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-   -   (Lack of) Human Evolution. (https://www.musicbanter.com/current-events-philosophy-religion/49640-lack-human-evolution.html)

boo boo 06-03-2010 09:35 AM
Creatures evolve out of necessity depending on their situation, they don't just mutate for the hell of it.

I think we're at a point where we wont evolve much further, maybe slightly in some ways, but we don't really have any more needs that require us to adapt something new, but neither do we really have anything that we no longer need or use.

We may eventually merge into one race, but that would take a loooooooooooong time and it really depends on weither or not racism will eventually go away and people will no longer have a desire to preserve their race.

duga 06-03-2010 09:59 AM
Technically they do mutate for the hell of it...mutations are totally random. There have probably been millions of mutations throughout history providing a cool little trick to some creature but since it didn't particularly create a survival advantage, it was most likely lost after a couple of generations.

I feel any further physical human evolution will be purely aesthetic (blending into one race as boo boo put it), but the big part will come with mental evolution (but only if we stop cutting education when funds get tight).

Also...boo boo, you are back!!

RVCA 06-04-2010 12:44 PM
I was just gonna say the same thing, duga. It would make sense that if humans survived long enough to experience any kind of noticeable physical mutation (which is looking unlikely with the current state of world affairs), we'd see an increase in brain size, which would probably lead to an increase in head size and overall body size.

Guybrush 06-04-2010 04:54 PM
Hmm, mutations happen all the time, though it's a relatively more rare occurrence that these mutations are expressed in an individual in a way that changes morphology and which is discovered by science/medicine.

Mutations doesn't have to be the key word to understand this, even though it's an essential ingredient. Just imagine for head/brain size that people vary around a norm. Some have smaller heads than the average, some have larger. If the large people have more reproductive success and produce more surviving babies who inherit their big-head genes and this is a continuing trend, then there's directional selection - natural or sexual - which over time will result in larger heads.

Right now, I don't think there's a trend like that. At least not on a large scale. ;)

edit :

And I'd still say that creatures don't evolve out of necessity because that implies there's a choice. Evolution is still just a consequence of the variation of life coupled with natural selection. Need doesn't really enter into it. If you have 5 white rabbits and 5 black rabbits and you choose to kill all the black rabbits, your little rabbit population would soon consist only of white rabbits. You could say evolution has taken place and black has been cleaned out from the population genome. Still, you wouldn't say that this evolution happened because the white rabbits needed it to. It's just a consequence of your selection and you selected white bunnies, almost like nature will "select" for animals who are capable and able to reproduce.

duga 06-04-2010 06:22 PM
Yeah, I don't think head size would change too much since that implies we would be selecting for larger heads, as tore mentioned. We have the potential to select for brain capacity, however. For a while, the trend was to place more and more educational requirements on children as in topics that were once covered in college are now taught in high school. In the US it seems we are regressing, but in other parts of the world at least educational excellence is a big deal. This is a form of natural selection in itself. It's very subtle and will take a long time before there is any real noticeable difference, but let's say we time travel 1000 years in the future. I'm sure by then there would be something to compare to today's standards.

RVCA 06-04-2010 09:16 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by duga (Post 876888)
Yeah, I don't think head size would change too much since that implies we would be selecting for larger heads, as tore mentioned. We have the potential to select for brain capacity, however. For a while, the trend was to place more and more educational requirements on children as in topics that were once covered in college are now taught in high school. In the US it seems we are regressing, but in other parts of the world at least educational excellence is a big deal. This is a form of natural selection in itself. It's very subtle and will take a long time before there is any real noticeable difference, but let's say we time travel 1000 years in the future. I'm sure by then there would be something to compare to today's standards.
That's what I mean though. If selection favors the more intelligent, you'd think brain size would increase over time, resulting in larger heads. It's like how Ornithiscian Dinosaurs evolved into ridiculously big sizes as a means of better digesting the poor selection of non-flowering plants during the Jurassic era.

Sljslj 06-04-2010 10:13 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by RVCA (Post 877006)
That's what I mean though. If selection favors the more intelligent, you'd think brain size would increase over time, resulting in larger heads. It's like how Ornithiscian Dinosaurs evolved into ridiculously big sizes as a means of better digesting the poor selection of non-flowering plants during the Jurassic era.
Brain size isn't directly related to intelligence, atleast that's my understanding.

RVCA 06-04-2010 11:51 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sljslj (Post 877024)
Brain size isn't directly related to intelligence, atleast that's my understanding.
I don't know anything about the brain, but I've got to assume that if your brain is more massive, you've got more brainpower to work with. Seems logical, on a very simple level.

Guybrush 06-05-2010 01:01 AM
I'm not sure how better jobs or higher education relates to biological fitness. I'm thinking a plumber can have as many children as an executive. In my experience, people who get a higher education spend more time studying in their 20s while people who don't are more likely to spend (some of) those years establishing a career and a family.

Is there really selection for intelligence? I mean, you don't want to be with an absolute tit perhaps, but I feel like once you get to an acceptable value, higher intelligence is not necessarily very attractive. It's not like nerds tend to get laid more than others!

Sljslj 06-05-2010 01:35 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by RVCA (Post 877069)
I don't know anything about the brain, but I've got to assume that if your brain is more massive, you've got more brainpower to work with. Seems logical, on a very simple level.
I looked into it a little bit and there doesn't seems to be a general consensus, some experts say yeah, others no, so... *shrug*.

RVCA 06-05-2010 10:14 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by tore (Post 877093)
I'm not sure how better jobs or higher education relates to biological fitness. I'm thinking a plumber can have as many children as an executive. In my experience, people who get a higher education spend more time studying in their 20s while people who don't are more likely to spend (some of) those years establishing a career and a family.

Is there really selection for intelligence? I mean, you don't want to be with an absolute tit perhaps, but I feel like once you get to an acceptable value, higher intelligence is not necessarily very attractive. It's not like nerds tend to get laid more than others!
Then again, nerds aren't the ones out dying in coal mines or whatever. But yeah, you're right. Have you seen that awful Luke Wilson movie called Idiocracy?

Sljslj 06-05-2010 12:19 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by RVCA (Post 877270)
Then again, nerds aren't the ones out dying in coal mines or whatever. But yeah, you're right. Have you seen that awful Luke Wilson movie called Idiocracy?
Blasphemy!:yikes: I thought Idiocracy was fantastic and a good (yet exagerated) representation of where we're headed. I could honestly see a world similar to that in a thousand years, if the human race isn't extinct by then.

RVCA 06-05-2010 12:29 PM
The idea behind the movie was cool, but the movie itself was terrible :-P

Neapolitan 06-05-2010 12:59 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Freebase Dali (Post 875604)
I don't mean to butt in and derail the flow or anything, but self-awareness, in context with what Tore is talking about (I.E. the ability to recognize one's self as an individual at least to the extent of differentiating between another animal and one's self via observable characteristic relationships) is most certainly provable with the mirror test.
The mistake you're making is thinking the idea of the mirror test assumes the animal somehow has the same concept of self-realization as we developed humans do, when it most certainly does not.
The very basis of the mirror test is to ascertain whether an animal (or human child, which have also been subjects in the mirror test experiment) can use visual or environmental cues to demonstrate a basic sense of self and individuality... or, SELF AWARENESS. Awareness of one's self, as being independent of any others.
Passing this test indicates that the subject already realizes itself as an individual, and recognizes that fact due to being able to distinguish between the mirror image of itself and the actual physical self.
Where one animal may see a mirror image of itself and attack it, thinking it's another animal (which happens), others may recognize that the image in the mirror is their own self and notice discrepancies that may have been placed on the subject for the test, and correct those discrepancies as any other self-aware being would. (which happens).

I think that's a clear example of the difference between animal survival awareness and an individualistic sense of being. While no one is claiming that animals ponder the existence of god or why they're put on this earth or have an awareness of personality, the idea of self awareness in animals is not a new phenomenon and is demonstrated in its true form whether you want to believe it or not.
That's all well and good but I think you are missing the point. I said I was skeptical of the mirror test. I didn't say the mirror test proves self-realization on par with human being. And besides there are professionals who are also critical of the mirror test also. And it is what they say that has more credence imo than someone just saying mirror test is the bench mark of self-awarenss. What goes through the animals mind with image it sees is not known.

The mirror test alone can not prove anything. It doesn't reveal the thoughts of the animal which can not be known exactly like throuhg ESP or the Vulcan mind meld. Since you can not know what the animal is thinking, and it can not tell you what it is thinking when it sees the mirror, what is observe when it see itself in the mirror is open to interpretation. I am skeptical of the mirror test because the actions of the animal is interpretted by the scientist to mean what he wants it to mean. All it demonstrates is a reaction of the animal. And one should be cautious when connecting the dots. If there is some sense of self for an animal, it would be demostrate in it's bahavior in the natural setting of the animal.

Guybrush 06-05-2010 05:19 PM
Oh well Neapolitan, I suspect you're arguing with yourself. Mirror tests have been used and results between species like chimps and gorillas can be compared. If you can think of a better way to do it, feel free to design an experiment then have lots of people test various species so that we get comparable results and then figure out if that somehow helps us better answer when our ancestors became self-aware.

edit :

By the way, yes - I did see Idiocracy. Not super, but it had it's moments I thought :)

Freebase Dali 06-05-2010 05:44 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Neapolitan (Post 877348)
That's all well and good but I think you are missing the point. I said I was skeptical of the mirror test. I didn't say the mirror test proves self-realization on par with human being. And besides there are professionals who are also critical of the mirror test also. And it is what they say that has more credence imo than someone just saying mirror test is the bench mark of self-awarenss. What goes through the animals mind with image it sees is not known.

The mirror test alone can not prove anything. It doesn't reveal the thoughts of the animal which can not be known exactly like throuhg ESP or the Vulcan mind meld. Since you can not know what the animal is thinking, and it can not tell you what it is thinking when it sees the mirror, what is observe when it see itself in the mirror is open to interpretation. I am skeptical of the mirror test because the actions of the animal is interpretted by the scientist to mean what he wants it to mean. All it demonstrates is a reaction of the animal. And one should be cautious when connecting the dots. If there is some sense of self for an animal, it would be demostrate in it's bahavior in the natural setting of the animal.
I don't think the idea behind the test is to provide evidence of what the subject is thinking. The subject, by recognizing the image in the mirror to be itself and not another, clearly demonstrates a basic self-awareness in certain subjects where others fail, and doesn't need to be interpreted. The extent of that awareness would obviously need to be interpreted and could very easily fit the criteria of what you're saying.
I know I'm intentionally being off the mark of the context of this thread as self-awareness applies to it, but I just wanted to point out that the mirror test does indicate a certain level of self-awareness when passed... but I think you're correct in that any ramifications beyond that level of awareness would be speculation when based solely on the mirror test alone.

CaptainAwesome 07-02-2010 02:51 PM
with evolution, the strongest survive. we are surviving all too well..with all our technology and tools we have no need to adapt to help survival. so instead of us it is our society and technology and such that evolves.

midnight rain 07-02-2010 10:11 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sljslj (Post 873598)
It seems to me that humans just don't evolve physically anymore (mentally maybe, possibly even "devolving" mentally at this point). I have a feeling if you were to hop in your time machine (you can borrow mine if you don't have your own) and travel 40,000 years into the past, you would encounter beings physically identical or nearly so.
So is our understanding of evolution completely off? Or is it that we have no need to evolve anymore? If the latter is true, what might bring us to the point that evolution is once again necessary?
It's an interesting thought and I just wanted to see what the great mind at MB (all three of them) have to say about it.
Umm so wrong on so many levels dude. You obviously have not gauged how slow the process of evolution is.

You know Lucy right? The earliest hominid found, the first examples of primates going bipedal. Well Lucy was very different from how we are to say the least. Lots of hair, small skull and small brain, no opposable thumbs etc. It took millions of years for one's like Lucy to start looking like we do now. Tore can fact check me on this one, I'm going off memory of an anthro class I took. :thumb:

Guybrush 07-03-2010 06:26 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tuna (Post 893747)
Umm so wrong on so many levels dude. You obviously have not gauged how slow the process of evolution is.

You know Lucy right? The earliest hominid found, the first examples of primates going bipedal. Well Lucy was very different from how we are to say the least. Lots of hair, small skull and small brain, no opposable thumbs etc. It took millions of years for one's like Lucy to start looking like we do now. Tore can fact check me on this one, I'm going off memory of an anthro class I took. :thumb:
Hm, fact check? A lot happens in our understanding of human evolution and anthropology these days :) Any facts I think I know could already be outdated since I don't try superhard to stay on top of this and stuff happens so fast, but .. At least I can say that Lucy at a bit more than 3 million years age is no longer the oldest reasonably "complete" hominid fossil anymore. She's been thoroughly beaten by Ardi whose estimated age is about 4,4 million years!

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...us_ramidus.jpg

Note that it's not certain that Ardi's lineage is the one that gave rise to modern humans though. Many hominid lineages have gone extinct. However, interesting for some europeans is that some of the european (Homo sapien) lineages mixed with neanderthals some many thousand years ago. There are europeans who have about 4% of their genes coming from Homo neanderthalis. So then neanderthals are not completely gone, but live on in some of us .. I think that's pretty cool! :)


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