Future of human evolution? Is there a future?

[Dustin Kesselberg]

Technology played a role, but if hawking was an ass who was an idiot what were his chances of reproducing?

Or what if he happened to be gay, what were his chances of producing offspring with his genetics instead of his partners?

I don't know what you're saying. As far as I know, homosexuality rates have been the same. Around 5%.

 

[Dustin Kesselberg]

What is your obsession with technology? If anything, technology is now one of the biggest, if not the biggest, influence on selection. Thousands of years ago people were selected for their ability to hunt deer, or whatever. Now they are selected for their ability to use computers and other things.

I think it's a huge stretch to imagine "computer skills" giving people increased chances of reproduction.

Surely you have to admit that a high up, tech savvy executive has more chance of reproducing than, say, a 50IQ bin man with a mortal fear of computers. Natural selection refers to all selective pressures from the environment. Technology is now part of our environment. Far from eliminating selection, technology is now part of it, although the pressure will be in a different direction from that on cavemen.

I doubt it. Based on the studies I've seen, the less educated and poorer people tend to have more children. I think some tech savvy executive with an IQ of 150 would not even care to have children and would be more focused on his career etc.

Your problem seems to be that you seem to consider evolution as directed. Humans are evolving and always will be, but we are not evolving towards anything. This can make it seem as though evolution is not happening because we cannot see what is happening at all. Take giraffes. Millions of years ago they looked something like horses. There was pressure on them to be taller to reach the top of trees, so they got longer necks. If the trees had changed height every generation the pressure would not have been constant. If one generation needs long necks and the next needs short ones, over millions of years neck length will stay about the same. Evolution will still have been happening at every point, and the selective pressure is always there, but overall the giraffes appear not to be evolving and look a lot less silly. The same is true for humans. Whether we are evolving in a constant direction or not, there are always some people who have more children than others and who pass on the tendency to have more children. That is evolution.

When I said "Evolution" what I mean specifically was speciation.

 

[Cuddles]

I think it's a huge stretch to imagine "computer skills" giving people increased chances of reproduction.

Clearly you have a poor imagination.

I doubt it. Based on the studies I've seen, the less educated and poorer people tend to have more children. I think some tech savvy executive with an IQ of 150 would not even care to have children and would be more focused on his career etc.

Game, set, match. You have just identified a group of people who are more successful at reproducing than another group. Cue evolution. Which is exactly what we were saying all along.

When I said "Evolution" what I mean specifically was speciation.

So, not anything about evolution at all then. Asking if humans are likely to evolve into a different species in the future is completely different from asking if we are evolving at all. As it happens, the answer to both is yes. However, while we can be absolutely certain that humans are evolving, we cannot be absolutely certain that humans in 100,000 will be a different species because, as I said in my last post, continuously changing the direction of selective pressure could mean that we never get far enough in one direction to be viewed as a different species.

 

[aggle-rithm]

I think it's a huge stretch to imagine "computer skills" giving people increased chances of reproduction.

Any skill that is financially lucrative gives that person an increased chance at reproduction, assuming that person is male. It makes him more attractive to females, regardless of his other attributes.

How many computer geeks were reproducing thirty years ago? Now look at them, breeding like rabbits.

 

[aggle-rithm]

I said that if current trends continued. I can't think of any natural selection pressures on modern society today.

I don't know if it's been said before, but a global pandemic could bring about widespread natural selection within a single generation. It's just that the gene selected for -- immunity to a particular virus -- isn't that interesting.

(Unless that gene carried another characteristic with it, such as a prehensile tail!)

 

[aggle-rithm]

I doubt it. Based on the studies I've seen, the less educated and poorer people tend to have more children. I think some tech savvy executive with an IQ of 150 would not even care to have children and would be more focused on his career etc.

This is interesting, because there are several examples in history of "reverse natural selection", in which the most capable humans were the least likely to procreate. It is believed, for instance, that the Roman aristocracy sterilized themselves because their homes were equipped with lead plumbing. Later, the best and brightest joined the clergy, where they were forbidden to procreate (not that some of them didn't do it anyway). Then, we have today's example, where the more money someone has, the less likely they are to have lots of kids.

However, this is only true in the West. In Arab countries, the richer you are, the more wives you have, and therefore the more children. A lot of it depends on the particular culture.

 

[aggle-rithm]

To get back at the human evolution thing.

Sickle cell anemia is a perfect example of human evolution. Allowing many who would have died of malaria prior to an age for reproduction.

A few years ago, a friend of mine died of a liver disorder that is found in natives of Ireland. It is believed that the disorder is caused by the same gene that allowed their ancestors to survive the potato famine of the nineteenth century. Predictably, the disorder gives its victims time to reproduce before it hits them.

So, here we have natural selection occuring fairly recently and on a fairly large scale.

 

[Thabiguy]

When I said "Evolution" what I mean specifically was speciation.

If it's speciation that you're looking for, I would say that Helacyton gartleri is a rather fine example of a recent speciation of Homo sapiens sapiens. It appears that there's no reason why such speciation couldn't happen again in the future.

This would seem to prove that the answer to your question is yes - unless of course you have an alternate definition of "speciation", too.

 

[Dustin Kesselberg]

Game, set, match. You have just identified a group of people who are more successful at reproducing than another group. Cue evolution. Which is exactly what we were saying all along.

Evolution into what? They aren't breeding more because of their genetics per say, simply their economic/educational circumstances which rarely have anything to do with genetics.

 

[Dustin Kesselberg]

Any skill that is financially lucrative gives that person an increased chance at reproduction, assuming that person is male. It makes him more attractive to females, regardless of his other attributes.

How many computer geeks were reproducing thirty years ago? Now look at them, breeding like rabbits.

An increased chance at having sex(Maybe) but not at reproducing. I don't feel like googling it, But I know for a fact that poorer families have more children than richer families and less educated families have more children than more educated families.

 

[Dustin Kesselberg]

This is interesting, because there are several examples in history of "reverse natural selection", in which the most capable humans were the least likely to procreate. It is believed, for instance, that the Roman aristocracy sterilized themselves because their homes were equipped with lead plumbing. Later, the best and brightest joined the clergy, where they were forbidden to procreate (not that some of them didn't do it anyway). Then, we have today's example, where the more money someone has, the less likely they are to have lots of kids.

However, this is only true in the West. In Arab countries, the richer you are, the more wives you have, and therefore the more children. A lot of it depends on the particular culture.

No, I don't believe that's true. Do you have any evidence that the richer in middle eastern countries have more children? I think the same thing applies everywhere, the poorer and less educated someone is, they more children they have on average. Especially in 3rd world countries.

 

[Dustin Kesselberg]

If it's speciation that you're looking for, I would say that Helacyton gartleri is a rather fine example of a recent speciation of Homo sapiens sapiens. It appears that there's no reason why such speciation couldn't happen again in the future.

This would seem to prove that the answer to your question is yes - unless of course you have an alternate definition of "speciation", too.

I don't know if that's really a fair example. Homo Sapiens didn't "Evolve" into a HeLa culture. Cells were taken from a homo sapien and those cells were cancer cells.

 

[Cuddles]

Evolution into what? They aren't breeding more because of their genetics per say, simply their economic/educational circumstances which rarely have anything to do with genetics.

OK, firstly, prove it. Secondly, "rarely" means that sometimes it does, therefore evolution would occur, therefore you have once again argued against yourself. Thirdly, once again you are assuming evolution has a preffered direction. It is not evolution into that is important, it is just evolution. The simple fact that one group of people reproduces more than another means evolution happens. What happens to us because of it is irrelevant.

An increased chance at having sex(Maybe) but not at reproducing. I don't feel like googling it, But I know for a fact that poorer families have more children than richer families and less educated families have more children than more educated families.

Once again, prove it. Families are not the issue here. A poor family might have 10 children while a rich one only has one, but how many actual children does the succesful man have? As aggle-rithim said, succesful men are more attractive to women. That is really all that matters. Our culture and laws might make them less succesful at reproducing than they could be, but you really are naive if you believe all rich men are faithful to their wives.

 

[Bodhi Dharma Zen]

However, this is only true in the West. In Arab countries, the richer you are, the more wives you have, and therefore the more children. A lot of it depends on the particular culture.

Sorry for the derail but this means that even genetics prove bush is an idiot.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

Evolution into what? They aren't breeding more because of their genetics per say, simply their economic/educational circumstances which rarely have anything to do with genetics.

Not a proper question to ask. Evolution by means of natural selection has no goal. There is no evolution into something. There is change over time with no set direction. If poorer people have more children, then they are more fit. End of story.

There could be any number of pressures that will determine changes in the future. Global warming will probably be one of them with folks in developed countries living away from the coasts surviving best. Disease another -- folks who survive whatever big epidemic will arise as a result of global warming or the next big flu outbreak. We can impact some of this but not all. A meteor could slam into earth and kill most or all of us. If there are survivors, then they will be the new future -- whatever genes they pass along and whatever modifications that help their offspring survive in the bleaker future.

We don't have enough knowledge to predict what will happen.

 

[drkitten]

What is your obsession with technology? If anything, technology is now one of the biggest, if not the biggest, influence on selection. Thousands of years ago people were selected for their ability to hunt deer, or whatever. Now they are selected for their ability to use computers and other things. Surely you have to admit that a high up, tech savvy executive has more chance of reproducing than, say, a 50IQ bin man with a mortal fear of computers.

One thing that you and Dustin are both missing and that may help make things a little clearer -- "reproductive success" is not simplky about the number of children you have.

It's about the number of children you have that successfully reproduce themselves, and the number of times. I tend to use "number of grandchildren" as a better fitness metric than "number of children," precisely for this reason. It doesn't matter if you have twenty-five children, if they all die of diptheria and drive-by shootings before they reach age ten. You're still a failure, genetically and evolutionarily speaking.

It's certainly true that people -- women, mostly -- with higher income and education have fewer children. (The trend is not as strong for men, for reasons that should be obvious, but it holds strongly for women even in "developing" countries.) However, the (fewer) children tend to be more reproductively fit -- they're healthier, better looking (since that's a function of health), better able to support themselves,.... and of course, not dead, which is almost always a plus in the dating circuit. So our technogeek may have only two or three children instead of five; but he's likely to have eight grandchildren instead of five as well. And this is true both in the developing and the developed world....

And of course, if we're talking about just parentage instead of childraising, then the possibility of (ahem) "anomolous parentage" can't be discounted. I think the current statistics suggest that about 10-20% of children are produced via extra-marital affairs; the father is not the wife's current husband. Oddly enough, another finding of this kind of survey is that most women who conceive outside of wedlock do so with a man of higher social status than their husband's.... Which again, suggests an interesting genetic advantage to high social status (at least for men). You not only get to have the children in wedlock that you can support properly, but you can get a bit on the side as well.

 

[Dustin Kesselberg]

OK, firstly, prove it.

Prove poverty isn't genetic?

Secondly, "rarely" means that sometimes it does, therefore evolution would occur, therefore you have once again argued against yourself.

So are we evolving into being lazy and ignorant?

Thirdly, once again you are assuming evolution has a preferred direction. It is not evolution into that is important, it is just evolution. The simple fact that one group of people reproduces more than another means evolution happens. What happens to us because of it is irrelevant.

Generally the direction is towards compatibility with ones environment.

Once again, prove it. Families are not the issue here. A poor family might have 10 children while a rich one only has one, but how many actual children does the succesful man have?

Errr..1?

As aggle-rithim said, succesful men are more attractive to women. That is really all that matters. Our culture and laws might make them less succesful at reproducing than they could be, but you really are naive if you believe all rich men are faithful to their wives.

Sex doesn't matter. Only reproduction. If these rich successful men don't reproduce then it's irrelevant.

 

[Dustin Kesselberg]

Not a proper question to ask. Evolution by means of natural selection has no goal. There is no evolution into something. There is change over time with no set direction. If poorer people have more children, then they are more fit. End of story.

If "fit" means "how capable a being is at successfully passing on its genes." then by definition just because someone does have more children doesn't necessarily mean they are "more capable" than anyone else. They simply make the bad choices and end up having many more children. The "fittest" don't necessarily always proliferate.

 

[drkitten]

Errr..1?

Wow, are you naive.....

 

[drkitten]

Prove poverty isn't genetic?

Bpesta will be happy to prove to you that it is.

Basically, his argument (taken from the work on the heritability and predictiveness of IQ) is that IQ is both mostly heritable and a very strong predictor of success in life, including both wealth and social status.

You're welcome to address this particular issue if you want to explain how poverty is not genetic.