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Originally Posted by C4 Diesel
A little off... Medical progress doesn't change natural selection in the sense of it changes the selection criteria... It DOES AWAY with selection criteria, which stops natural selection and thus the gene pool would not change under those circumstances.
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Family planning is a selection criteria.
Stable societies that aren't awash in mass violence is a selection criteria.
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Originally Posted by C4 Diesel
However, to people that say sexual selection does affect the genepool, I will offer you this... While the less fit do reproduce, they very infrequently reproduce with the more fit (not too many people who are ultimately attractive, have great personalities, and are supremely intelligent with mate with anything much less than themselves). You could possibly make the argument that this creates sexual isolation of the two "populations". However this would be a difficult case to make because it requires very little interbreeding to bring a population's genepool to the species average.
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First, you are assuming a very strong correlation between parent and child fitness, for two seperate pools to form.
Second, people change. At 13, that eventually supremely intelligent, ultimately attractive and great personality person might knock up the ditzy cheerleader, or be knocked up by the football quarterback.
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Originally Posted by Charlatan
That said, we are rapidly entering a phase where we are taking control of the process of evolution. Right or wrong, for better or worse the pandora's box of genetics has been opened. In time we will be able to modify ourselves in some very interesting/horrifying ways...
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And this trumps all the other arguements.
I was once worried by possible genetic drift of the human race into strange places, caused by our lack of 'survival-traction', on a genetic level. But very shortly people will be picking what genes go into their children.
The power, scale and impact of this will make sexual selection look as important as cosmic background radiation is currently to evolution.
To take a possiblity from RAH, even if all you did was select which of your own genes get put into your progentety, the impact would be huge.