Are we effectively bring Evolution of mankind to a halt?

[wil]

Are we effectively bring Evolution of mankind to a halt?

Are we starting a form of devolution?

Now I have an Uncle who has been in braces or a wheel chair since birth, a sister who went blind, and other physical and mental challenges have affected my friends and family....so I want to be clear I am not diminishing, or speaking against those with afflictions, but I'm wondering what science has wrought.

As I understand it, part of the theory of survival of the fittest and natural selection is that in the course of time mutant genes which prove valuable in a certain environment naturally rise to the top of the gene pool.

But in these days of medications, innoculations, antibiotics, immunizations, organ transplants and invitro fertilization....are we not keeping the gene pool as is, or actually degrading it by assisting those to live and procreate that without scientific intervention would in any other time either not be with us or not reproduce?

Or maybe as it exists those with $$$ get all the medical bennies therefor are we creating more of those with $$$??

Or if we provide universal health care what will be the ramifications of that on the future of mankind?

I know these are strange contemplations, but I'm sure you all will consider the source and not be too surprised....is it just me, or do you wonder??

 

[cavalier]

I have heard before that due to improved healthcare, mankind has stopped evolving. I wonder though, whether our evolution will now take a new turn. Before, "the fittest" were the strongest physically. In our changing world however, not everyone needs to be strong, certainly not those with brains.
If I remember my science lessons correctly, animals change to fit in with their enviroments, perhaps we are just doing the same. Possibly what's happening now is an evolution of the mind, rather than of the body.

 

[Paladin]

You guys constantly amaze me with the questions you bring up, I guess thats why I like coming here. You are simply the coolest

Love the new pic Cav, it looks like you are having waaayyyy too much fun

The underpinnings of this discussion are interesting though because it wends its way down to: Can man screw up a Divine plan? In the absence of a Divine plan (as in an atheist model) can nature in a random sort of way heal from our meddling?
I'm sure even better questions than these could be posed by the more erudite members here.

Simply astounding what you guys come up with!

Peace
Mark

 

[seattlegal]

This was the argument presented for the justification for eugenics. {shudder}

The underpinnings of this discussion are interesting though because it wends its way down to: Can man screw up a Divine plan? In the absence of a Divine plan (as in an atheist model) can nature in a random sort of way heal from our meddling?

Um, I think that the way the eugenics plan ended up seems to point in the direction of cleaning up our meddling. (How many people died in WWII? 55 million?)

 

[flowperson]

The beginning of the big changes in our ongoing evolution we're really starting to notice now began about 200 years ago when we all began to build and live in environments that had been significantly designed to take us out of nature and into urban settings which are becoming more unnatural as we write this stuff. When we started to use electricity and bombard ourselves and our children with artificially generated electromagnetic energies on a regular basis, day and night, the changes accelerated. Now they are really starting to snowball on us with the rise of interactive-real time media and its devices.

We live longer, grow taller, do things faster, make more money, get fatter, have more stuff, we have more emotional and mental problems, and are becoming less spiritually satisfied.

Yes, I love you all too,,,and a great question Cav...yep...waaaayyyy too much fun.

flow....

 

[Snoopy]

Hi,

Some grist for this mill:

“Alongside our movement from primate to modern man is a parallel and inverse movement back ‘down’ the ladder of evolution.” Thus: 1. The earliest hominids were, like the primates nearest them on the evolutionary climb, forest dwellers and primarily vegetarian. 2. A newly acquired taste for meat lured them from the canopy of green into the open savanna, following the herds of big game and necessitating larger tribes for co-operation in the hunt. As hunters, they take their first step down in emulating the beasts of prey, with division of labor drawn along gender lines and the fashioning of surrogate fangs. With the sharpened stick and stone as the first tools comes the essential discovery of putting the natural world to use, harnessing it forces to extend human power, and the use of tools to make other tools. This crucial step away form primate equanimity fuels the descent which follows. 3. Now, for shelter they congregate in caves and burrows and in this emulate the warrens of rodents, as do the early builders with their earthworks and mudwalls. 4. The development of agriculture, considered the cornerstone of civilization, made possible the most radical changes for early man towards a type of creature which we are to this day: Settlement in fixed locations, great concentration of populations, ownership of land and slaves, accumulations of wealth, specialization, hierarchy, and war. This domestication of the human animal is recent, beginning only 10,000 years ago in a species that had thrived for 25 million years with almost no “progress.” For [Lala] Rolo and [John] Kane it also marks the greatest emulatory leap down the evolutionary ladder, into the vast and alien kingdom of the “lower” animals, the invertebrates, the insects. Our very vocabulary bears testament to the formal kinship between civilized man and the insect: Queens, workers, drones, soldiers, cows (ants milking aphids), and colonies. The cities are great hives, with populations reaching into the millions and their structure depending on insect-like divisions of labor and hierarchies including the obesely bloated monarch at the repository of collective social wealth. This structure, according to Rolo and Kane, is very human but sub-primate, even sub-vertebrate. The evolution of vertebrates up to primates is a movement away from the subjugation of vast colonies, toward smaller herds, toward clan, family, and even individual autonomy. The human backward slide is concomitant with other devastations of the insect world: swarms, plagues, and parasite activity."

Remember the Blanket: De-evolution​

s.​

 

[seattlegal]

“Alongside our movement from primate to modern man is a parallel and inverse movement back ‘down’ the ladder of evolution.”

"The Fall"...when we decided to take control and decide for ourselves what was best...

 

[sara[h]ng]

As I understand it, part of the theory of survival of the fittest and natural selection is that in the course of time mutant genes which prove valuable in a certain environment naturally rise to the top of the gene pool.

But in these days of medications, innoculations, antibiotics, immunizations, organ transplants and invitro fertilization....are we not keeping the gene pool as is, or actually degrading it by assisting those to live and procreate that without scientific intervention would in any other time either not be with us or not reproduce?

Or maybe as it exists those with $$$ get all the medical bennies therefor are we creating more of those with $$$??

Or if we provide universal health care what will be the ramifications of that on the future of mankind?

With infant mortality rates as low as they are in developed nations, I don't think that medical benefits are a factor here, as far as a division of society goes. As in, 'would things change if all had the same access to exactly the same medical care,' - I think that the rich and poor alike have great enough access to at least ensure survival well past the point of procreation. That being said, the only other factor that I can think of as far as differing evolutions of social classes goes, is the number of children born. Do the rich and the poor generally have the same number of children?

 

[Francis king]

well... we are now at the stage were we can genetically modify large life foms, such as cows, we can make them bigger, we can make them have less body fat, etc, we can modify grain so that it is less suceptible to blight, and we can also genetically engineer some aspects of the human condition, we can isolate various parts of various genes, such as eye colour, and within about five years we can potentially eradicate some genetically transmutable diseases and disabling conditions such as CF and downs syndrome, they reckon, yet the moral majority is scared that we will all end up like mutants, so we're holding back on everything... truth is, we don't really know whether by meddling we'll make things worse long term, as we might, so maybe we need to learn a little more first...

for me, evolution is about adaptation, and the adaptation of life forms to their enviroments... unfortunately, the evolution of humans is a lot slower than the evolution of a virus, for instance, and there are signs that humans cannot keep up with the speed with which the planet is evolving due to the damage we've done to it in the last 2 hundred years, evidenced by high rates of skin cancers, allergies, skin complaints, food intolerances, behavioural disorders, etc, which, in theory, we should be able to evolve out of, yet the speed of the changes to the food we eat, the amount of sun we get, the number of chemicals we are exposed to is happening quicker than the natural adaptation of man, and is something that needs to be addressed...

yes, ur right about the mutant genes, the survival of the fittest thing, yet rather than degrade the gene pool by providing innoculations etc, we are doing the right thing- after all- we dont want ppl to suffer... however, if we rely solely on mother nature we would indeed be devolving, rather than evolving- we're not just monkeys with watches, after all- and some of us are clever enough to be able to manipulate genes with syringes and transplant organs, and it would be wrong not to do this if we can...

today, in my country, the UK, if u have a family history of a disabling condition they can test both u and ur partners genes, and tell u how likely it is that ur offspring will be likely to have the condition... if the condition is likely, they can give u two options- amniocentisis while the kid is in the womb, and then if its damaged u can abort, or they can grow ur embryoes in a petri dish and dispose of the ones which are not viable... of course, idiots will not get this, as they do not ask, and whether u can get it free is debatable, and so yes, currently, maybe our genetic counselling procedures do spawn a nation of rich kids, while the diseased poor get more withered, and is a good reason to have free healthcare for all, without exception...

"if we provide universal health care what will be the ramifications of that on the future of mankind"?

in the short term, it will be costly, but in the long term it will be very cost effective... currently to do this means that we will have to wrestle with moral issues, but in around 20 years we will be able to manipulate a humans genes even before they are with child and before their eggs and sperm have been taken to create life... in the medium term, five ten years, we could globally end a lot of diseases which currently decimate the eraths ppulation, but then we'd have loads of hungry poor ppl to feed and give jobs to, and that would be very expensive, although we can't afford not to, really...