight mutations that help it reproduce (such as being healthier, better at finding food, better at attracting a mate, etc.), its genes will be more likely to be passed to the next generation.

When it comes to human evolution, the traits we are going to evolve are ones we can't instigate ourselves (through medicine/therapy, etc.), such as a genetic resistance to AIDS becoming more and more common in AIDS-effected areas. If everyone had an AIDS vaccine, then a natural ability to resist it would not change the likelihood anyone with said ability reproducing, so it won't become more and more prevalent. Unless it has other benefits in areas we can't currently treat/change, in which case it can still continue.

These are all basic concepts of evolution.

Originally posted by Grey Magic

If there will be any more physical evolution it will be genetically engineered and not by natural selection.

(for example removing the appendix genetically)

Although now days science has reversed its opinion on the appendix and it is no longer considered by some to be "useless."

findarticles.com...

This is a very recent discovery, and so you will still find a wealth of information about its "uselessness." This was the case when they discovered that stress did not cause ulcers as well, but a bacteria was by and large the culprit. It takes time for scientists and doctors to disseminate and accept new data.

reply to post by Illusionsaregrander


Ah. Very insightful, grander.

There is a possible 'fix' to the birth control issue. Trouble is that the ethics aren't exactly black or white, but a murky shade of grey.

One of my mates' prof. presented publicly that the solution is to add a birth control agent to man's water supply, when a couple wanna have a baby, they take a freely available counter-birthcontrol agent.

The upside is that unwanted/unplanned births would become a thing of the past. Think about the rate of babies from rape, teenage pregnancies, single parents and loveless families.

The downside is that the hippy free-love mentality would probably re-arise and as would STIs.

Originally posted by Good Wolf
Yea, I see what you mean. I didn't much think about the cyborg, 'transhumanist' aspect.

[edit on 9/15/2008 by Good Wolf]

What about transgenic people? Genetically enhanced conditioned super-soldiers?

reply to post by Good Wolf


Everyone knows that the only way is abstinence.....

God says so.

reply to post by _Volt_


I think that if we start getting genetically enhanced super soldiers then we'll be seeing the start of a genetic caste system and people won't just be people any more, but different species/sub-species.

Humanity will begin to resemble a covenant of species.

Originally posted by Grafilthy
reply to post by Good Wolf

 

Everyone knows that the only way is abstinence.....

God says so.

I do hope you are being sarcastic.

[edit on 9/16/2008 by Good Wolf]