Homo Sapiens Sapiens

[Wraith]

We're certainly still evolving, but we're influencing the course of the changes. So far our main influence is a secondary effect; by altering our surroundings we are influencing our changes. This is a slow process, however, so we really haven't done much yet. The real changes will either not show up for a long time to come, or will be made artificially, through gene therepay or whatnot.

--"open to intrepretation, but I say de-evolution"

That's an amusing commentary, but not really the case. There's a phenomenon called regression to the mean which pretty much invalidates it.

--"But all animals learn from their forefathers in a different way thans humans do -- it's called instinct,"

Instincts aren't learned. I think you mean behaviours.

--"The Marching Morons - By Henry Kuttner"

I think I remember that story. If it is the one I'm thinking of, it was pretty good. I've actually been trying to remember that title.

Wraith
"Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake."
-- Napoleon Bonaparte

[Ethelred]

This is what I get for relying on a decade or more old memory.

Its not Henry Kuttner.

Its C.M. Kornbluth. Written in 1951.

About all I got right was the title and the fact that morons ARE involved in the story.

I think I must have mixed a bunch of stuff together. Typical. I try to avoid it but sometimes I don't.

Heck according to this it was a funny story.

http://www.goldkeys.com/ScienceFicti...380000547.html

The review is about a third of the way down. Not too long. Not at all what I was thinking.

Mea culpa.

[Urban Ranger]

There is this interesting doco that I watched on TV in which a bunch of funny looking people argue that, for humans (Homo Sapiens Sapiens if you want), cultural evolution has replaced biological evolution. They say these things called "mimes," sort of like cultural genes, are spreading around with us as carriers.

The thing to note is "culture" is used in a very loose and broad sense in this context. It includes things such as medicine, something that should be science/technology.

[Guynemer]

Originally posted by DinoDoc




I wasn't aware that it was in SMAC as well. If you could provide me the quote in which it is mentioned, I would be most appreciative.

Mea culpa. It just sounded like it should be from SMAC... I'm gonna crawl back under my rock now...

[Provost Harrison]

Homo Superior was a tech advance in SMAC, I presume that is what you are getting at, yes?

[MrFun]

Originally posted by Provost Harrison
Homo Superior was a tech advance in SMAC, I presume that is what you are getting at, yes?

Yes, perhaps that is what I mean.

There were some interesting comments from other people here on this thread. But I'm still not sure if Homo Sapiens Sapiens are still naturally evolving, or if we have begun the process of moving out of the bounds of natural evolution and into accelerated artificial evolution.

That's my initial statement, Provost.

[Bereta_Eder]

.

[MrFun]

Thanks, but no thanks Paiktis. I wasn't looking for porno.

[chequita guevara]

Yes, we are still subject to natural selection. Artifical selection, however, has been introduced.

Examples of natural selection, HIV. By killing off non-HIV resistent humans, we are being naturally selected to create a species of human that is immune to the disease. However, advances in medicine are affecting this.

Artifical selection: Chinese tend to artifically select for male children. This leads to an over abundance of males with no breeding partners and allows women to be very choosy in possible partners. This will lead to a large drop in the numbers of Chinese, resulting in a greater percentage of non-Chinese in the human population.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Yes, we are still subject to natural selection. Artifical selection, however, has been introduced.

Examples of natural selection, HIV. By killing off non-HIV resistent humans, we are being naturally selected to create a species of human that is immune to the disease. However, advances in medicine are affecting this.

Can you clarify what you mean exactly by your HIV example?? I had trouble understanding exactly what you're saying there. sorry, and thanks

[ranskaldan]

Evolution goes by two steps:
1) Random mutations. Most are harmful, few are good.
2) Natural selection. Environmental pressures remove harmful mutations, leave behind the good mutations. Thus the population slowly becomes more and more adapted.

(HIV example: as people more susceptible to AIDS get AIDS more and are more likely to die, slowly the gene makeup of the human race shifts towards more resistance towards AIDS.)

However, with modern advancements, natural selection among humans is vastly diminished when compared to other, wilder species.

I mean, how many of us have experienced floods, famines, several epidemics, deadly childhood diseases (without treatment), wars, etc? Yet this is what most other species, as well as most humans before 1900, experience all the time.

In fact, with Step 2 removed, the harmful mutations in Step 1 are no longer "negated". Thus it is possible that humans are devolving.

The same thing can be said about domestic pets.

(Not that I'm advocating things like the removal of healthcare or peace. That would totally screw up all of our lives! No, we must wait for artificial evolution to begin, i.e. gene therapy and so on.)

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by MrFun
Can you clarify what you mean exactly by your HIV example?

Okay, some people seem to have an inborn resistence to HIV. They can carry the virus, but it doesn't kill them. Instead of being killed by the virus, they are more likely to be able to propagate their resistent genes (assuming they can find a member of the opposite sex who is also imune). As the virus spreads through the population, those with the immunity will eventually supplant those without it.

Admittedly, it's not a great example, because the mere fact of having the virus doesn't ensure finding a suitable mate, or that the children will be immune to the virus. In fact, it would be irresponsible. But theoretically, given enough time and no articifial controlls like vaccines, medices, genocide of HIV carriers, eventuall the only humans left would be HIV resistent.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by ranskaldan
Evolution goes by two steps:
1) Random mutations. Most are harmful, few are good.
2) Natural selection. Environmental pressures remove harmful mutations, leave behind the good mutations. Thus the population slowly becomes more and more adapted.

Incorrect.

1) Most mutations are just noise. They neither harm nor help the organism. Some are harmful, and these tend to die very quickly after "birth" or are aborted by the organism or fail to germinate, etc.


2) Natural selection. A very few mutations are beneficial. This gives the specific organism an advantage to propagate its genes. More often, however, one of those non-harmful changes becomes beneficial in a niche environment or the environment changes and the non-harmful mutation is now beneficial.

[DanS]

I think the average "lifespan" of an organism is about 3 million years. The only way we could stop the evolution would be for homo sapiens sapiens to stop our exposure to radiation caused by the sun or to somehow freeze the genome in its current state.

But neither of these things will probably happen and human beings as we know them, will be around a remarkably short period of time in the grand scheme of things.

[chequita guevara]

Our species is only 100 to 200 thousand years old, so we have a relatively long run ahead of us.

However, when we begin moving out among the stars, speciation will likely occur.

Remember, the existence of only one type of human is not the norm, historically. For most of human existence, there have been several versions of humans.

[Starchild]

We stand on the edge of the abyss. Will you fall or will you fly?

[DanS]

I think we're already halfway through our 3 million years, as the evolutionary biologists count things. But in any event, 3 million years or whatever, is not a very long period in the sweep of time.

Once you move out to the stars, you do get some interesting scenarios. I agree. But if everything goes according to the way these things go, within 10 or 20 million years, there won't be an ounce of intelligence among us.

[Wraith]

--"They say these things called "mimes,""

I think you mean memes.

Wraith
"If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs, you may have an exciting future as a guillotine operator"

[Adalbertus]

I think the average "lifespan" of an organism is about 3 million years.

Sorrys to say it so frankly, but unless you define "organism" very well, this number is rather meaningless. "Homo sapiens sapiens" might have existed for only a few 100 000 years. Homo Sapiens Neanderthalensis or Homo Neanderthalensis (science is even not certain about the relation to modern humans) was to my knowledge not less intelligent than we were (it's two years and a half since there was a series of articles in Scientific American), and is AFAIK well older. Fossiles quite similar to the modern humans have been dated to ages of 3 million years and I think the oldest "basic" humans have lived about 10 million years ago. These dates already have an error of some million years. So I think your number is nice (and probably true) but not really helpful.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by DanS
I think we're already halfway through our 3 million years, as the evolutionary biologists count things. But in any event, 3 million years or whatever, is not a very long period in the sweep of time.

Once you move out to the stars, you do get some interesting scenarios. I agree. But if everything goes according to the way these things go, within 10 or 20 million years, there won't be an ounce of intelligence among us.

Why do you claim 3 million years as the average??

Dinosaurs existed for tens of millions of years, and the ancestors of the mammals that exist today originated 50 million years ago.

Unless dinosaurs and today's mammal, prehistoric ancestors do NOT represent the creatures of the average lifespan that you claim.

[SlowwHand]

Hard to grasp the probability that humans, by any scientific name, will be extinct someday, isn't it?

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by MrFun
Why do you claim 3 million years as the average??

I think he means species. Otherwise as you state there are countless examples of exceptions to the 3 million year rule. Hell, even if he means species there are still exceptions to the 3 million year average. Ankylosaurus lived for approx. 5 million years.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by DinoDoc


I think he means species. Otherwise as you state there are countless examples of exceptions to the 3 million year rule. Hell, even if he means species there are still exceptions to the 3 million year average. Ankylosaurus lived for approx. 5 million years.

*** DinoDoc waves the wand of clarification over MrFun's head ***

Thanks for your clarification -- unless Dan meant something else.

[ranskaldan]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Our species is only 100 to 200 thousand years old, so we have a relatively long run ahead of us.

It doesn't matter what the average "lifespan" of an organism is. If humans manage to nuke ourselves extinct, then no average lifespan can help us.

The "average" is just a statistic, a compounding of the billions of species before us. Man as a species is anything but average in the Animal Kingdom, having totalled unrivaled capabilities like massive farming, power plants, and nukes, which make the 3-million year average useless as a "rule of thumb" in this specific case.

[DanS]

MrFun: Yeh, Dino explained it right. The average lifespan for a species is 3 million years. This is important to consider when you're thinking about questions like why we haven't met other intelligent life yet, even in such a vast universe.

ranskaldan: Homo sapiens sapiens is not immune to radiation. Indeed, we would not have developed without its help. But it does limit the timeframe of our form as homo sapiens sapiens to a great degree.

[ranskaldan]

Originally posted by DanS
ranskaldan: Homo sapiens sapiens is not immune to radiation. Indeed, we would not have developed without its help. But it does limit the timeframe of our form as homo sapiens sapiens to a great degree.

Yes, indeed.

But i think that "evolution", in the sense of a species genetically adapting to its environment, has more or less ended for much of humanity.

[chequita guevara]

It would take a very great and rapid environmental change to abolish our species, regardless of the average life span. Now, we alter our environment, not the other way around.

[MrFun]

By destroying our own planet's ecosystem though, we might be accelerating sooner towards our extinction, and the extinction of most animal and plant life on Earth.

Maybe the destiny or fate of our evolution, is to evolve into some newer human species that will be adapted to instellar travel in ways that Homo Sapiens Sapiens are not capable of, to avoid humanity's extinction.

[The Mad Monk]

If that's the case, it won't happen until we're actually living in space.

Evolution is nothing more than a halting stagger toward equilibrium with an environment that is never in equilibrium.

[Dis]

I would like to clarify a bit.

I was a bit harsh when I said stupid.

Another poster probably had it right when they said the peopel who are best adapt to survive in our present society are apt to reproduce.

In short the people who have the best social skills tend to reproduce.

So it really is independant of intelligence. Whether this is good or bad remains to be seen.

But I think there are enough good genes to produce a decent amount of smart people. If they don't reproduce who cares .