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are we going to stop evolving?
    #3204435 -

evolution is driven by the need for us to adapt and advance, right? We evolve to better fit our environment, and to take better advantage of it. Opposable thumbs, two eyes, toes, everything.... created so we can better handle our environment. But now that we're at our current level of evolution, we've begun to shape our environment to fit us, rather than us changing to fit the environment. Will this stop evolution, or slow it down to the point that it barely happens for the rest of our existence?

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Turd]
    #3204468 -

One might say that learning to alter the environment is a form of evolution in itself. I think man's physical evolution will progress more slowly as a result, however we can never stop evolving. The world is ever changing.

Edited by Pathos (10/01/04 04:22 PM)

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Turd]
    #3204495 -

Turd said:
evolution is driven by the need for us to adapt and advance, right?


NO, NO, no, evolution is how we describe and understand the history of life forms up to now, it is not driven by anything except time and non-annihilation.
the important thing about it is that life forms are subject to change in very many ways and mutation sometimes has a survivable effect.

Quote:
We evolve to better fit our environment, and to take better advantage of it. Opposable thumbs, two eyes, toes, everything.... created so we can better handle our environment.



well you use the word created and that is not an evolution friendly concept
also :"since we better fit our environment than our progenitors you can say we evolved as they no longer exist".
evolution is more like a cross between lovemaking ageing and erosion with various calamities and lots of weather thrown in. Creation includes a lot more than that, the mutations and slow changes of life forms are the tiniest part of creation.

Quote:
But now that we're at our current level of evolution, we've begun to shape our environment to fit us, rather than us changing to fit the environment. Will this stop evolution, or slow it down to the point that it barely happens for the rest of our existence?


well put.
as long as we exist as a species indistinct from our progeny, technically speaking no evolution will have taken place.
when our progeny are biogically different from us then a step that would be marked as evolution could be said to have taken place.

I am being careful with the language and particularly the tense of the language since evolution is not so much a process but an explanation of the history of succesful mutations and the populations that survived those mutations and everything else.

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Turd]
    #3204771 -

a life without ego = evolution.


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Wheels of cheese wheeels of cheeeeese!!!

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Turd]
    #3204850 -

But now that we're at our current level of evolution, we've begun to shape our environment to fit us, rather than us changing to fit the environment. Will this stop evolution

Even though we've partially removed ourselves from natural selective pressures (like being eaten by a bear), by constructing societies, industry, cities, and the like, we're still being strongly selected for by environmental pressures.

For example, we still have illness due to congenital diseases, terminal cancers due to pollution or UV exposure, death by bus due to poor eyesight, and poverty due to lack of intelligence, morbid obesity due to McDonalds and TV remotes, and in our more and more materialistic societies, lack of children due to lack of good looks to attract a mate, something technology can't fix.

We may not often starve to death any more, but there is still plenty of selective pressure on all of us and I don't see that ending any time soon.

Edited by Diploid (10/01/04 06:50 PM)

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Turd]
    #3204929 -

We already did. This happened when we developed the ability to control our environment. Technology is now our on ly route to evolution.

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Huehuecoyotl]
    #3205052 -

We already did. [stop evolving]

Are you being serious? We've nowhere near stopped evolving. We haven't even slowed down!  :confused:


--------------------
Republican Values:

1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.

4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Huehuecoyotl]
    #3205054 -

i have a question for you redgreenvines. Many people say evolution is simply random mutation, and that maybe one in a thousand times that random mutation results in a more survivable trait, thus the new mutation becomes dominant.

Now, if this was true, wouldnt the world be chock full of uselessly mutated failed fossils? you know what im saying? like every species alive or known of in history (dinosaurs, woolly mamoths etc) have been superbly suited to their respective enviroments. But if those adabtive traits are simply the result of RANDOM mutation, where are the thousands of hopelesssly fucked up mutant fossils?

Where is the t-rex who was born a leg on his head? where is the wooly mammoth with no legs beneath the kneees?

am i making sense? shouldnt there be like numerous failed organisms fossilized?


--------------------


Everything I post is fiction.

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Moonshoe]
    #3205159 -

No, you're not making sense... First of all evolution is slower than arms and legs appearing on things.

"Many people say evolution is simply random mutation, and that maybe one in a thousand times that random mutation results in a more survivable trait"

Second, i'm not sure that a leg on a t-rex's head is a more survivable trait...

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Diploid]
    #3205213 -

I am totally serious. Evolution is change that occurs in response to environmental conditions in order to insure our needs can be met. When you gain complete control of your environment natural evolution ceases. We will use technology (gene therapy, gene splicing, robotics, computer science, etc...) to evolve further.

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Huehuecoyotl]
    #3205480 -

I am totally serious. Evolution is change that occurs in response to environmental conditions in order to insure our needs can be met. When you gain complete control of your environment natural evolution ceases.

You believe humans have achieved 'complete control' of our environment?

You believe we're not affected by solar radiation increases due to depletion of our ozone layer, or by trace carcinogenic pesticides in our food, or by lead or asbestos poisoning, or by elevated mercury concentrations in edible fish populations, or for that matter Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (Mad Cow and other prion dieseases), or Necrotizing Fasciitis (Flesh Eating Bacteria and other antibiotic-resistant critters), or HIV/AIDS?

All these things and an encyclopedic list of other diseases and conditions are all constantly applying evolutionary selective pressures on our entire population. Technology can hardly even make headway against, let alone totally remove, these pressures. One day, maybe, but that day is generations in the future if it ever comes at all.


--------------------
Republican Values:

1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.

4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Turd]
    #3205528 -

Never underestimate the power of nature. We may think we're altering our environment, but nature will have its way, one way or another. Look at the recent hurricanes which struck Florida. There will ALWAYS be new conditions to which we must adapt, even if they are caused by man(global warming, for example).


--------------------


"It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong."--Voltaire

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Diploid]
    #3205529 -

"You believe humans have achieved 'complete control' of our environment?"

Well, yes, to the level that we, for the most part, live in climate controlled housing, and many of the dieases which once controlled our population have been wiped out. We also have cars and planes so we don't need to walk long distances. We can live in space or on the bottom of the ocean. While we cannot yet control the weather or the Sun we can create our own living environments that insulate us from these things. So, without getting seriously picky, it can be said that we have mastered our environment. Within 10 years we will be able to accurately predict weather patterns over a year in advance using computer models, and within another 50 we will quite possibly gain control over the aging process. Our evolution from here on out is up to the choices we make about our technology.

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Turd]
    #3205540 -

Quote:
We evolve to better fit our environment, and to take better advantage of it.


No, evolution is not something that the organism undergoing it has a choice or an active part in. An organism evolves because the surviving incarnation of it is a better fit wih its environment not in order to be a better fit with its environment. The way you are stating this makes evolution sound like a pre-emptive process, which is is not.

Quote:
Opposable thumbs, two eyes, toes, everything.... created so we can better handle our environment.


Huh? Organisms that are lucky enough to develop these traits along their genome are more likely to survive. There's no 'driver in the evolution seat' as it happens in nature. Evolution is a post de facto condition. Again, the way you are describing this makes it seem as if an organism somehow chooses to evolve in certain ways. Natural selection doesn't mean an organism gets to choose its phenotype.

Quote:
But now that we're at our current level of evolution, we've begun to shape our environment to fit us, rather than us changing to fit the environment.


If an organism actively changed in order to better fit its environment, that would be a process completely unrelated to evolution. Evolution is a process that must occur over many generations. If a rabbit could shave off all its hair to make it a faster runner and capable of evading coyotes, that doesn't mean its offspring would be born hairless.

Quote:
Will this stop evolution, or slow it down to the point that it barely happens for the rest of our existence?


As has been stated, there are still many selecting factors at work. Evolution will continue to occur as long as an abundance of unique genetic material remains and recombinant mutations occur. In fact, human evolution could get even weirder precisely because as a society we uphold the importance of "diversity" of individuals who posses traits that, in a less civilized world, would have selected them for non-survival. Today, two hemophiliac retards can thrive and produce offspring. They wouldn't have survived long ago, but today they can and can make children that may or may not carry on the legacy of their damned genes.

The day we adopt cloning as a legitimate reproductive process is the day we will render evolution obsolete.

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Huehuecoyotl]
    #3205544 -

and many of the dieases which once controlled our population have been wiped out.

But not all diseases have been eradicated, and this would seem a necessary requirement (one of many, actually) for human evolution to stop.

You said that we've achieved "COMPLETE CONTROL" of our environment.  We haven't even come close.

Within 10 years we will be able to accurately predict weather patterns over a year in advance using computer models,

Where in the world did you hear that? Your statement is way off the mark. The more we refine our mathematical models of the weather, the more we realize that accurate long term prediction is asymptotic!!! You're making stuff up. :tongue:


--------------------
Republican Values:

1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.

4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.

Edited by Diploid (10/02/04 01:57 AM)

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Turd]
    #3205583 -

I think we can see from civilization how we can still rapidly change.

are you strickly talking about physical evolution or are you also including mental evolution?

I think later on we will create environments for ourselves (for better or worse) and as that changes, so will we. I don't think it matters where the source of the change comes from.


--------------------
Annnnnnd I had a light saber and my friend was there and I said "you look like an indian" and he said "you look like satan" and he found a stick and a rock and he named the rock ooga booga and he named the stick Stick and we both thought that was pretty funny. We got eaten alive by mosquitos but didn't notice til the next day. I stepped on some glass while wading in the swamp and cut my foot open, didn't bother me til the next day either....yeah it was a good time, ended the night by buying some liquor for minors and drinking nips and going to he diner and eating chicken fingers, and then I went home and went to bed.

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: kaiowas]
    #3205695 -

"First of all evolution is slower than arms and legs appearing on things. " yes i realize that it was just an example


"Second, i'm not sure that a leg on a t-rex's head is a survivable trait" i didnt say it was thats my point. If only one in a thousand mutations turns out to be survivable, where is the fossil record of all the mutants that werent survivable and died off?


--------------------


Everything I post is fiction.

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Diploid]
    #3205703 -

Quote:
You believe we're not affected by solar radiation increases due to depletion of our ozone layer, or by trace carcinogenic pesticides in our food, or by lead or asbestos poisoning, or by elevated mercury concentrations in edible fish populations, or for that matter Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (Mad Cow and other prion dieseases), or Necrotizing Fasciitis (Flesh Eating Bacteria and other antibiotic-resistant critters), or HIV/AIDS? 



How many of those strike people before they are having children?
That's the key.

It's not about whether YOU live a long life or not.
Did you squirt out a baby first?  You're gold.

The Plague wiped out -- what was it, 1/3 to 1/2 of Europe?  Are Europeans today immune to the Plague?  No.  Some are -- yes.  Random mutation.  Small example there, and that was something that killed many BEFORE they had a chance to have offspring.


Evolution in humanity as a species has largely slowed to a crawl.  It still occurs in that any time an organism propagates itself it can be said to be evolving, but a very important part to speciation -- that is, changing into something new -- is environmental pressures and hardships.  That's something we have lost, at least on a biological level.  We don't have to be strong, or fast, or hardy against disease to survive anymore.  We just need to have children.
Another factor limiting our overall biological evolution is the amount we travel nowadays.  It's hard to become different when there's tremendous interbreeding between different people.  Isolated societies are where changes are made, not when generation after generation is just mix after mix of different sorts of the same people.


There's really no factors left that select for any traits over any other traits.  Therefor, we're really not moving anywhere, just reproducing and, well, sure, evolving all the while.. we just won't be able to really see the effects of that evolution till there's something to select for a certain trait.  Even then it'll take a while.

Now, I have read that amongst the.. either Tibetian or Nepalese?  There's acutally been documented microevolution.  Selecting for those with higher, more efficent hemoglobin.. due to the altitude and thinner atmosphere.  Those with that trait are able to have more children, those without are not able -- their offspring do not survive nearly as often.  Now if we start giving them drugs to compensate, that progress will be lost, and it's back down to just who can reproduce faster.
It's happening, but it's not worldwide, and the more we interfere with our minds and by intermingling the less it will happen.
Whether this is a good or bad thing?  You decide.  I really don't care :blush:

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Mushmonkey]
    #3205800 -

It's not about whether YOU live a long life or not.
Did you squirt out a baby first? You're gold.

is environmental pressures and hardships. That's something we have lost, at least on a biological level.

How do you come to this conclusion in the face of rampant pandemics like AIDS, SARS, Mad Cow, Flu, West Nile Virus, and dozens of other diseases that would wipe out large fractions of the Earth's population if we slipped up even slightly and let them get the upper hand? That they don't wipe us out is a miracle of modern medicine, but that they actively participate in the course of modern human evolution is virtually an epidemiological fact.

All these conditions and many more strike people of all ages, many before they have children and some like HIV strike children before they're even born.

While I agree that geriatric diseases are not a significant contributor to modern human evolution, geriatric diseases are only a fraction of the diseases and organisms that attack us every day and against which we are still evolving!

It's hard to become different when there's tremendous interbreeding between different people.

This has nothing to do with evolution.?

Edit:

Now, I have read that amongst the.. either Tibetian or Nepalese? There's acutally been documented microevolution. Selecting for those with higher, more efficent hemoglobin.. due to the altitude and thinner atmosphere. Those with that trait are able to have more children, those without are not able

Why doesn't this same principle apply to pollution like this EPA list

http://www.epa.gov/ttn/atw/188polls.html

of 180 common pollutants in the air, each of which is clearly a selective pressure given that they can kill or sexually incapacitate people before they have children.


--------------------
Republican Values:

1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.

4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.

Edited by Diploid (10/02/04 03:07 AM)

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Diploid]
    #3205817 -

"How do you come to this conclusion in the face of rampant pandemics like AIDS, SARS, Mad Cow, and dozens of other diseases that would wipe out large fractions of the Earth's population if we slipped up even slightly and let them get the upper hand?

All these conditions and many more strike people of all ages, many before they have children and some like HIV strike children before they're even born. "

True.. to an extent.
For the MOST part, these things strike people well into life already. AIDS -- excepting parts of Africa where it's pandemic, it really only strikes those who are past the point where they already might have had children. SARS.. not very dangerous honestly, not currently. Maybe if it mutates some. Mad Cow.. is again, something that can lie dormant for years and years.
And simply the fact that they HAVEN'T wiped out a large fraction of our population makes them almost ignorable as evolutionary selection factors.

"It's hard to become different when there's tremendous interbreeding between different people.

This has nothing to do with evolution.? "

Actually it does. Speciation occurs in isolated societies -- widespread and varied exchange of genes negates small mutations.

Go back to Darwin. The Galapagos. The reason there were so many different varieties of birds was because they were isolated -- had they been able to travel and intermingle, the slight variations of type would have been overwritten by slight variations of other types.
Creatures rarely make any substantial or noticable changes when they're in a large, freely-roaming and successfully breeding environment.

Or.. dogs for instance. Different breeds of dogs are really mostly the result of inbreeding them for specific traits. If you let a bunch of dogs breed with eachtoher, eventually you get mutts, and mutts are mutts who give birth to mutts. dachshunds were bred by selecting the shortest, longest dogs and breeding them, over and over.
If you get a small society of critters, on an island let's say, and the shoter, longer ones are more able to find food to the point they are more easily able to breed in greater numbers.. you might just wind up with dachshunds at the end.
If they're free to breed with dogs on the next island over, however -- or on the other side -- the factors selecting for dachshunds get mixed up with the factors selecting for beagles, and you either get something different altogether.. or a slow change that's almost unnoticable, or you may be continually negate anything that either island had been selecting for and wind up at the end of things, with the same dog you put on the island before the middle was cut out.

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