Originally Posted by tore

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!

Originally Posted by RVCA

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?

Originally Posted by Freebase Dali

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.

Originally Posted by mord

Actually, I like you a lot, Nea. That's why I treat you like ****. It's the MB way.

Originally Posted by Neapolitan

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.

Originally Posted by Sljslj

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.

Originally Posted by Tuna

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.