Evolution! Humans have reach their utopia!

asgoodasitgets

According to this report humans have reach their peak where evolution is concerned.

What do you think?

#37 "should" this was used in the context that under normal conditions, without all the modern day advances, in the natural scheme of things people would not live to the grand old ages that they live now, that was why I put in about the people in the African town, they live un-aided as it were nature takes it course, but because we have advanced so rapidly our lives have been extended beyond what would have been the natural scheme, hence we are now over populated in the extreme.

I am not saying that we should bump people off, or just let them die, but it is a problem and it's only getting bigger.

if by "lung disease" you mean emphysema...uh, that kills people off WELL after breeding age and is therefore NOT a selective pressure. Medical advances keep people with severe asthma alive well past breeding age as well. Very little kills people off before breeding age (in the developed world) or deters them from breeding, for that matter.

As far as I can tell sexual selection appears to be favoring the lower socioeconomic classes and third world nations, since the more educated and financially well off, statistically speaking, a family is, the less they breed. Isn't there some sort of concern about caucasians making themselves extinct by electively failing to breed?

Oh geez, Noelle, you were doing so good in that first paragraph. Caucasians can't become extinct because they're not a species.

I don't think you meant that to sound as <<eee>> as it did. Or maybe you did - I don't know you. Anyway, not all poor people are non-white, for one. I'll stop there.

Anyway, I came here to make the point that Autism Spectrum is probably no evolutionary threat to non-ASD humanity. I don't want to generalize, but they typically don't do the "social" thing so well, which makes out-breeding the rest of the population a degree more difficult.

Extinction is not a term reserved solely for species, so caucasians can become extinct as well. 

I think the original assertion of the article is odd. The geneticist certainly talks of evolution as if it has an ultimate goal. Evolution doesn't really work that way. At any given time, we would expect all species to have a relatively stable evolutionary relationship with their environment. A change in environment is what makes species change significantly. Similarly, as the environment of the earth changes, humans will evolve along with it. Or if humans ever take up extraterrestrial colonization, the environments which humans are exposed to could be very significantly different.

Peak of evolution? Huh. Humans are so flawed that this can't be it.

Hmm I think we are. Now we are on the road to self destruction!

uh, yeah. Sorry, didn't mean to sound all white supremacist there. I don't really care whether we disappear as a race, or not. It's not like we've done such a bang-up job on the world, plus by definition I won't be there, so what diff does it make to me?.  I merely meant to point out that there is chatter (blather? Babble?) online about the less than zero population growth of caucasians as a whole.  If caucasians have less than replacement reproduction and other races have more than replacement, there do appear to be some selective forces at work...

If the alarmists are right and the resource shortage results in mass die-offs and a major scaling back of the world's population, selection forces will once more impact the human race and we could yet grow gills. ;)

in response to the idea that medicine and other advanced technologies keeping alive people with BAD mutations: Darwin's The Descent of Man describes how the human ability for sympathy is one of the greatest achievements of man and is what differentiates humans from other animals. so, with the abandonment of the "hunter and gatherer" period, and even the agricultural period and now moving into the technology age, man's need for sympathy is growing as we are moving further and further away from animalistic-type evolution. why is sympathy beneficial and a form of human evolution? because when we are sympathetic to another, we are liked by others, and, in essence, the more sympathetic a person is, the more likely another person will be to want to procreate with them. then, these sympathetic parents will breed sympathetic children (through the process of socialization) and successive generations of people will be more and more sympathetic. so, although we might not be evolving in survival-type ways much anymore, we are evolving to become more and more sympathetic, and to create more medicines to help people, etc. creating medicine is a form of human sympathetic evolution. imagine a new generations that are more caring towards one another and their environment, solving the problems of global warming and prejudice (?)!!

Original Post by floggingsully:

As long as a species is procreating, evolution is occuring.

I agree with this.

Original Post by santonacci:

Original Post by corduroyfirekills3:

Which of course invokes the fallacy that evolution is traveling in the direction of some ideal, but whatever.

The notion that, as a species, we are currently "perfect" is rather hubristic.

I agree with these two things as well.

Original Post by sharoneclaire:

whoever above said evolution potential is in the brain...I read something recently that autistic folks may be the next evolutionary stage.

How so? In all the people with autism I've encountered the mind works differrently it's true, but there are so many things they have difficulty with, from human interaction to random things such as a sometimes painful hypersensitivity to colors or sounds, that it doesn't seem like an effective thing as an adaptive measure.

Yeah, and who's procreating with all these autistic kids anyway?

Original Post by pakmafafmr:

in response to the idea that medicine and other advanced technologies keeping alive people with BAD mutations: Darwin's The Descent of Man describes how the human ability for sympathy is one of the greatest achievements of man and is what differentiates humans from other animals. so, with the abandonment of the "hunter and gatherer" period, and even the agricultural period and now moving into the technology age, man's need for sympathy is growing as we are moving further and further away from animalistic-type evolution. why is sympathy beneficial and a form of human evolution? because when we are sympathetic to another, we are liked by others, and, in essence, the more sympathetic a person is, the more likely another person will be to want to procreate with them. then, these sympathetic parents will breed sympathetic children (through the process of socialization) and successive generations of people will be more and more sympathetic. so, although we might not be evolving in survival-type ways much anymore, we are evolving to become more and more sympathetic, and to create more medicines to help people, etc. creating medicine is a form of human sympathetic evolution. imagine a new generations that are more caring towards one another and their environment, solving the problems of global warming and prejudice (?)!!

You seem to be promoting the theory of "inheritance of acquired characteristics" which is not how evolution works. If being sympathetic comes from socialization, then it is a trait acquired during a person's lifetime, not one which is built into their DNA any more that it is in anyone else's DNA. People who  develop big muscles due to regularly conditioning their bodies will not produce progeny with big muscles. Neither will people who condition their minds automatically produce progeny who are smarter. People with tattoos or piercings dont give birth to babies with tattoos or peircings. You pass on your genes intact - just as they were passed to you. The modifications you have made to your body/mind/self-esteem/etc are all after-market adjustments.

The humans in the Janjaweed militia of Sudan who recruit child soldiers to commit unspeakably atrocious acts, the humans in Nazi Germany, the humans in Ghengis Khan's Army, nuns living quiet, peaceful lives in convents, the humans in the Peace Corps who donate their time and energy to make people's lives better - all genetically the same. All the result of socialization, priviledge and circumstance.

I guess to sum up my point, just because we have new social contracts and norms doesnt imply that humans themselves have changed internally. We havent. "Social evolution" has nothing to do with actual physical genetic evolution. We have the same capability for genocide and destruction that we've always had.

Decent discussion here, I don't feel intelligent enough to jump in, but I certainly feel a little more smarter about the subject of evolution :)