Spontaneous Order
- Thread starter Danoff
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Yes, I think it will eventually happen through some sort of natrual selection.
I have my own theory (not scientifically proven or any stuff,.. just a theory) about evolution and the role we play during our lives that effect it.
As far as 'natural selection',... not sure,... I think it will be a gradual process. Our pinky's will get shorter, generation by gereration,... Just as our appendixs' have shrunk and our tails have disapeared.
Danoff
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Red:
Wisdom teeth are no longer necessary in today's world. And some people (myself included) get fewer than 4 wisdom teeth. Some people never get any. Is this a result of evolution? I would say "not really".
These people are allowed to live because of our medical technology, so natural selection doesn't weed them out. But natural selection doesn't weed out the people with 4 wisdom teeth either. The result is a society with and without wisom teeth.
The same might go for the appendix eventually or tonsils.
The human race will not be rid of these things through natural selection because it doesn't force them out of our genetic code.
Only some sort of genetic engineering on our part would pull that off.
Wisdom teeth are no longer necessary in today's world. And some people (myself included) get fewer than 4 wisdom teeth. Some people never get any. Is this a result of evolution? I would say "not really".
These people are allowed to live because of our medical technology, so natural selection doesn't weed them out. But natural selection doesn't weed out the people with 4 wisdom teeth either. The result is a society with and without wisom teeth.
The same might go for the appendix eventually or tonsils.
The human race will not be rid of these things through natural selection because it doesn't force them out of our genetic code.
Only some sort of genetic engineering on our part would pull that off.
- 3,194
Yes, evolution, IMO. It's almost like a very long and drug-out trial and error process; evolution that is.
I believe that everything we do in out lives, and everything any living organism does, EVERYTHING,... is enscribed into some sort of 'evolutionary journal' in that species' DNA. That learned/applied evolutionary information is then transfered to the next generation (only if the organism reproduces of course), sorta like your 'reproductive sucess/failure' comment.
That's my own little theory in a very tight nutshell.
Danoff
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Red:
I'm not saying the evolution doesn't happen. I agree with most of what you said, except I dissagree that somehow our life experiences get inscribed onto our DNA.
Even if everything we do is inscribed somehow onto our DNA, that doesn't mean that our pinkys will get shorter. I'm just not seeing it. Mind elborating?
I'm not saying the evolution doesn't happen. I agree with most of what you said, except I dissagree that somehow our life experiences get inscribed onto our DNA.
Even if everything we do is inscribed somehow onto our DNA, that doesn't mean that our pinkys will get shorter. I'm just not seeing it. Mind elborating?
Danoff
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Thank you westside.
I also don't have an answer to the question of why we don't have more faith in each other. Maybe it's a lack of faith in themselves (especially after they did something stupid like not wear their lifejackets in a huge storm).
Perhaps it's a strong bond with a certain individual whose life is taken. It's present in parents bigtime. Their child dies for any number of reasons. The parents perceive the opportunity for lives to be saved and decide that their child will be immortalized through the lives that their new legislation saves. They figure, the price of a little bit of freedom enjoyed by the entire population of the country would be worth it to bring back their kid's life.
And right there, they decide they have the right to make decisions for everyone else.
The really amazing part is that in almost no cases do the parents or the surviving victims stop and think that they might actually have been able to prevent the tragedy without being legally forced they figure its not their fault something went wrong if the government doesnt prevent that from happening - its the governments fault.
Thats kinda like blaming the government when you lose all your money gambling in Vegas. Its not your fault because it was legal to gamble in Vegas.
Its a lack of willingness to accept responsibility for their actions (or lack thereof). And, simultaneously, its arrogance enough to think that this person, who cant even take responsibility for his/her lack of foresight before whatever tragic event occurred, now has been blessed with the intellect to make decisions for the rest of the population.
How arrogant do you have to be to think that you know how everyone else should live their life. How untrusting do you have to be of your fellow man to claim that he/she cannot make their own decisions?
One could of course turn it around and say:
How arrogant do you have to be to think that you can make better decisions for yourself than society can for you? And how untrusting do you have to be of your fellow man to claim that they cannot make good decisions for you?
My answer to that is:
I dont claim that I can make better decision for myself, but I will accept the responsibility of making bad decisions for the luxury of making them for myself. Thats what America used to be about.
- 10,832
But some people don't. I wish I knew why. I know that I am always very careful about things, and feel it's my responsibility to keep me and mine safe. If anyting were ever to happen I'd blame myself. Some people call me a worrier or obsessive about some things. Like my son's car seat. My wife wanted to loosen the straps because it seemed uncomfortable. But every source said they should be very snug and you should just be able to slip a finger under it. We argued about it and I just said "look, do you want him comfortable or dead? Why do we even have this thing if we're not going to use it right?" That was the end of it and he's been strapped in tight ever since. It is my problem and nobody else's. It is my job to keep him safe (and myself, too). I don't expect (or even want) anyone else to do it for me, especially the government. However a lot of people not only want them to, they believe that they have to, that this is it's purpose. Why? Is it genetic? The way we're raised?
- 10,832
That's because it doesn't happen. The comment was meant to point out a problem. I do know that there are sometimes subordinate physiological changes that accompany the ones that matter, and which are essentially inconsequencial. The configuration of our teeth is a side effect of the size of our brains. Our appendixes are a relic. What we eat has nothing to do with it. It would be like saying that vegetarians would evolve differently from meat eaters.
I think a lot of people think evolution is a gradual, evenly distributed process. Evidence shows that is actually tends to occurr in major events, and I still think humanity may well be in the middle of a major event. We have evolved into an etirely different species in a couple hundred thousand years. That's fast. Where will we bin another hundred thousand?
This causes me to rethink evolution a bit. Yesterday a paleontologist was on the radio and he pointed out that Hippos have not changed much in four million years. This would in essence mean they have stopped evolving, which I thought was impossible.
Danoff
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This is one of the most distrubing things about american society. I don't quite understand it except to say that the vast majority of elementary school teachers and news reporters seem to think this way.
It may be the lack of a voice opposing the sentiment. How many times do you hear someone say "that's not the government's job."
Where did it come from? Perhaps it all started when the lines of government were blurred during the depression. Perhaps it stems from the president always trying to claim that he can make everyone happy (like that's his job), and people voting for the guy who says that the most.
I don't know... but I hate it.
Danoff
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My guess is that we'll look totally differnet, be much more capable mentally, and much differently capable physically...
but I don't think that will have anything to do with evolution. I bet pretty soon we start playing with genetics, which changes the scope of the discussion.
If left to the devices of natural selection? My guess is we'd be right where we are now. Not because I see a trend in our history, but because I see that we have crossed the threshold of the lack of natural selection within the last hundred years.
- 3,194
DNA changes through-out evolution. Just think, it's taken 5 million years for our DNA to change only 0.6% from our primate cousins. Life itself has been evoling on this planet for somewhere in the vacintity of 3.5 billion (formation of the moon to stabalize planet),........ my point is that the process takes a long time. Bacteria and algee probably needed a more effiecient way to move through the water, so they evolved into fish, which in turn evolved feet for land, and so on and so on......
We have fingernails because our ancient evolutionary cousins, and even us (homosapien) needed them for digging and clawing. The human species will never be performing those types of activities ever again if our future is a promising one,... meaning, in a few hundered thousand years, we probably wont have them........ ect, ect.....
JMO
- 3,194
I agree with that,... I think we'll change ourselves genetically before evolution gets it's hands on us again.
- 10,832
True, but it is obvious how dramatically .06% genetic variation can change a species. That figure can be used to support either end of the argument.
Also probably true. But there is still algae, practically identical to what was floating in the primordial soup 3.5 billion years ago, today.
Actually, we need fingernails to have tactile sensations in the fingertips.
- 3,194
As I said,... like you said,... the fact it's possibly true makes it a possible theory,... I'm not here to argue it cause all it is, is what my brain has conjered up as an excuse for our insignificant existance as a species in this unfathomabley huge, multi-billion year old univrse.
We are nothing when you look at us from the universes evolutionary span of 13+ billion years,...
And yeah,.. the algee from 3.5 billion is still the same,.. cause when life breaks down it needs a place to take off from again,... evolution wouldnt be a very efficient process if it destroyed all the original blue-prints.
We are nothing when you look at us from the universes evolutionary span of 13+ billion years,...
And yeah,.. the algee from 3.5 billion is still the same,.. cause when life breaks down it needs a place to take off from again,... evolution wouldnt be a very efficient process if it destroyed all the original blue-prints.
Sage
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RER - I think the one thing you're forgetting is that, in general, evolution is what happens when a beneficial mutation shows up. There's no beneficial value to losing fingernails, so natural selection (or in human society, what's left of natural selection) won't be picking against those with nails and for those without nails. That's the key to evolution-- Things are changed when there is a reproductive/life-extending advantage that can be had from a mutation, not just because we don't need it.
- 3,194
I think both of those idea's work with eachother. Though I dont see it as "spontanious mutation",.. I think it's gradual.
Danoff
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I had a conversation about this whole evolution topic with someone this weekend. The person I spoke with was explaining to me how our society is becoming bi-modal.
The stupid people marry stupid people and smart people marry smart people. The result is a larger and larger gap between the stupid people and the smart people.
I think this is true.
However, I maintain that as a society we are not headed in either direction. The "average value" (if you will) of intelligence of our society is not changing, even if the differences are getting more pronouced.
The people who mentioned the book Time Machine earlier on this thread will recognize how much that bi-modal society business resembles what Wells came up with in that book.
It's pretty scary actually, the divergence of genetics. I think we need to get our hands on genetic engineering as soon as possible. This would, at the very least, take care of diabetes.
The stupid people marry stupid people and smart people marry smart people. The result is a larger and larger gap between the stupid people and the smart people.
I think this is true.
However, I maintain that as a society we are not headed in either direction. The "average value" (if you will) of intelligence of our society is not changing, even if the differences are getting more pronouced.
The people who mentioned the book Time Machine earlier on this thread will recognize how much that bi-modal society business resembles what Wells came up with in that book.
It's pretty scary actually, the divergence of genetics. I think we need to get our hands on genetic engineering as soon as possible. This would, at the very least, take care of diabetes.
- 10,832
A similar phenomenon ocurrs in 1984 and in Brave New World, as well. Society is split into a well-off, well educated and priveliged party, and the unclean masses. However, in both books the priveliged class ends up needing them on some level, for different reason in each case.
But it's true. When you meet a stupid man you can bet his wife is just as stupid. They will raise their stupid kids to be just as stupid. It propagates itself though the generations.
I belive its long term effect will be a "master/slave" bi-modality in society. Of course nobody will call it that.
But it's true. When you meet a stupid man you can bet his wife is just as stupid. They will raise their stupid kids to be just as stupid. It propagates itself though the generations.
I belive its long term effect will be a "master/slave" bi-modality in society. Of course nobody will call it that.
