marsh8472

Yeah I think that's the main problem too. If there was a circumstance where maybe I evolved the species to a point of no return where they were doomed not to survive because of genetic flaws somewhere down the road while trying to make an effort into evolving into humans. The way around this is to run the experiment on an infinite number of isolated populations of cockroaches simultaniously. This would ensure that there would be populations that would successfully evolve into humans and eventually (by chance) one of those humans would give birth to a kid that just happen to have my precise dna code. My antro teacher mentioned the probability of that happening to me once... something like 1 in (23!)^2 or 23*23*22*22*21*21*20*20*19*19*18*18*17*17*16*15*15*14*14*13*13*12*12*11*11*10*10*9*9*8*8*7*7*6*6*5*5*4*4*3*3*2*2*1*1 whatever that works out to be when you put it into the calculator even though it's out of range of the calculator easily. It has something to do with each combination of chromosomes pairing something...forgot. Cockroaches cannot safely evolve into humans but they could evolve into species A safely. Then species A could evolve into species B safely. Species B into species C...etc... etc... however many gradual changes in species it takes until the species is ours.

Yup nature is definitly not the one doing the selecting. More like artificial selection. The manner of selection doesn't really matter though. Evolution = change of species over time. That's my definition anyway.

Think you could change plants into humans the same way? :-D

do the counter-arguments found here have any merit?

Since I would be killing all species that resemble humans the least then resembling humans the most is what would increases chances for survival. Like selective breeding. Although cockroaches don't resemble humans all that well, with the help of encouraged random mutations in the right directions it could evolve into a human in a similar manner that invertebrates evolved into humans. Are there any genetic barriors that would make this process impossible?

Let's say I had a population of some species let's say cockroaches.. and I had a computer that would analyze their dna and compare it to my own. The computer computes a number that tells me how similar my dna is to each of theirs. Anyway, now lets say I keep killing off the cockroaches that resemble my dna the least. Theoretically over time, will I eventually end up with a genetic clone of myself matching my dna perfectly? In which case, my clone evolved from a cockroach. They are given infinite time to turn into a human in the experiment. I've had long discussions about this at other places and we haven't been getting anywhere so if there are any experts in evolution and genetics we could sure use your help