Modern Humans And Evolution

[Speakpigeon]

There is no evidence that the passenger pigeon is still evolving. I think we have discovered the way to stop species from evolving.

Species don't "stop evolving", they just don't change. And they don't change because there's no environmental pressure for them to change. Not a problem at all.There's no fundamental difference between a species that doesn't change and one that is evolving. Both are broadly going to be well adapted to their actual environment.

Evolution is not good in itself. It's just a consequence of a changed environment whereby a species is no longer sufficiently well adapted to the new environment for most individuals of the species to survive and reproduce. Only those individuals best adapted will survive to engender the new species. Even a changing world isn't necessarily a problem for a species that doesn't change. What matters is the environment that's relevant to the survival of the species.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

Science, technology, cheap centralized energy, and abundant food has taken humans out of natural selection. We live in an environment that has no mechanism for natural selection.

Natural selection does not really apply to humans anymore. Childhood inoculations minimize disease that would kill off children with weaker immune systems and genetic deficiencies. Those born with genetic problems survive due to science and technology who would normally not survive childhood.

Those who would likely die young pass on bad genes and harmful mutations.

Through the first half of the 20th century people had many kids because only a few wuld survive.

Something like 7.5 billion human beings alive today, a lot of them surviving serious hardship. We could afford to have to go through some serious hardship for all of us.

So, what's the problem already?
EB

 

[skepticalbip]

There is no evidence that the passenger pigeon is still evolving. I think we have discovered the way to stop species from evolving.

Species don't "stop evolving", they just don't change. And they don't change because there's no environmental pressure for them to change. Not a problem at all.There's no fundamental difference between a species that doesn't change and one that is evolving. Both are broadly going to be well adapted to their actual environment.

Evolution is not good in itself. It's just a consequence of a changed environment whereby a species is no longer sufficiently well adapted to the new environment for most individuals of the species to survive and reproduce. Only those individuals best adapted will survive to engender the new species. Even a changing world isn't necessarily a problem for a species that doesn't change. What matters is the environment that's relevant to the survival of the species.
EB

That was a joke and so obvious a joke that I didn't think a smiley face was needed.

Passenger pigeons are extinct. A way to insure that a species stops evolving is to drive them into extinction. Species no longer evolve when there are no more members of that species. Extant species do continue to evolve.

But I guess, as Kieth&co says, jokes that need to be explained aren't funny.

 

[steve_bank]

I got to hear Stephen J Gould speak here in Seattle. He put up the ape to man graphic, it was one of his pet peeves.

 

[untermensche]

I got to hear Stephen J Gould speak here in Seattle. He put up the ape to man graphic, it was one of his pet peeves.

They have led many to think humans evolved from chimps.

 

[skepticalbip]

I got to hear Stephen J Gould speak here in Seattle. He put up the ape to man graphic, it was one of his pet peeves.

This one is even kookier, but funny.

 

[Jokodo]

The only environment a person who needs their food cooked can survive in is a man-made environment.

What person is that?

No such person exists.

Humans do not need to cook their food to eat it.

Why don't you just admit you are wrong and move on?

The only environment a wildebeest or other herd animal can survive in is a wildebeest-made environment.

They survive just fine in captivity. Isolated.

There are quite a few isolated horses doing just fine.

Isolated pack animals too.

Interesting. Captivity counts as a natural environment?

 

[steve_bank]

Animals in captivity terquire infudions of outside dna.

 

[Underseer]

What person is that?

No such person exists.

Humans do not need to cook their food to eat it.

Why don't you just admit you are wrong and move on?



They survive just fine in captivity. Isolated.

There are quite a few isolated horses doing just fine.

Isolated pack animals too.

Interesting. Captivity counts as a natural environment?

Evolution doesn't make a distinction between natural selection and selective breeding. It hasn't ever since they changed the definition to "changes in allele frequencies (within a breeding population)."

 

[bilby]

What person is that?

No such person exists.

Humans do not need to cook their food to eat it.

Why don't you just admit you are wrong and move on?



They survive just fine in captivity. Isolated.

There are quite a few isolated horses doing just fine.

Isolated pack animals too.

Interesting. Captivity counts as a natural environment?

Evolution doesn't make a distinction between natural selection and selective breeding. It hasn't ever since they changed the definition to "changes in allele frequencies (within a breeding population)."

Captivity is a natural environment. Humans and their behaviour (including the domestication, capture, breeding, and exhibiting of animals and plants) are a part of nature.

 

[Jokodo]

What person is that?

No such person exists.

Humans do not need to cook their food to eat it.

Why don't you just admit you are wrong and move on?



They survive just fine in captivity. Isolated.

There are quite a few isolated horses doing just fine.

Isolated pack animals too.

Interesting. Captivity counts as a natural environment?

Evolution doesn't make a distinction between natural selection and selective breeding. It hasn't ever since they changed the definition to "changes in allele frequencies (within a breeding population)."

Of course.

untermensche, however, appears to be operating with a definition along the lines of "changes in allele frequencies within a breeding population whose environment has not been significantly altered by humans" when discussing selection in humans. That's how he justifies his claim that selection is no longer operative since individuals who wouldn't have survived a couple centuries ago now do.

When presented the fact that members of tons of other species wouldn't survive in an environment not significantly shaped by their conspecifics, he turns around 180 degrees and pulls out survival in captivity as a counter-argument.

 

[untermensche]

I point out the clear distinction between:

1) A set of traits that have survived in one environment, developed in an environment, but have trouble in another.

2) A trait that has never survived in any environment.

If this distinction can't be seen then little can be seen.

 

[steve_bank]

I point out the clear distinction between:

1) A set of traits that have survived in one environment, developed in an environment, but have trouble in another.

2) A trait that has never survived in any environment.

If this distinction can't be seen then little can be seen.

A singularly post of distinction. It distinguishes itself from all other posts.

 

[Jokodo]

I point out the clear distinction between:

1) A set of traits that have survived in one environment, developed in an environment, but have trouble in another.

2) A trait that has never survived in any environment.

If this distinction can't be seen then little can be seen.

Both are traits that are or aren't lethal depending on the environment. But hey, if you really think the chronological order in which the environment that makes them lethal and the environment that makes them survivable should mean that one of them but not the other spells an end to natural selection, you'd still have to conclude that natural selection ended 2 billion years ago: When the aerobes emerged who relied on an atmosphere containing significant amounts of molecular hydrogen, which would previously have been a lethal defect in any environment; or 370-ish million years ago, when our Tiktaalik-like ancestors' gills atrophied - clearly a lethal defect in any environment previously occupied by any vertebrate.

 

[untermensche]

I point out the clear distinction between:

1) A set of traits that have survived in one environment, developed in an environment, but have trouble in another.

2) A trait that has never survived in any environment.

If this distinction can't be seen then little can be seen.

Both are traits that are or aren't lethal depending on the environment. But hey, if you really think the chronological order in which the environment that makes them lethal and the environment that makes them survivable should mean that one of them but not the other spells an end to natural selection, you'd still have to conclude that natural selection ended 2 billion years ago: When the aerobes emerged who relied on an atmosphere containing significant amounts of molecular hydrogen, which would previously have been a lethal defect in any environment; or 370-ish million years ago, when our Tiktaalik-like ancestors' gills atrophied - clearly a lethal defect in any environment previously occupied by any vertebrate.

You keep failing to see the clear distinction between evolving a trait that is not effective when the environment changes and having a trait that needs a man-made entity to survive in ANY environment. A trait that did not evolve to survive in ANY prior environment.

They are not the same thing.

Not close.

You can't make them the same thing.

 

[Jokodo]

I point out the clear distinction between:

1) A set of traits that have survived in one environment, developed in an environment, but have trouble in another.

2) A trait that has never survived in any environment.

If this distinction can't be seen then little can be seen.

Both are traits that are or aren't lethal depending on the environment. But hey, if you really think the chronological order in which the environment that makes them lethal and the environment that makes them survivable should mean that one of them but not the other spells an end to natural selection, you'd still have to conclude that natural selection ended 2 billion years ago: When the aerobes emerged who relied on an atmosphere containing significant amounts of molecular hydrogen, which would previously have been a lethal defect in any environment; or 370-ish million years ago, when our Tiktaalik-like ancestors' gills atrophied - clearly a lethal defect in any environment previously occupied by any vertebrate.

You keep failing to see the clear distinction between evolving a trait that is not effective when the environment changes and having a trait that needs a man-made entity to survive in ANY environment. A trait that did not evolve to survive in ANY prior environment.

They are not the same thing.

Not close.

You can't make them the same thing.

Then go ahead and tell me one environment that has not been significantly reshaped by humans (e. g. by driving large predators to extinction) in which you, or I, or any living human would survive alone, without tools and cooked food for a year, i. e. a full seasonal cycle.

Just one.

You can't. You'd probably starve to death as soon as whatever easily accessible and nourishing fruit the environment provides in plenty goes out of season. In the unlikely case that you don't, you'll be eaten alive long before the year is over.

You, and I, and every human being alive in the last several hundred thousand and more likely millions of years has needed "man-made entit[ies] to survive in ANY environment". So once again, how exactly are fire, tools, and the protection provided by fellow band members different in kind from synthetic insulin?

 

[untermensche]

You keep failing to see the clear distinction between evolving a trait that is not effective when the environment changes and having a trait that needs a man-made entity to survive in ANY environment. A trait that did not evolve to survive in ANY prior environment.

They are not the same thing.

Not close.

You can't make them the same thing.

Then go ahead and tell me one environment that has not been significantly reshaped by humans (e. g. by driving large predators to extinction) in which you, or I, or any living human would survive alone, without tools and cooked food for a year, i. e. a full seasonal cycle.

Just one.

You can't. You'd probably starve to death as soon as whatever easily accessible and nourishing fruit the environment provides in plenty goes out of season. In the unlikely case that you don't, you'll be eaten alive long before the year is over.

You, and I, and every human being alive in the last several hundred thousand and more likely millions of years has needed "man-made entit[ies] to survive in ANY environment". So once again, how exactly are fire, tools, and the protection provided by fellow band members different in kind from synthetic insulin?

Of course you want to change the subject.

Having a trait become less effective because of a change in environment is natural selection.

Creating something using cognitive capacities that allows a certain trait to survive that never survived in any other environment is not natural selection.

It is a completely different process.

 

[Jokodo]

You keep failing to see the clear distinction between evolving a trait that is not effective when the environment changes and having a trait that needs a man-made entity to survive in ANY environment. A trait that did not evolve to survive in ANY prior environment.

They are not the same thing.

Not close.

You can't make them the same thing.

Then go ahead and tell me one environment that has not been significantly reshaped by humans (e. g. by driving large predators to extinction) in which you, or I, or any living human would survive alone, without tools and cooked food for a year, i. e. a full seasonal cycle.

Just one.

You can't. You'd probably starve to death as soon as whatever easily accessible and nourishing fruit the environment provides in plenty goes out of season. In the unlikely case that you don't, you'll be eaten alive long before the year is over.

You, and I, and every human being alive in the last several hundred thousand and more likely millions of years has needed "man-made entit[ies] to survive in ANY environment". So once again, how exactly are fire, tools, and the protection provided by fellow band members different in kind from synthetic insulin?

Of course you want to change the subject.

Having a trait become less effective because of a change in environment is natural selection.

Creating something using cognitive capacities that allows a certain trait to survive that never survived in any other environment is not natural selection.

It is a completely different process.

Oh, I am not changing the subject. It was you who said "having a trait that needs a man-made entity to survive in ANY environment" equals an end to natural selection. These are your exact words, I copypasted them without modification.

Unless you can quote an environment you or I would survive in with a reasonably high probability for an entire year under the parameters stated, I just showed that all of us have had such traits since at least the time of homo erectus.

Can you?

 

[untermensche]

What I said was that survival of traits that never survived before, only because of a human invention, is not natural selection.

It is also not the end of natural selection.

It is a completely different process.

Natural selection is about survival or failure to survive based on randomly arising genetic traits.

It is not about survival based only on human invention.

 

[Jokodo]

What I said was that survival of traits that never survived before, only because of a human invention, is not natural selection.

It is also not the end of natural selection.

It is a completely different process.

Natural selection is about survival or failure to survive based on randomly arising genetic traits.

It is not about survival based only on human invention.

The "survival of traits that never survived before, only because of a human invention" has been going on for as long as there are humans -- everyone alive is the product of it. A couple order of magnitudes longer if you replace "human invention" with "the interventions of conspecifics". At the very least since their are mammals: Not being able to process the types of food found in the wild up to a certain age is a rather clear-cut case of a lethal defect unless there's someone nursing you.

Natural selection is about survival based on heritable traits in a given environment. There's no clause saying the environment must be untouched and unmodified by the actions of humans, conspecifics, or other lifeforms. If it were, there'd be precious few species on the planet that are subject to it.