This might be a little it controversial and it may offend a few people. I promise that that is the last thing i want to do so before you read on, understand that i am making massive genralisations: - There was a report released at some time and a close friend gave me the summary of it. As i can not name the report etc i dont insist you believe me, but try to follow it through in your head. Most (all?) species evolve. This makes the species better as a whole, and is said to work by individuals with more desirable characteristics etc having (lets face it) more sex, ie a big bull with a shed load of muscles has more chance of breeding than a scrawney bull, thus the offspring are more likely to be bulky bulls as well. So lets look at humanity. Lets look at England. Familys with a higher intilect have branier kids (remember i am generalising). These kids are sent to better schools (their parents have higher paying jobs 'cause they are more brainy) and thus get a better education. On average they will have children at a later time in life than their equivalent counter parts (less inteligent families at worse schools), either through better information on contraception or they choose to have a career first. So this means less inteligent individuals are multiplying at a faster rate than the inteligent ones. If this continues for 300 years, does that mean that there will be no clever people left? On a slightly different line of thought, in 400 years will there be any "white people" left? Or ginger haired people (i always forget whether ginger is dominent or not). Your thoughts?
I tend to favour the transhuman or extropian models for next step evolution - life continues and improves in a non organic substrate. this might get the old noodle twitching http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~phoenix/vinge/vinge-sing.html
humanity is stagnating because we cater to the lowest common denominator. instead of trying to excel our best, a lot of the time we try and even it out for our worst. people with severe genetic disorders are allowed to have children, whereas in a population of animals they would be cast out or have no mate. and like you said, stupid people breed more than smarter people, so the word slowly gets filled with idiots. its a sad state of affairs, but I guess the gradual decline of the human race is what we get in return for freedom.
"Survival of the fitest" is the often misqouted Darwinian stance. I think you'll find "cultural" predators will end up replacing "natural" ones.
In any population, there will still be a small population of people who excel. They will succeed and acquire more money and posessions. Competition ensures that THEY will keep getting stronger and smarter. This means that they will be able to exert control upon the population of thicker, weaker individuals- making any attempt to apply traditional evolutionary concepts irrelevant. Think more in terms of the selection of a swarm of ants than a small group of hunter-gatherers.
None of us can know the future for sure, but I'd point out the French revoltion as a fine justification of why this future is unlikely.
I disagree As a biologist I have to say I can't agree with this "de-evolution" of the human race. Lots of people still view evolution in extremely Lamarckian terms, ie, acquired triats such as knowledge and intelligence will be passed on to further generations. This does not apply to humans with real genetic defects who have children; but the human race simply does not have the proper conditions for real biological evolution to occur (in any "direction", if that can even be said). ld
Oh right? I thought that a strong, clever, high-powered subsection of society grew used to their own supremacy, grew lazy, thick and weak, and the stronger, brighter but still oppressed ones took matters into their own hands.
KE's got ya richie. I'm studying the French Revolution in Social Studies, and between falling asleep and talking to my GF in between lectures I did manage to catch that.
They got where they were through the interplay of darwinian forces that you claim should allow them to produce a super ruling class. They were infact no smarter than anyone else, and in some cases of the French aristocracy quite inbred. And they ended up dead.
How's he got me? I'm trying to expose the fallacy of a self perpatuating elite ruling class. Can we all please read the thread? Thanks.
At the end of the day, who frigging cares! We're all gonna be long gone by the time dumbasses rule the world... wait a minute, dumbasses running the world... has this not already happened?!? Like I said, who cares, I'm off to partaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyy mmmmmmm beeeeeeer mmmmmmm JD and coke mmmmmmm cheeky vimtos 3quid
Nope, you're wrong. Although you might THINK that it would produce a 'super ruling class', experience shows otherwise. In any case, evolution doesn't work on anything remotely like a human timescale. You're losing sight of the big picture- aristocracy lose it, peasants take over, peasants pass on their genes...
I understood about half of what's going on , but, yes, I do not see any upper hand being gained on either side of the argument. And as for Ikken's post, the reason animals cast out the less fortunate is because, THEY'RE ANIMALS! We are humans, and we have evolved forward enough to realize that just because someone is less fortunate than we are, doesn't mean we have to leave them to die.
In fact, our very intelligence gives us the insight to realise that helping the injured and weak is a good idea- as it helps the group to survive and makes it more likely that we ourselves will be helped should we become injured.
Evolution is just a slow biological recursion. Recursion is thr true force. I don't think it would produce a super ruling class, hence me siting the French revolution as why this super elite class will not evolve. I'm perhaps not articulating well, you're perhaps not undestand on perhaps a mixture of both.
