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Willravel · 08-06-2010, 10:36 PM

We don't evolve anymore, at least not in the sense we have for billions of years. 12,000 years ago, humans started domesticating plants along with animals and developed technology and medicine. Now, environmental factors change moment to moment, so fast they're irrelevant to natural selection. A few hundred years ago, being overweight indicated wealth and security and as a result was favorable from a reproductive standpoint. Now being overweight indicates poor health and possibly bad genes and is less favorable. A few hundred years in an evolutionary timescale is nothing, a pittance.

Before too long, we'll start in with eugenics and then we'll be, generally, strictly separated from evolution. We'll probably always have random mutations, but because of technology and medicine natural selection will no longer have any bearing on our development over time as a species. It raises a lot of questions. We will soon have the power to significantly influence the direction we move in as a species, but should we? What right do we have to become our own gods? Should my child have gills or live for 1000 years? What are the broader implications of creating people immune to disease?

Regarding humans becoming weaker, I don't think that makes any sense. We'd be weaker if we lived during a time when humans were hunter-gatherers and needed higher strength and such, but we don't. We live in the time of cubicles and computers. I don't need to run 12 miles a day and track a mastodon in order to earn food, shelter, and creature comforts. We're not weaker, we've adapted to our artificial surroundings. And we're actually ridiculously smart compared to our distant relatives. We're highly specialized, though. I can play a piano and market a product and drive a car and a million other things, whereas many generations ago all that was needed was to hunt, track, protect, and procreate. We're asked to solve problems that require knowledge of systems withing systems within systems. Let's see an Aztec write an operating system or perform brain surgery.

08-06-2010, 10:36 PM	#3 (permalink)
Willravel ... a sort of licensed troubleshooter.	We don't evolve anymore, at least not in the sense we have for billions of years. 12,000 years ago, humans started domesticating plants along with animals and developed technology and medicine. Now, environmental factors change moment to moment, so fast they're irrelevant to natural selection. A few hundred years ago, being overweight indicated wealth and security and as a result was favorable from a reproductive standpoint. Now being overweight indicates poor health and possibly bad genes and is less favorable. A few hundred years in an evolutionary timescale is nothing, a pittance. Before too long, we'll start in with eugenics and then we'll be, generally, strictly separated from evolution. We'll probably always have random mutations, but because of technology and medicine natural selection will no longer have any bearing on our development over time as a species. It raises a lot of questions. We will soon have the power to significantly influence the direction we move in as a species, but should we? What right do we have to become our own gods? Should my child have gills or live for 1000 years? What are the broader implications of creating people immune to disease? Regarding humans becoming weaker, I don't think that makes any sense. We'd be weaker if we lived during a time when humans were hunter-gatherers and needed higher strength and such, but we don't. We live in the time of cubicles and computers. I don't need to run 12 miles a day and track a mastodon in order to earn food, shelter, and creature comforts. We're not weaker, we've adapted to our artificial surroundings. And we're actually ridiculously smart compared to our distant relatives. We're highly specialized, though. I can play a piano and market a product and drive a car and a million other things, whereas many generations ago all that was needed was to hunt, track, protect, and procreate. We're asked to solve problems that require knowledge of systems withing systems within systems. Let's see an Aztec write an operating system or perform brain surgery.