what phase of humans are we?

[Ophiolite]

Gnieus, I believe you have overlooked two points:

 

1) An important part of our environment is the culture/society that we are a part of. This society has attributes that are, in part, independent of our genotypes and phenotypes. Societies are complex 'entities' that can be subject to analagous selection pressures as biological organisms. However, because they can change without awaiting a change in gentic character they can be more malleable.

2) Until this time evolution has been random, dependent upon mutations that are more favourable in a given environment. We are now in a position where, very soon, future evolutionary steps may be chosen by us, if we consider it ethical to do so.

 

Both of these differences are dramatic; are a result of the evolution of intelligence; mean that future evolution will be different from what has occured in the past. So, contrary to the standard paradigm that we are not at any uniquely preferred place in time or space, we are at a remarkable point in time. [if you think the Universe is replete with intelligent life forms, rather like Byres Road on a Friday night, then it would not be so remarkable.]

 

 

Edit: I am sure Syntax 252 can speakl for himself, but I believe he is stating a subset of my position. Our intelligence has allowed us to adapt our environment, making us less dependent on it. This adaptation is more than simply physical (see point 1 above) and has not yet gone as far as it can (see point 2 above).

You seem hung up on 'we're all going to die'. Of course we are. That does not change the fact that the nature of evolution is/has/will change as a result of the application (and misapplication) of human intelligence.

[Gnieus]

Sorry I can't agree, maybe my concept of evolution is different. Evolution has selected "us" or our genes to maybe gain some insight, but we are a living organism that change things like weather changes things, we are just another environmental influence. One has to be really careful of the repeating misconception that we understand everything enough. Life/genes/DNA have just found another way to try to maintain themselves. I really can't see the difference .. You are essentially stating we are above natural laws, evolution being one of them. If evolution allows some intelligent adaption than that's evolution too. It still has to survive and the creatures made from it too. I am not a Darwin Mantra follower it HAS to be random .. What is random anyway? Mostly it's understood as uniform random. Well I don't think so, if it's gaussian then there is structure, so why not an "intelligent" structure .. mutations have to follow physical and chemical laws so that's uniform random out of the window anyway .. Some apes have culture and afaik they found birds with culture .. maybe there is a natural law that says cognitive limited "intelligence" leads to insulin producing bacterias with a 95% likelihood.

 

In my opinion humans claiming to have sussed it and be God has never worked ..

 

Please make yourself clear what you are claiming, you sit somewhere in a vast universe on an insignificant planet in an insignificant galaxy as a recently evolved ape species and you want to be able to change the universe ?? I would be extremely careful with these claims. If you can change evolution then any idea about a fixed state evolution is wrong ... and it is in itself adaptable.

 

You can't change the law of gravity, yet you can use it. Like a bola bola spider .. So you might be able to use genetics to gain an advantage but you still gonna die .. You have no idea if what you perceive as free will ain't an illusion? A certain knowledge has a set of logical implications/possibilities, given a probability of 6 billion people, someone will build a clone or do an atom bomb, will have that and that idea ..

[Gnieus]

Edit: I am sure Syntax 252 can speakl for himself' date=' but I believe he is stating a subset of my position. Our intelligence has allowed us to [u']adapt[/u] our environment, making us less dependent on it. This adaptation is more than simply physical (see point 1 above) and has not yet gone as far as it can (see point 2 above).

You seem hung up on 'we're all going to die'. Of course we are. That does not change the fact that the nature of evolution is/has/will change as a result of the application (and misapplication) of human intelligence.

 

Really not, wasps make nests where they regulate the temperature ... We gain advantage over other species to make us live longer or produce more||better offspring, same game.

 

And I am not hung up about dying. Death necessitates reproduction. If death was caused by changing environments, better adapted genes will survive with

a higher probability .. Hence Death necessitates evolution .. As long as you die and things change evolution/adaption has to happen. You can't live forever in a static environment ...

 

Evolution is about surviving with no clear end not about the Dawkins - Creationist fight of how Random or not random survival is.

 

All that is changed in your picture is how we have to understand evolution .. Desgin is obviously possible, so throw away everything that says it HAS to be undetermined. Design is possible. We are proof of it. You still gonna die and have to adapt design or not .. so evolution in a broader sense is still on, no one has claimed Jesus Christ dad did it and all laws of nature are still there, and no one is swinging a bible.

 

 

Let's quote the blind watchmaker

 

"All that natural selection can do is accept certain new variations, and reject others. The mutation rate is bound to place an upper limit on the rate at which evolution can proceed. "

 

OK, we design new species so are faster than mutation,hence evolution doesn't only work on mutations, so this is wrong. Or we change what mutation means in this concept some kind of change, then it's right.

 

Yet:

 

Where are these facts leading us? They are leading us in the direction of a central truth about life on Earth, ... This is that living organisms exist for the benefit of DNA rather than the other way around. This won't be obvious yet, but I hope to persuade you of it. The messages that DNA molecules contain are all but eternal when seen against the time scale of individual lifetimes. The lifetimes of DNA messages (give or take a few mutations) are measured in units ranging from millions of years to hundreds of millions of years; or, in other words, ranging from 10,000 individual lifetimes to a trillion individual lifetimes. Each individual organism should be seen as a temporary vehicle, in which DNA messages spend a tiny fraction of their geological lifetimes.

 

This still holds even if you design it. DNA survives ... All you need to do is not being anal about the random and the mutation thing and allow a wee ape species to mix a couple of DNA pieces together and still adaption, death, change is there.

 

So I think right is some change in DNA has to happen whatever way possible and then we see what survives the longest.

 

So you have not changed evolution but understood it a bit more. As long as there was no cognitive intelligence, mutations were the big deal with some cognitive intelligence other options of changing DNA are there. And oh wonder there is also RNA [like in Viruses], no one said there can only be one [this ain't Highlander].

 

That's all and we are still a lousy species on some small planet and not god.

[Ophiolite]

.. You are essentially stating we are above natural laws, evolution being one of them. ..

Tell me where I say anything remotely like that.

Either I need to learn to write or you need to learn to read.

[Gnieus]

Tell me where I say anything remotely like that.

Either I need to learn to write or you need to learn to read.

 

hmm' date=' we basically agree somehow and not. The perception that evolution will change, I don't know. Evolution as we think we knew it will change. but maybe it always was that way and we have vital evidence missing of what was before..

 

"That does not change the fact that the nature of evolution is/has/will change as a result of the application (and misapplication) of human intelligence."

 

Maybe we are just using the bandwidth of evolution possible instead of actually changing it. I think what you mean [doubtlessly you will tell me if I am wrong ] is that evolution will/has/is changing from theory we made up on the evidence we had. If we attribute to evolution as what we attribute to other natural laws like gravity, it will be likely valid throughout the universe, hence it is and unchangeable and we only reached now a certain state were we realise it's full or wider bandwidth ..

 

I think you summarised this with:

 

If you think the Universe is replete with intelligent life forms, rather like Byres Road on a Friday night, then it would not be so remarkable.[/i']

 

I think the word changing was the word that confused me.

[Sayonara]

You're over-thinking things a little.

 

Evolution describes mechanisms of change. Nothing else.

[Gnieus]

You're over-thinking things a little.

 

Evolution describes mechanisms of change. Nothing else.

 

Don't think so as this is exactly what I mean. Hence we are at no cross roads.

[Sayonara]

Notice how I put it in one line.

[Gnieus]

Notice how I put it in one line.

 

Yeah, like physics describe the things around us.. and computers calculate a lot.

[Gnieus]

You're over-thinking things a little.

 

Well, my PhD is in Evolutionary Ecology. This does not mean I am always right, but it means, I should at least think a lot about it.

[Ophiolite]

Then I look forward to further engaging debates with you. (I promise to do my best to make you wrong as often as possible.) Did you acquire said PhD at Glasgow?

[Gnieus]

Stirling, did a 3 year stint in St Andrews {normal population ecology/dynamics }, currently working from home in Glasgow on the next St Andrews project til October, after that ... no idea yet. Maybe going back into full-time computing. My gf's brother is lecturer in Strathclyde Uni in Information Science. Is that like what you are "Knowledge Managment"? I wrote a small CMS once and sold my "knowledge management" server of to a German Science group. Well we didn't know it was knowledge managment until the term was in use.

 

Looking at your degree, one of my aunts is a geologist emeritus at USGS, did some planetary picture analysis in the 60/70's with NASA. Is your interest in Evolution rooted in Paleontology? I am not that strong in that field, besides the usual stuff, mass extinctions etc and what you read. I did theoretical mathematical modelling of evolution, although using real data I collected, so it's hopefully not totally of the wall.

[Sayonara]

Well, my PhD is in Evolutionary Ecology. This does not mean I am always right, but it means, I should at least think a lot about it.

Ha, that explains everything.