Correct.spartan231490 said:
I tried! [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.309560-How-much-further-can-humans-evolve?page=3#12498392]gentleben said:
Ill agree with this, jump on the inter-web and read up on some Darwin for a start...gentleben said:
I am not talking about the power of god; I am talking about only the biological system on Earth that contains trillions of units and possibilities (if I wanted to invoke the power of 'God', I'd point out that we (and all life with it) can be wiped clean off this Earth at any moment by the black hole at the center of our galaxy). We are taking control of our broader, day to day environment but we are also losing control of parts of the bacterial and viral level because of our over use (an attempt to control) of pharmaceuticals. We have created and are continuing to create more and more diverse bacterial strains each of which are becoming more and more resistant to our medicines. Its an arms race, if you want to call it that, between pharma and bacteria... and its quickly becoming a question of which will kill us first. (Because, as you'll notice, pharmaceuticals are become all the more double-edged as they become more potent to fight the ever more potent diseases we ourselves have created.)Jacob Haggarty said:
I would argue that with each step we take to controlling one aspect of our lives/environment, we are losing control of another. People are obsessive with making their own lives better but tend to be blind to future and its repercussions.Jacob Haggarty said:
We didn't evolve from neanderthals. They were actually a completely different species, that went extinct.Gluzzbung said:
In a way you are correct. Nothing consciously adapts to its surroundings, which what you seem to be getting at, because nothing can consciously manipulate its own genome in order to do so. However, you are not correct about adaption not being a part of evolution, and ironically it is the result of you have described, although I don't think your description is quite right when it comes to the terms used. I would suggest replacing 'mutation' with 'variation', as it is more encompassing than mutations, as it takes into account switches, deletions, etcetera. I would also say 'luck' is a poor word to use when it comes to an gene's survival, although I can't say it doesn't factor into things. Instead, it is whether or not that gene is a desirable trait, for example a deer with slightly longer legs than other deer will be able to outrun predators, or perhaps more importantly, other deer. As a result the deer survives. If the deer survives to pass on this gene, then it's a successful gene.ZiggyE said:
^This right here.Venats said:
The problem with this would be that very few people would want to have sex with anyone with 4 (2 of which will be malformed) legs, and wings would start out as unsightly deformations. The key part of evolution is being a desirable mate so you can spread your mutations. Animals wouldn't care how something looks. We do and humans tend to want 2 legs and no developing wing lumps. and I don't know about psychic powers because those are likely impossible.TimeLord said:
Just curiosity here and no real scientific thought (again, I am not a biologist): If medial science evolved enough could we not force (ie. stimulate controlled change on the DNA/RNA) evolution on a life form without a need for reproduction? Didn't the bubonic plague do just that back in the day, causing widespread mutations in its survivors that were 'immediately' in effect.Frieswiththat said:
Well to counter all you said I'll add this: people still die of famin (hunting for food as you call I guess)... of course not in developed countries, but it's truth none the less, wild animals still pose threats in some regions of the world... houses protect us, but they're not impenetrable & animals build shelters too, and not all people live in prime conditions that equates to medium or high standard quality of life, we can cure some diseases, but shit still happens, we may be the lords of the planet in our heads, but nature & the Earth itself is the lord of us, we can bend nature, but we can't force it to do our biding... think of all the calamities that have happened if nothing else, of course some are considered to be man caused by pollution or whatever... but that adds to the fact that we are actually lords of nothing. We don't control things. We like to think that we do, and to some effect we manage, but there's a long way to go for humanity & I'm not speaking only technological uprising. Growth as a species & cultural enhancements are important, technology has brought us out of the middle ages as a history teacher once said this about mass production & so on, but before that there was a little period named renaissance. Think of the average human being for example: is he evolved? I stress "average"... evolution is pretty complicated because it envolves many factors, tech included of course, but only one factor of a bigger equation.Dominic Burchnall said:
Wrong.Uszi said:
That's more of a combination of improved dietary habits and breeding (being tall is attractive), but it is a bit connected to evolution.Fieldy409 said:
That's a very big misconception right there. With the technology improving at a steady phase we wont evolve to adapt to the technology. evolution takes a whole lot of time. We're not able to adapt genetically to technology because we need several generations without a change in technology. So far the only thing that's changing is that we have less muscles than those who lived 100 years ago because we need them less. This is also connected with the fact that we don't gain as much so it's not genetically decided yet. Humans are also one race as it is. There's not enough difference between the genetic material and capabilities of someone from Africa and someone from Europe to call them different races. If you look at the DNA from a cocker spaniel and compare that to a Bulldog there's less DNA in common there than there is between humans and a chimpanzees. They also discovered when doing a global gene mapping project that almost all the introns of every kind of people are the same, so only the exons make our DNA different. There is of course genetic diseases in these introns that some don't have, and different kinds of genes, but we're more or less identical on a genetic level, thus there are no races. Also we wont all look the same until all of us live in the exact same place.Fiad said:
It's (as fair as we know) a couple mutated genes in the part that decides eye colour that doesn't produce the pigments needed for brown eyes. It's not less worthy in any way, but it's a genetic defect in the way that there's a gene not functioning properly.David Huff said:
