Does man kind destroy himself by changing his own evolutionary process?

[Sayonara]

Not necessarily. The poor back then were poor because of other circumstances. The poor today have more self determination. The general trend remains though, that poorer people usually have more kids.

No, the root reasons for people being poor have not changed. I'd agree there is more scope for people to 'not stay poor', but equally there are also greater fiscal pressures on all people in society now than there were, say, 800 yrs ago.

 

Then again, it could be a chicken and egg argument. Are they poor because they have more kids, or do they have more kids because they are poor ? Same goes with the intelligence issue. Are they poor because they lack intelligence, or do they lack intelligence because they are poor ?

Looking for evidence would be a good way of breaking that nightmare cycle. It gets tricky with humans though, because we behave very oddly for animals which can make prolonged study a bit difficult. Also we tend to have 'motives' for doing things, rather than doing them simply as responses to stimuli, and these can be near-impossible to detect or quantify.

 

Hmm, I don't know if we can speculate on that. If they were choosing features which were attractive to them, they it could be argued that the average human today has a lot of the attractive features the people back then were looking for. But this is all speculation.

R_E is not speculating - he's drawn that explanation from evolutionary biology and behavourial ecology. I'm sure he could find plenty of studies and papers supporting it.

[Radical Edward]

Not necessarily. The poor back then were poor because of other circumstances. The poor today have more self determination. The general trend remains though' date=' that poorer people usually have more kids.

[/quote']

so you don't consider a terrible education, terrible upbringing and defeatist culture "circumstances"?

Then again, it could be a chicken and egg argument. Are they poor because they have more kids, or do they have more kids because they are poor ? Same goes with the intelligence issue. Are they poor because they lack intelligence, or do they lack intelligence because they are poor ?

do they even lack intelligence? granted they lack "knowledge" but alot of poor kids are intelligent. I know of a few people in the "underclass" of the UK and they know more about rare diseases than any doctor, and they know more about social service exploits than even the best accounants and lawyers. you aren't saying these people are stupid are you? misdirected is the word I would use.

However smart people don't always have smart kids, and vice versa.

Speaking of which, have they even determined the relationship between intelligence and genes ?

no, there is no known direct link, though there are hints of it, for example intelligence has been linked with autism, through both the higher instances of autism amongst intelligent couples, and also some fascinating work regarding temporary creation of idiot savants through shutting down areas of the brain with an EM field.

Hmm, I don't know if we can speculate on that. If they were choosing features which were attractive to them, they it could be argued that the average human today has a lot of the attractive features the people back then were looking for. But this is all speculation.

 

no, because what happens is that there is a steady amplification of both the desire and the feature through evolutionary time. In essence this is sexual selection. what you are proposing is a more-or-less saltationary leap in the desire part of the brain, followed slowly by the physical feature. This would require the brain (or rather the genes for the brain) to know what is going to make for the best sexual partner in several hundred generations time, and evolution does not work like that. You could argue that modern day humans are a version of a "superstimulus" but the problem with that, is that many adaptations are also functional, and not purely sexual. For example the human female waist-hip ratio is a sign of her fertility, and also wide hips indicate that she can have a baby safely. Now early humans would not have had such wide hips, since the brain cases were not as large, and hence wide hips would not have been a stimulus for males that is selected for. Breasts might be a different matter though, however it is difficult to say, since no ancient breasts have been preserved. Still though, it is likely that there was an initial link between breasts and fertility, before sexual selection got a hold, and worked towards a larger size.

[Daniel]

"so you don't consider a terrible education, terrible upbringing and defeatist culture "circumstances"?"

 

Well that was more commonplace back then, now there is the opportunity to rise above it if you work hard enough. I don't even see how your point relates to what I said.

 

"do they even lack intelligence? granted they lack "knowledge" but alot of poor kids are intelligent. I know of a few people in the "underclass" of the UK and they know more about rare diseases than any doctor, and they know more about social service exploits than even the best accounants and lawyers. you aren't saying these people are stupid are you? misdirected is the word I would use."

 

So we are now arguing whether poorer people have less intelligence ? Fair enough. Like I said earlier, I don't know. I used the word "if" to state the reasoning behind my claims.

 

I do suspect that it works both ways. People who are less intelligent don't rise to the top of society you know. Sure some people let circumstances get the better of them, and that is truly bad luck, but I disagree that the majority of poor people are in that situation due to bad luck.

 

" but equally there are also greater fiscal pressures on all people in society now than there were, say, 800 yrs ago."

 

What do you mean by this ? That there is more pressure for people to work towards getting richer ?

 

"Looking for evidence would be a good way of breaking that nightmare cycle. It gets tricky with humans though, because we behave very oddly for animals which can make prolonged study a bit difficult. Also we tend to have 'motives' for doing things, rather than doing them simply as responses to stimuli, and these can be near-impossible to detect or quantify."

 

Yes I agree.

 

I am not sure about selection pressures with regards to looks. Even with humans we see that each person has different taste, what one person finds attractive can be quite unattractive to another person. I think that the perception of what is attractive and what is not attractive (trends spread by the media) do have an effect on what some people will consider attractive. This makes it difficult for the same reasons stated above by Sayonara.

[Sayonara]

Well that was more commonplace back then, now there is the opportunity to rise above it if you work hard enough. I don't even see how your point relates to what I said.

But was it? The population has increased quite a bit so it depends what you mean by 'commonplace' - gross numbers, or 'poor per capita'?

The opportunity may exist to rise above it, as you say, but the biggest root cause for there being poor people is that only a few can hold onto the majority of funds in an economy, and they'll generally be in a good enough social position to protect that.

 

 

What do you mean by this ? That there is more pressure for people to work towards getting richer ?

Money heads upwards. The specific pressures haven't really changed significantly (well, the form has slightly due to changes in culture and technology) but if anything the barriers against people trying to get out of poverty have multiplied. Even a lot of people on benefits have a TV in every room, telling them which consumer products mean more to them than a good diet. Even a mere century ago, there wasn't very much the average poor family spent money on that wasn't food, clothing, shelter or necessities like doctors' services.

[Radical Edward]

Well that was more commonplace back then' date=' now there is the opportunity to rise above it if you work hard enough. I don't even see how your point relates to what I said.

[/quote']

it relates because most of the poor people remain poor because of circumstances, their entire cultural outlook often promotes this crap way of life.

So we are now arguing whether poorer people have less intelligence ? Fair enough. Like I said earlier, I don't know. I used the word "if" to state the reasoning behind my claims.

I felt that was your implication, given the evidence, I cannot see the conclusion that poor people are poor because they are stupid.

I do suspect that it works both ways. People who are less intelligent don't rise to the top of society you know. Sure some people let circumstances get the better of them, and that is truly bad luck, but I disagree that the majority of poor people are in that situation due to bad luck.

does bad luck include the culture you are born in? you have a number of nested statements there which I disagree with and it will take time to go over them.

I am not sure about selection pressures with regards to looks. Even with humans we see that each person has different taste, what one person finds attractive can be quite unattractive to another person. I think that the perception of what is attractive and what is not attractive (trends spread by the media) do have an effect on what some people will consider attractive. This makes it difficult for the same reasons stated above by Sayonara.

Again the preferences as a part of culture is another part of the evolutionary adaptation. This can be seen in birds that lek. In lekking birds, the males all stand around calling out, or looking pretty or whatever and the females wander through and pick their mates. Now this isn't done purely on the basis of which male looks best, since it would take quite a while to check them all out, but it is also judged by which male has the most females around him since other females must have judged him to be good, so why waste time and energy looking at a load of males who have been rejected already? This was further supported by placing dummies of females around males who weren't normally as successful, and sure enough the numbers of females that these previusly inferior males aquired leapt up. This tends to be an enhancement of previously existing traits though, as outlined in my previous posts.

[Guest Orange Crush]

I must state that in no way will we degenerate, as we are nearing a time of having the ability to change the genetic code of our children. Regardless of whether it's ethical or not, enhancements will be made these children of the future in terms of their intelligence, size, athleticism, immunity, resistance to aging, etc. I think we will soon become less influenced by Natural Selection, or reproduction, and undertake the age of Artificial Selection.

[Guest Novice]

Not only will we be able to change the genetics of our children, we will be able to change our own genetics by introducing new genes by way of viral transport packages so that we can replace/repair defective genes in our own bodies.

 

There is no reason to suffer heart/circulatory disease, diabetes, macular degeneration, alzheimers, ALS or so many diseases caused by malfunctioning of our own personal genetic library. Aging seems to be a progressive loss of the telomeres at the ends of the genes. Cancer cells live forever because they continue to manufacture telomerase. If you prevent the gene that makes telomerase from shutting down due to aging without causing the cells to lose contact inhibition and spin off into cancer, then, at least in theory, you will live forever as the body certainly has the ability to maintain/repair itself.

[Radical Edward]

I must state that in no way will we degenerate, as we are nearing a time of having the ability to change the genetic code of our children. Regardless of whether it's ethical or not, enhancements will be made these children of the future in terms of their intelligence, size, athleticism, immunity, resistance to aging, etc. I think we will soon become less influenced by Natural Selection, or reproduction, and undertake the age of Artificial Selection.

 

not really artificial selection, more like memetic selection. Memes will become the dominant replicator.

[Daniel]

"But was it? The population has increased quite a bit so it depends what you mean by 'commonplace' - gross numbers, or 'poor per capita'?"

 

The majority of the population back then were not educated.

 

People nowadays get educated, or at least finish school. Those who don't want to go to school can drop out, but that is their choice.

 

School is pretty much a given when it comes to success. Sure there are the highschool dropouts who end up making millions, but those are freak cases.

 

"if anything the barriers against people trying to get out of poverty have multiplied."

 

Maybe, handouts don't encourage people to strive for a better lifestyle. There is a safety net that people end up relying on instead of working their way to the top. That is one of the reasons.

 

"it relates because most of the poor people remain poor because of circumstances, their entire cultural outlook often promotes this crap way of life."

 

Hmm..............I think the argument goes that man should be able to change his environment and culture. Culture comes from people. I don't deny that it also has the ability to shape the way a person is.

 

"does bad luck include the culture you are born in? you have a number of nested statements there which I disagree with and it will take time to go over them."

 

Which culture promotes poverty ? Why do some white people rise to the top, yet other whites stay at the bottom of society ? Already the culture is not that different.

 

If you talk about class cultures, then why would the poor wish to remain poor ?

 

From my mother's experience...............her family was quite poor. No handouts either. But now all of her brothers and sister are working, and some are pretty filthy rich. They wanted to get out of the poverty cycle, and realised that it required sacrifice. Family heirlooms were sold off and money was borrowed to send her and her siblings to higher education. It paid off in the end. I am grateful for the sacrifices my grandparents made.