Posted 22 May 2015 - 01:33 AM
Posted 14 June 2015 - 09:18 PM
Where you're going with this may be interesting, but what about giant plankton makes plankton more useful just because its bigger?
On the other hand, we humans, even a lot of proper evolutionary biologists, often make the mistake of thinking of certain traits in species as universally beneficial. For example we like to think intelligence is always favored in selection; that's often not the case. We do worse than that as well. Most of us have a poor grasp of the concept of evolution, selection, and what makes traits advantageous, deleterious, or fairly neutral and in what environments. I think it's a lot like trying to conceptualize deep time;
What am I saying? Our species is too egocentric, shortsighted and ignorant at this point in time to be fiddling around with nature on the scale you're talking about. We can't build whole ecosystems anywhere near as diverse, balanced or self-sustaining as those that occur in nature, partly because it took millions of years of trial and error for these systems to develop and species to evolve into their niches.
Hell, after decades of effort, we can barely get pandas to reproduce!
I am sure of one thing, however: this planet will survive us. I'm not saying it will look the same, though. We just don't have enough power right now to cause the mass destruction most people imagine when talking about how we stupid humans shit where we eat and live. We could set off every nuke and send the planet into a nuclear winter, and in time life will recover, even if that means it has to "start over" a million years from now from near-alien creatures living at the bottom of the ocean evolving and moving into the upper sea layers, altering the atmosphere, evolving more and eventually making landfall and repopulating the land masses. Life will evolve wherever it can.
Probably the best shot for this kind of goal would be to keep a DNA bank of the endangered species for the purpose of cloning them, provided we actually have a proper environment to release them into
Posted 15 June 2015 - 06:58 PM
DNA banks already exist. Each country has some, I think.
Really, what is the reason for making the plankton bigger?
By the way, I am one of those people, who think, that intelligence is favored in selection 
It allowes us to stop evolving, and make the items evolve for us instead.
Posted 15 June 2015 - 08:20 PM
DNA banks already exist. Each country has some, I think.
Really, what is the reason for making the plankton bigger?
By the way, I am one of those people, who think, that intelligence is favored in selection
Intelligence is not universally favored in selection. It depends on the environment. We see it all the time even in our own societies; the "smartest" of us (whatever that is) have fewer peers. This gap causes a lot of insidious problems for the intellectual 1%, they too often have trouble finding equals they can really bond with, suffer loneliness, tend to be much more socially isolated and awkward partly because they have less opportunities to socialize the same way most people do, and partly because too many people are intimidated by these "genius" IQs and won't get close. They're too alien to each other, have trouble identifying with each other. Even if they don't develop deep psychological and dysfunctional issues because of that isolation (we see it all the time), these really smart people actually tend to have fewer sexual partners, breed less offspring, less frequently. That is sexual selection at work and it rarely favors the brightest of us. From a strictly evolutionary, genetic point of view, in human social environments all over the world, their IQs tend to be a huge disadvantage.
Your perception of evolution is too narrow, shortsighted and incomplete. Our intelligence has not stopped us evolving in any sense of the word. As long as we continue to reproduce, our evolution will continue. Even if we master our environments and make them favor us, that does not even remotely hinder sexual selection. In fact such a thing is likelier to make sexual selection even more influential than before. While humans don't strictly participate in only one of either categories of intersexual selection or intrasexual selection, there is a greater tendency towards intersexual selection (mate choice, which would be female choice in this case) than intrasexual. The only way to stop sexual selection while still managing to maintain a population is to ban all sex and begin a human cloning program; even that is a dubious statement because we would still be evaluating which would be best to clone or who gets what priority--this is still selection at work.
Edited by Duchykins, 15 June 2015 - 08:24 PM.
Posted 15 June 2015 - 08:40 PM
We evolve? I thought, that we don't. Sculptures and paintings from more than thousand years represent people the same as they are today.
Why do you think, that we evolve? What changes in us?
Edited by seivtcho, 15 June 2015 - 08:41 PM.
Posted 15 June 2015 - 08:51 PM
We never stopped evolving.
You're expecting significant physical changes in appearance in terms of thousands of years? Perhaps a new species in a few thousand years? That's not how evolution works. Not even hundreds of thousands of years is enough to change our morphology so dramatically on the scale you're talking about. It would have to be more like tens of millions of years.
Are you a creationist? Or really didn't learn much of evolution past high school biology?
Edited by Duchykins, 15 June 2015 - 08:52 PM.
Posted 15 June 2015 - 09:02 PM
All of this is really just emphasizing what I said earlier
"Most of us have a poor grasp of the concept of evolution, selection, and what makes traits advantageous, deleterious, or fairly neutral and in what environments. I think it's a lot like trying to conceptualize deep time"
"Our species is too egocentric, shortsighted and ignorant"
"Your perception of evolution is too narrow, shortsighted and incomplete"
But this is not necessarily your fault nor does it mean you're stupid. We have a lot of trouble thinking about deep time because we are creatures that evolved to deal with much smaller chunks of time, where a few decades is a long time (and in our species' infancy, a few decades was literally a lifetime; our brains haven't changed that much since then) and a century is a really long time, and a thousand years is nearly mind-boggling. But in reality a hundred thousand years is an eye blink in deep time. This is just a flaw in our natural design. Our brains never evolved to perceive reality through the lens of deep time, mostly because we never needed to.
Edited by Duchykins, 15 June 2015 - 09:04 PM.
Posted 15 June 2015 - 10:21 PM
Our DNA changes. Recombination. Mutations. That's it. These are small changes at first and need a lot of time to accumulate and become fixed in a population. A single species spread out into different environments will in deep time, if they survive, eventually branch off into different species. The different environments will shape them into different species or rather, the species shapes themselves to the environment. Natural and sexual selection (for sexually reproducing species at least). Long ass time. The mechanism of evolution does not change between "microevolution" and "macroevolution". It's only a matter of time.
What you're really asking from me is a huge long winded complicated explanation. I really don't have the energy for it.
But here is something that is the abridged version. These are some good videos that were made to show creationists how evolution (and speciation) happens. I actually watch the first two from time to time because they really do a good job of encompassing the basic evolutionary mechanisms and even this simplistic simulation captures the magnificent genius of evolution. I'm just a nerd though.
*To prevent confusion, the first simulation makes nearly everything random, but that is just to show creationists (insisting "random" evolution can't make a complex organism) how evolution can happen with almost no selective pressures so they might see how the nonrandom determinism of selection really overpowers the randomness of mutations in shaping an organism.
*Around 8:00 this video talks about evolution appearing to "stop" (which is really a faux plateau we sometimes see in apex predators like certain species of crocodiles, large canines, large felines, sharks, orcas, birds of prey; they have become the top predators in their environments and therefore have fewer selective pressures driving them to change. They still evolve-still have sexual selection and other bits of natural selection going on-but more "slowly". They're not really evolving more slowly it's just that the changes are smaller. Humans are also apex predators.)
Edited by Duchykins, 15 June 2015 - 10:24 PM.
Posted 16 June 2015 - 01:57 AM
When the plague swept through Europe and killed a substantial portion of the population, the remaining people were enriched in a particular receptor mutation that made them more resistant to AIDS. Presumably it also made them more resistant to plague. That's an example of evolution-- bubonic plague is a hell of a selection pressure. We are now preventing a great deal of evolution because we keep people from dying through the use of modern medicine. It won't be long and we'll be hacking our own germline, at which point evolution will be entirely in our hands.
Posted 16 June 2015 - 03:25 AM
When the plague swept through Europe and killed a substantial portion of the population, the remaining people were enriched in a particular receptor mutation that made them more resistant to AIDS. Presumably it also made them more resistant to plague. That's an example of evolution-- bubonic plague is a hell of a selection pressure. We are now preventing a great deal of evolution because we keep people from dying through the use of modern medicine. It won't be long and we'll be hacking our own germline, at which point evolution will be entirely in our hands.
Evolution nor the process of selection certainly isn't governed by immunity to disease. Is it important? Yes. Is it even remotely the most powerful selective pressure, factoring in sexual selection? Nope.
We are now preventing a great deal of evolution because we keep people from dying through the use of modern medicine
Evolution is an intrinsic property of the life cycle. We are not "preventing a great deal of evolution" by any means if we are still generally freely choosing our sexual partners and reproducing. Eliminating immediate environmental killers only makes sexual selection more powerful in shaping the species. Females are still the dominant driving force in our species' sexual selection. That's not to say males do not also do their choosing but it's not nearly as definitive or influential as the females', who are obligated to be much more discriminating in evaluating potential mates. That's evolution. Changes in culture often lead to subtle shifts in standards of attractive qualities, still generally within the basic framework of social mammalian sexuality, which affects who is procreating with who and how often and what genes are slowly becoming fixed in the population. Do you think that's not evolution?
Actually, if we took your point to a logical conclusion, then we are preserving more late-acting lethal genes for dissemination among the population. We've been doing it prodigiously since the industrial revolution. Don't forget we are still acquiring entirely new lethal genes all the while. That's evolution. Genes that, for better or worse, tend to influence more than one trait. A single gene can provide its organism with both an advantage and a disadvantage depending on environment (for social species, that's always including social environment). We're still instinctively weeding out deleterious mutations as fast as we can while still favoring new beneficial mutations. That is also evolution. We are providing greater windows of opportunity for males past their prime to procreate with their poorer quality sperm. It's a similar story for older females too. Still evolution.
You are talking about biological evolution as though it's a ladder toward more complex, more perfect organisms. That's the same concept the Greeks had and it was proven wrong more than a century ago.
Edited by Duchykins, 16 June 2015 - 03:29 AM.
Posted 16 June 2015 - 08:16 AM
We had recently one Ebola, that had to become a global pandemy, but thanks to the epidemiological knowledge, that we have today, it remained kept in its place of origin, and in the civilised world, it didn't create a selective preassure. And there is another question - why ebola appeared in the most retarded parts in Africa, and not in the civilised world? Because the civilised world has evolved hygiene, for example. What will happen after 100 years? Epidemies may be stopped before even started, anti viral medications will heal random viruses, and no more epidemies for us, because of evolved medicine, that evolved instead of our molecules.
Posted 17 June 2015 - 01:49 AM
Still some things about if the human evolution EXISTS NOW, at this particular moment, seem dubious to me
"My DNA is slightly different from the DNA of each other human on the planet, but does this mean, that I am more evolved or less evolved than you? No."
If you extract an ancient DNA form a human, that is slightly different from yours, will that mean, that the two DNA's are at different stage of evolving, or simply will mean, that they are slightly different, as your DNA is unique for the entire human population existing today?
Why not we suggest, that after reaching a certain point in our brain development, we no longer have a selective preassure? And thus, no longer have evolution.
Or, if such even exists, it is in a progressively lowering rates, will stop soon, and has become reversible.
For example predators don't hunt us anymore, and this is why we didn't become faster runners, and didn't grow long sharp teeth for protection.
When the plague swept through Europe and killed a substantial portion of the population, the remaining people were enriched in a particular receptor mutation that made them more resistant to AIDS, but plaque is treatable today. No more large plaque epidemies will happen anymore, independaent from that what receptors we have. What happens when AIDS gets defeated too, or as is today, totaslly preventable? This receptor becomes totally obsolete, no one needs it anymore, it dissolves among the population, and dissapears. Thus we come back again in a previous state with no protective receptor, and no more selective preassure requireing the protective receptor. Plus how many large deadly epidemies will we have in the future?
Epicdemiological knowledge evolves instead of our receptors
We had recently one Ebola, that had to become a global pandemy, but thanks to the epidemiological knowledge, that we have today, it remained kept in its place of origin, and in the civilised world, it didn't create a selective preassure.
And there is another question - why ebola appeared in the most retarded parts in Africa, and not in the civilised world? Because the civilised world has evolved hygiene, for example.
What will happen after 100 years?
Epidemies may be stopped before even started, anti viral medications will heal random viruses, and no more epidemies for us, because of evolved medicine, that evolved instead of our molecules.
There's so much ignorance here, so much wrong and downright absurd, trying to figure out where to start gives me a headache.
This kind of inanity is one of the reasons I chose to go into evolutionary biology.
Here's a brief description of what I was thinking as I was reading this drivel:
"seem dubious to me" -- says the guy that has no idea what evolution is
"more evolved or less evolved" -- there's that stupid ladder concept again, never gets old apparently
"after reaching a certain point...no longer have evolution" -- riiiight, because there is a special barrier in DNA that can both detect when this "certain point" occurs and magically block any further genetic changes
" didn't grow long sharp teeth for protection" -- uh huh, because that's exactly why carnivorous animals develop long and/or sharp teeth, for protection
"it didn't create a selective preassure" -- LOOOOOOOOOOL
"evolved medicine, that evolved instead of our molecules." -- hahah, that's soooooo adorable!
Edited by Duchykins, 17 June 2015 - 02:17 AM.
Posted 17 June 2015 - 02:44 AM
When the plague swept through Europe and killed a substantial portion of the population, the remaining people were enriched in a particular receptor mutation that made them more resistant to AIDS. Presumably it also made them more resistant to plague. That's an example of evolution-- bubonic plague is a hell of a selection pressure. We are now preventing a great deal of evolution because we keep people from dying through the use of modern medicine. It won't be long and we'll be hacking our own germline, at which point evolution will be entirely in our hands.
Evolution nor the process of selection certainly isn't governed by immunity to disease. Is it important? Yes. Is it even remotely the most powerful selective pressure, factoring in sexual selection? Nope.
We are now preventing a great deal of evolution because we keep people from dying through the use of modern medicine
Evolution is an intrinsic property of the life cycle. We are not "preventing a great deal of evolution" by any means if we are still generally freely choosing our sexual partners and reproducing. Eliminating immediate environmental killers only makes sexual selection more powerful in shaping the species. Females are still the dominant driving force in our species' sexual selection. That's not to say males do not also do their choosing but it's not nearly as definitive or influential as the females', who are obligated to be much more discriminating in evaluating potential mates. That's evolution. Changes in culture often lead to subtle shifts in standards of attractive qualities, still generally within the basic framework of social mammalian sexuality, which affects who is procreating with who and how often and what genes are slowly becoming fixed in the population. Do you think that's not evolution?
I see that you think sexual selection is overwhelming all other forms of selection, although I think you might be obsessing on this a bit. By "a great deal" I didn't necessarily mean "the vast majority", I just meant "a lot" or "a significant amount". If/when there is a global pandemic caused by a truly dangerous and highly contagious virus, disease resistance might turn out to be the most important selective advantage humankind has ever seen. It depends what if any threats pop up before we have the technology to deal with them. I think we're living in a (hopefully brief) window where a pathogen could take out most of us.
Actually, if we took your point to a logical conclusion, then we are preserving more late-acting lethal genes for dissemination among the population. We've been doing it prodigiously since the industrial revolution. Don't forget we are still acquiring entirely new lethal genes all the while. That's evolution. Genes that, for better or worse, tend to influence more than one trait. A single gene can provide its organism with both an advantage and a disadvantage depending on environment (for social species, that's always including social environment). We're still instinctively weeding out deleterious mutations as fast as we can while still favoring new beneficial mutations. That is also evolution. We are providing greater windows of opportunity for males past their prime to procreate with their poorer quality sperm. It's a similar story for older females too. Still evolution.
Yes, I absolutely mean that. We are harming our gene pool by keeping alive people who would have been removed from the pool in an earlier era. That's not the end of the world, though, since it's not going to be a terrifically long time before we start hacking our genome.
You are talking about biological evolution as though it's a ladder toward more complex, more perfect organisms. That's the same concept the Greeks had and it was proven wrong more than a century ago.
I wasn't trying to imply that. Biological evolution is a mechanism that provides fitter organisms for a particular environment. For millions of years, the environment changed slowly, and that was great. Today the environment changes rapidly, so the results of earlier biological evolution aren't as great a match as they could be. In fact, in some regards they are rather awful.
Posted 17 June 2015 - 03:51 AM
"I see that you think sexual selection is overwhelming all other forms of selection"
I don't think that, because it's wrong. Partly because sexual selection is natural selection, but other reasons too.
"We are harming our gene pool by keeping alive people who would have been removed from the pool in an earlier era"
We are simultaneously improving our gene pool by increasing genetic diversity. We also still favor mates primarily by their indicators of good health (therefore, good genes) before anything else; so this would include simple stuff like clear skin, good nails, thick shiny hair, breath odor, teeth configuration, jawlines, underbite/overbite, height, symmetry, vocal pitch, social status, etc. We additionally tend to be repulsed from people with incompatible genes, especially relating to histocompatibilty, and are strongly attracted to people with very compatible genes by scent. This is not the same as evaluating one's health by their body odor, which we do too. Lots of other crap too that no amount of cultural trends will ever change. Evolution works.
Actually, given what we know about what's been changing in us recently and is still changing, we seem to be doing more good than harm.
"it's not going to be a terrifically long time before we start hacking our genome."
l sincerely hope you're wrong about that. I have different reasons for feeling this way, but will just limit it to two here:
1) if we're going to start messing around like that, I hope it's a good long time out in order to allow us to gather more knowledge about our own physiology. I don't necessarily disagree with the concept of gene hacking itself though.
2) Orgel's second rule: Evolution is cleverer than you are.
"Biological evolution is a mechanism that provides fitter organisms for a particular environment. For millions of years, the environment changed slowly, and that was great. Today the environment changes rapidly, so the results of earlier biological evolution aren't as great a match as they could be. In fact, in some regards they are rather awful."
And they will adapt (or die). Life will go on. Species can speed up or slow down their own mutation rates (eg, human mutation rates have greatly increased fairly recently in our species' history, something that's counterintuitive given our swelling numbers but that's not really surprising considering how much in nature that is counterintuitive occurs regularly). Greater selective pressures means a species will evolve "faster", and smaller groups evolve "faster" than larger ones. However, a species dying out doesn't mean evolution doesn't work. All it really does is leave that niche vacant for a more adaptable species to evolve into. We wouldn't be here if everything before us didn't become extinct. Relatively abrupt climate shifts have happened several times before on this planet. Those events were actually nice puzzle pieces for us to discover punctuated equilibria. There's a lot more going on behind the scenes that you, or even I, know about. Evolution really is cleverer than us.
Edited by Duchykins, 17 June 2015 - 04:20 AM.
Posted 17 June 2015 - 11:59 AM
Still some things about if the human evolution EXISTS NOW, at this particular moment, seem dubious to me
"My DNA is slightly different from the DNA of each other human on the planet, but does this mean, that I am more evolved or less evolved than you? No."
If you extract an ancient DNA form a human, that is slightly different from yours, will that mean, that the two DNA's are at different stage of evolving, or simply will mean, that they are slightly different, as your DNA is unique for the entire human population existing today?
Why not we suggest, that after reaching a certain point in our brain development, we no longer have a selective preassure? And thus, no longer have evolution.
Or, if such even exists, it is in a progressively lowering rates, will stop soon, and has become reversible.
For example predators don't hunt us anymore, and this is why we didn't become faster runners, and didn't grow long sharp teeth for protection.
When the plague swept through Europe and killed a substantial portion of the population, the remaining people were enriched in a particular receptor mutation that made them more resistant to AIDS, but plaque is treatable today. No more large plaque epidemies will happen anymore, independaent from that what receptors we have. What happens when AIDS gets defeated too, or as is today, totaslly preventable? This receptor becomes totally obsolete, no one needs it anymore, it dissolves among the population, and dissapears. Thus we come back again in a previous state with no protective receptor, and no more selective preassure requireing the protective receptor. Plus how many large deadly epidemies will we have in the future?
Epicdemiological knowledge evolves instead of our receptors
We had recently one Ebola, that had to become a global pandemy, but thanks to the epidemiological knowledge, that we have today, it remained kept in its place of origin, and in the civilised world, it didn't create a selective preassure.
And there is another question - why ebola appeared in the most retarded parts in Africa, and not in the civilised world? Because the civilised world has evolved hygiene, for example.
What will happen after 100 years?
Epidemies may be stopped before even started, anti viral medications will heal random viruses, and no more epidemies for us, because of evolved medicine, that evolved instead of our molecules.
There's so much ignorance here, so much wrong and downright absurd, trying to figure out where to start gives me a headache.
This kind of inanity is one of the reasons I chose to go into evolutionary biology.
Here's a brief description of what I was thinking as I was reading this drivel:
"seem dubious to me" -- says the guy that has no idea what evolution is
"more evolved or less evolved" -- there's that stupid ladder concept again, never gets old apparently
"after reaching a certain point...no longer have evolution" -- riiiight, because there is a special barrier in DNA that can both detect when this "certain point" occurs and magically block any further genetic changes
" didn't grow long sharp teeth for protection" -- uh huh, because that's exactly why carnivorous animals develop long and/or sharp teeth, for protection
"it didn't create a selective preassure" -- LOOOOOOOOOOL
"evolved medicine, that evolved instead of our molecules." -- hahah, that's soooooo adorable!
Posted 17 June 2015 - 03:02 PM
It is true, that I am not an evolutionary biologyst, however, you only mock on agruments, and fail providing contra-arguments. This gives the impression, that at least you are not correct either.
Yes, I think, that crurrently people have no selective preasure, and definately will not have a selective preassure in the future. And yes, I think, that the reason that we have no selective preasure is the development of the sciences, the technologies, and the growth of the human knowlege as general, e.g. the reason for not having a selective preasure is our brain. Thanks to it we are no longer seriously threatened by the outside temperatures, the food shortage, microbal diseases, predation from wild animals. If there exist a selective preasure today, then what is it? I can't see it.
You are sadly mistaken if you think I have some obligation to spend more than an hour typing a response explaining evolution and selection in greater detail and citing the slew of evidence that evolution occurs as though I am in a debate with a creationist. Especially when I believe it will have no effect on you. Your logic also faulty in thinking that a lack of counterargument lends any weight to your own.
Whether or not you think you're a creationist, you have presented yourself in this thread in a way that makes you nearly indistinguishable from one. Creationists that believe in superevolution (that everything made impossibly rapid "adaptations" to restore diversity after a global flood event) DO argue that evolution doesn't happen anymore, especially in humans, and this argument has been proven wrong a hundred DIFFERENT ways by innumerable people over the decades. That kind of argument is deserving of nothing but ridicule.
You are not really interested in learning anything new that would alter your own conclusions about evolution. Twice I have talked about sexual selection in this thread and you act as if it doesn't exist. You have already decided "there are no selective pressures" today and evolution does not occur in humans. You've already decided the world's biologists are WRONG about how selection works, you've also decided they are WRONG about current evolutionary trends in humans. Your best argument for this is an argument from personal incredulity which is based on a profound ignorance of evolution. I am under no compulsion to undertake the enormous task of educating you and derailing this thread by legitimizing your anti-evolution stupidity with lengthy pedantic replies.
If I was interested in dealing with creationist arguments I'd go elsewhere. I was nice to you at first and now I'm done being nice. You can probably see the difference in my tone in replying to you and niner here. I don't agree with a lot of what he says but I make an effort to be more serious about my replies because his posts are on topic, coherent, intelligent and interesting and so they are deserving of at least that much from me. Also because he seems open enough to absorb new information.
If you really wanted to know more you would look it up yourself.
Edited by Duchykins, 17 June 2015 - 03:05 PM.
Posted 18 June 2015 - 07:27 AM
Posted 18 June 2015 - 02:34 PM
Again only hostility and no contra arguments at all.
If I am a creationist, I didn't know that. lol.
I have really decided, that there are no selective preasures for people anymore, and that we are not evolving anymore, but this my view is not unchangable. I want to see the arguments, that may change my point of view. Eventually I may change it. Simply so far the arguments you provide are weak.
Sexsual selection in people does not provide changes, that may change our specie in some positive way, it only filters away the changes, that may make us less cappable of surviving, or make us worse in some way, for example mental diseases, severe genetic malformations, like the Down syndrome, extremely ugly (or as you maybe prefer the term "unhealthy") appearances, things like that. If you think, that sexual selection changes us positively, then we have to be much more beautiful today, than we have been once. After all after lets say a thousand years of naturally selecting the most beautiful and handsome, calculating two or threee generations for one hundred years, we had to see some change in our beauty. And we don't. In the past and in the present there are beautiful and ugly people. Compareing my memories for the way the children looked like in my childhood, and how the children look like today, I don't see a difference in the number of beautiful children, or in the extent of their beauty. The number of beautiful children may even has decreased.
You have already decided you're correct. You're an idiot. Piss off. I don't waste my energy on psuedointellectual retards.
Edited by Duchykins, 18 June 2015 - 02:35 PM.
Posted 19 June 2015 - 09:54 AM
Again only hostility and no contra arguments at all.
If I am a creationist, I didn't know that. lol.
I have really decided, that there are no selective preasures for people anymore, and that we are not evolving anymore, but this my view is not unchangable. I want to see the arguments, that may change my point of view. Eventually I may change it. Simply so far the arguments you provide are weak.
Sexsual selection in people does not provide changes, that may change our specie in some positive way, it only filters away the changes, that may make us less cappable of surviving, or make us worse in some way, for example mental diseases, severe genetic malformations, like the Down syndrome, extremely ugly (or as you maybe prefer the term "unhealthy") appearances, things like that. If you think, that sexual selection changes us positively, then we have to be much more beautiful today, than we have been once. After all after lets say a thousand years of naturally selecting the most beautiful and handsome, calculating two or threee generations for one hundred years, we had to see some change in our beauty. And we don't. In the past and in the present there are beautiful and ugly people. Compareing my memories for the way the children looked like in my childhood, and how the children look like today, I don't see a difference in the number of beautiful children, or in the extent of their beauty. The number of beautiful children may even has decreased.
You have already decided you're correct. You're an idiot. Piss off. I don't waste my energy on psuedointellectual retards.
Same compliments to you Have a nice day!
Posted 24 June 2015 - 08:55 AM
I've been pondering future solutions to our planets mass extinction. I wonder would it be possible to evolve smaller creatures into larger more useful creatures. I.e. taking plankton or tiny crustaceans and making them the size of cows etc?
https://en.wikipedia...Square-cube_law
Posted 26 June 2015 - 07:49 PM
I've been keeping away from this thread because I personally have little interest in ecology (because it has little basis in science and it's more of a religion), but I'm a bit bored so I'll give you my two cents.
We can't solve mass extinction or improve biodiversity. There. Opinion given. 
Every time we've tried to improve diversity by artificially introducing be it a plant or an animal in a region, we've created twice the amount of problems than the originally present. In fact I suspect we've been systematically creating problems by trying to slow extinction down - like for instance - keeping the Pandas who were already mentioned in this thread alive. They eat terrifying amounts of bamboo - and still they barely survive on the stuff, imagine all the other bamboo eating species which would have thrived in the region if the pandas weren't there. I'd argue in many cases actually killing off a species going extinct might be the better thing to do in the long run. But allas pandas are cute so we have to keep them alive so kids can throw popcorn at them in a zoo. 
The only way I can see us "fixing" a biome is if that biome is already completely dead and there's literally no way for us to do damage.
Then we could probably talk about introducing biodiversity. Though I would prefer if we do it on another planet, it still safer in the long run - especially of people who plan on getting cryoed, I sure as hell don't want to wake up to carnivorous human eating amoebas some day .
I'm half joking but also half serious. We can't cure cancer and you think we can "cure" the planet? And besides, the ecosystem is something capable of fixing itself, it has happend before and it will happen again. Just not in a human time frame.
Posted 26 June 2015 - 08:06 PM
2) Orgel's second rule: Evolution is cleverer than you are.
I don't disagree per se but, consider this:
Speed, flexibility and diversity. I don't consider genetic engineering a counter to evolution. I think it's a supplement that will bring humanity closer to viri in the ability to adapt. Or not. Every success in nature has a premise of a billion failures.
The only reason I think we'll have more success with improving humanity over the ecosystem is ... well I don't. I'm just not worried when it comes to a single species even if it's my own. But changing everything that's a bit too risky. And presumptuous about our current abilities to simulate and foresee what could go wrong. At least if we start with humanity we could have a good base to work on if we do ineed need to repair something globally - though I really hope it doesn't come to that.
Posted 26 June 2015 - 08:31 PM
I've been keeping away from this thread because I personally have little interest in ecology (because it has little basis in science and it's more of a religion), but I'm a bit bored so I'll give you my two cents.
The only way I can see us "fixing" a biome is if that biome is already completely dead and there's literally no way for us to do damage.
Then we could probably talk about introducing biodiversity. Though I would prefer if we do it on another planet, it still safer in the long run - especially of people who plan on getting cryoed, I sure as hell don't want to wake up to carnivorous human eating amoebas some day
I'm half joking but also half serious. We can't cure cancer and you think we can "cure" the planet? And besides, the ecosystem is something capable of fixing itself, it has happend before and it will happen again. Just not in a human time frame.
Maybe you think ecology has little basis in science because you have little interest in it, thus you've not really looked very hard at it. There's a lot of science behind it. Maybe you're confusing the science of ecology with the ignorance-fueled "green" movement...
All we have to do to "fix" a biome, in most cases, is undo the damage we've done to it. In those cases where you say we tried to improve diversity by artificially introducing a species, I don't think we were trying to improve diversity. More like trying to fix some other problem that humans caused, and I suspect that those introductions had little if any science behind them.
Posted 26 June 2015 - 09:13 PM
Maybe you think ecology has little basis in science because you have little interest in it, thus you've not really looked very hard at it. There's a lot of science behind it. Maybe you're confusing the science of ecology with the ignorance-fueled "green" movement...
All we have to do to "fix" a biome, in most cases, is undo the damage we've done to it. In those cases where you say we tried to improve diversity by artificially introducing a species, I don't think we were trying to improve diversity. More like trying to fix some other problem that humans caused, and I suspect that those introductions had little if any science behind them.
More often than not the "damage" is humans existing in the area to begin with. The major cause for extinction is loss of habitat.
We need food and we need housing. Even if the cultures which like to waste space by building individual houses instead of building complexes decide to urbanize, the problem won't be solved for long, the human population is expanding and it's not slowing down.
I think in the long run probably the species capable of coexisting with humanity will be the ones left standing and there is very little that can be done (except for a final solution 
) about this because humanity will keep on expanding. What I wasn't clear about is that I believe nature will find an equilibrium in this somehow anyway. It might happen at the cost of human lives in the end but it will most probably happen.
Posted 27 June 2015 - 03:20 AM
Maybe you think ecology has little basis in science because you have little interest in it, thus you've not really looked very hard at it. There's a lot of science behind it. Maybe you're confusing the science of ecology with the ignorance-fueled "green" movement...
All we have to do to "fix" a biome, in most cases, is undo the damage we've done to it. In those cases where you say we tried to improve diversity by artificially introducing a species, I don't think we were trying to improve diversity. More like trying to fix some other problem that humans caused, and I suspect that those introductions had little if any science behind them.
More often than not the "damage" is humans existing in the area to begin with. The major cause for extinction is loss of habitat.
We need food and we need housing. Even if the cultures which like to waste space by building individual houses instead of building complexes decide to urbanize, the problem won't be solved for long, the human population is expanding and it's not slowing down.
I think in the long run probably the species capable of coexisting with humanity will be the ones left standing and there is very little that can be done (except for a final solution
Actually, population growth is slowing down, at least in the developed world. I suspect it's slowing in many other parts of the world as well, to a lesser extent, and this slowing will accelerate as standards of living improve, particularly for females. In some countries, population decline is a problem now.
Whether or not we maintain biodiversity in any given place really just gets down to the value we place on it. If it matters enough, we could do it, but it obviously doesn't matter very much to most people. Nature will always find a new equilibrium for whatever conditions we create, but it might not be one that's pleasant or life-supporting for humans.
Posted 27 June 2015 - 04:29 AM
2) Orgel's second rule: Evolution is cleverer than you are.
I don't disagree per se but, consider this:
- We're faster.
- We're not as peremptory.
- We're more individualistic.
Speed, flexibility and diversity. I don't consider genetic engineering a counter to evolution. I think it's a supplement that will bring humanity closer to viri in the ability to adapt. Or not. Every success in nature has a premise of a billion failures.
The only reason I think we'll have more success with improving humanity over the ecosystem is ... well I don't. I'm just not worried when it comes to a single species even if it's my own. But changing everything that's a bit too risky. And presumptuous about our current abilities to simulate and foresee what could go wrong. At least if we start with humanity we could have a good base to work on if we do ineed need to repair something globally - though I really hope it doesn't come to that.
I don't consider genetic engineering a counter to evolution either which is one of the reasons I object to any notion that we will somehow suspend our own evolution by doing it. I also don't consider it wholly outside of "natural" selection since nearly all of the attributes we universally value in other people, especially as mates, is grounded in our social mammalian ancestry, and evaluating fitness, in survival itself. We will never get away from that because it's part of what makes us what we are. Even if some portion of us branches off into another species, they will still have that same foundation.
I agree with the rest of your sentiments here though. We're going to keep fucking up for quite some time. That basic framework of values I was talking about is just that, it's basic. We can screw that up, and we have at times, with various backward political, religious, quasiphilosophical, cultural values.
The bottom line here is that we are inherently irrational creatures. Our default reasoning position is intuitive. This is just because was best purely from a survival standpoint, we needed to be able to make snap judgments on the spot based on sensory information from our immediate surroundings. Every single last one of us is vulnerable to any number of the known types of cognitive biases (and there are quite a few), every single last one of us employs several of them every single day and never get busted on it because the people around us either have the same biases or are not using logic. It's the biggest reason why the scientific method is imperfect.
Deductive logic is difficult for most except perhaps a section of autistics. Very difficult. Even formally trained logicians often have to take an extra step in reasoning to bypass their intuitive reasoning in order to prime their minds for solving logic problems. I have personally seen logicians, philosophers, mathematicians and scientists fall all over themselves for two reasons: they are falling victim to their cognitive biases and intuitive reasoning (not really their fault) and they believe they are learned enough not to do these things, or at least learned enough to catch and correct themselves (also not wholly their fault because they generally represent the section of humanity that is best at thinking logically).
We are way too arrogant right now, way too comfortable with the idea we're "advanced" enough to tinker with nature like this. Look at Yosemite, what a fucking disaster, one failure right after another. And at such a relatively simple thing too. Look at how childish we are.
We're going to "design" better than nature does? We don't even know what causes more than 70% of birth defects. That's a whole ocean of "what the fuck just happened and what can we do about it" we haven't even begun to paddle in. All we've learned so far, and yet we still know so little. I'll be the first to acknowledge that despite the ingenuity of evolution, there is a bit of stupid design in nature, we see errors, inefficiency and weirdness all over just our own bodies. There is some stupid design in our eyeballs, our spine, our knees, our sinuses, our teeth, our pharynx, urinary tract, pelvis, (and vitamin C seriously?) etc. We're still worse designers than this.
We'll never "preserve biodiversity" or preserve the biodome in the manner that most people think. We literally cannot. In nearly every inhabited region on this planet, we are an invasive species. We upset ecosystems and cause extinctions everywhere we go by default. We've been doing it since our infancy, we have perfect examples of this in things like the extinctions that followed in the wake of the very first prehistoric people in North America, everywhere they went, we can see in the record what species disappeared shortly or immediately thereafter. Technology really has nothing to do with it except magnify the effect we have. We're simply an invasive species, inherently. We are still relatively new to most of these inhabited regions and the local flora and fauna have yet to figure out what's going to die, what's going to live, what's going to change, and what the new equilibrium is going to be with us in the equation. Things like this operate in deep time.
I gotta stop rambling. Sorry.
Edited by Duchykins, 27 June 2015 - 04:32 AM.
Posted 27 June 2015 - 08:49 AM
Actually, population growth is slowing down, at least in the developed world. I suspect it's slowing in many other parts of the world as well, to a lesser extent, and this slowing will accelerate as standards of living improve, particularly for females. In some countries, population decline is a problem now.
Even if it's slowing down in the developed world it's getting a hardy boost with the help of emigration and all western countries being so open about that - not that I'm opposed to emigration in any way, I'm just saying it's not slowing down significantly in the overall even in the developed world.
Now there's one thing we the users on this forum have to consider - extended lifespans - a lot of us believe it's possible otherwise we wouldn't spend time here. Would that change the projected population growth of humanity in the future? I'm pretty sure it will. It's counter intuitive to think it will negatively impact population growth, people probably wouldn't have less kids just because they live longer, Europeans already have one or two kids on the average so less than that would be no kids at all and I doubt that will become a trend any time in the foreseeable future.
So it's good to work on the assumption our advocacy for longer lives will propel the humanity to further population growth.
In a more sci fi turn of events with the VR revolution ready to sweep across the world now a lot of men might decided to go for virtual wives like the Japanese do and stop procreating entirely but that alone won't stop the population growth it will just make headway for polygamy to become legalized imho 
. And I honestly don't think there's a significant danger of that happening en mass anyway, considering all the stigma you'd get, disregarding the recent Hollywood movie which tried to present it like something that will be totally accepted in the future.
Humorous possibilities aside, I don't think population growth is that important at this point anyway, we're already present in every biome and our population would have to drop significantly for us to reverse any of the processes of adaptation to us that are going on.
Posted 27 June 2015 - 01:34 PM
There are many parts of the world where the population is still growing, though the rate of increase is slowing, and some of the more developed parts of the world where it's not growing or even shrinking. When demographers project these trends, the more optimistic of them see the world population peaking around 2050, and gradually declining thereafter. Of course there are a number of factors that could change such projections (like a very lethal and contagious virus with a long lag time between infectiousness and symptoms), but that's the current trend. Life extension would of course counter the trend, but probably less than most people think, because it's unlikely to be both highly effective and in world-wide use before the end of the century.
Considering the accelerating rate of technological change these days, it's actually kind of ludicrous to make predictions decades in the future, so they all need to be taken with a large grain of salt. Perhaps VR and sexbots will radically alter the sociological and reproductive landscapes-- Time will tell.
Edited by niner, 27 June 2015 - 01:46 PM.
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