Posted on 07/10/2004 7:06:11 AM PDT by jalisco555
I disagree with this point. Due to military conscription in WWI, WW2 and other wars, intelligent and unintelligent men within the selected age range were just as likely to end up in mortal combat. Possession of an above average intelligence wouldn't have done much to stop you from being mowed down by a German machine gunner at the Battle of the Somme and if you had "broken the line" or refused to go "over the top" then you would have been shot for cowardice. That's just one example of a 20th century war scenario, but there are plenty of equally dangerous and arbitrary ones.
Intelligent men may also have felt morally obliged to volunteer for active service during WWI and WWII, in order to preserve their freedom and way of life. One case is that of the brilliant physicist H.G.J. Moseley who discovered that each element has a unique atomic number. He volunteered for military service during World War I and became a signal officer in the British army. He was killed in action in Gallipoli in 1915.
The effect of wars in the 20th century was probably to make the population less fit. This was because the physically fit males were more likely to be killed in the war before they could reproduce, (since they were drafted first), whereas those with genetic disorders, physical and mental disabilities etc, were not drafted and so were never in harm's way. In wars before the advent of machine guns, poison gas, aerial bombing, tanks, artillery etc, the evolutionary effect of war might have been to select for the more physically agile/powerful and intelligent individuals. But in most 20th century wars those traits would probably have been less helpful to an individual soldier's survival than luck.
We are fully evolved. Most creatures that we see are fully evolved. Who knows where the next evolutionary step will come from, but I would keep a close eye on the slime ponds.
The next step will come from genetic engineering. In fact already has.
But then that's not evolution is it? That's intelligent design.
And of course if SARS was really biowarfare, that would be flawed intelligent design, but design nonetheless.
If the new creation reproduces true, then it might count as a success.
I'm thinking of all the Frankenfoods.
Driving through Iowa in the 50s I remember seeing signs on the cornfields touting this or that hybrid. I understood that the corn they grew had to be planted with factory seed because the hybrid wouldn't reproduce itself. Maybe cloning isn't quite as outrageous as genetic engineering. There are people who want the genetic engineering here and now for themselves and their children. I think it is a Bad Idea. A lot of people want only perfect babies, and soon they will want only the new, improved, hybrid perfect babies--factory seed.
In the 50's that was probably hybrids created using cross-polination. And I think that's only true of some hybrids.
Some of the Frankenfood like the genetically engineered corn, does self-reproduce, because farmers have complained that the genetic traits are jumping into adjacent fields.
So I think we have already crossed that bridge.
Maybe we have. My money is on transgenic chickens. It's going to be the Island of Doctor Moreau down here on this planet if we don't watch out.
Well, we probably couldn't interbreed with Neandertals anyway, so they never were human, and peaceful coexistence with them wouldn't have added to our genetic diversity.
Chimps also have much more genetic diversity within their species than humans do in ours. But both species wage war among themselves. It's just that humans migrate all around the world, while chimps stay in their own isolated regions. IIRC there are at least 3 separate areas in Africa where you find chimps - one of which was only discovered a couple years ago. And this is not counting bonobos, who split from regular chimps into their own species.
If a human generation is 20 years, then for a human population to be genetically isolated for 50 generations that would take 1,000 years! I don't think that any group of Homo sapiens were ever isolated from their neighbors for that long. So any mutations that took over a single population would eventually find their way into many other populations before enough mutations were able to build up between any two populations to make them separate species.
I think you are right. Many of the people playing with this, have no appreciation of the dangers involved.
It's like that one cure that was attempted using a genetically modified virus. It cured the target illness but then killed the patients. But what if that virus had escaped into the wild?
We really need to fully understand the genome before we attempt stuff like this, to the point of being able to model behavior in a computer. Complete with interaction with known viruses, etc.
Interesting, I have often wondered the same thing too. Our brains (and therefore our minds) are organs just like any other in our bodies, and subject to exactly the same evolutionary processes. Our behavioural characteristics are influenced by our genes, so any mutations in those genes will produce differing behaviours which will alter a person's ability to survive and prosper in whichever society or culture he/she is born into.
The article talks only of "physical" evolution, such as inherited immunity from diseases etc. but "mental" evolution is happening too, and the driver for it is social and cultural change.
You are confusing evolution with progressing. We have reached a state in which the more educated (intelligent?) people have negative population growth. We may be evolving to a less intelligent society.
Historically Mohammed was a prophet of death and destruction, whereas Jesus was of sacrifice and forgiveness. Diametrically opposed, by anyones estimation.
99% of Native Americans that were wiped out by the Europeans died as the result of diseases they had never before encountered. Wars with the colonists killed relatively few in comparison.
Thinking that world wars have ended is a bad bet. It's just a matter of time before the terrorists get a nuclear device and kill millions of people, setting off another revision to the gene pool.
A nuclear terrorist attack would have absolutely no effect on evolution. Survival is dependant on distance from the blast, and nothing to due with genetics. The only way you would be correct is if mulsims were exterminated in retalitation.
Does that mean they didn't have "souls", what ever those are?
If we had bred with them, would that have changed?
But if you don't understand it, how will you pass judgement on new procedures?
How is it that they have NEVER considered that most obvious question?
evolution and extinction should be mutually exclusive,
shouldn't they?
Your understanding of history is sorely lacking. How can you make any judgement in the face of such ignorance?
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