Evolution?

[No Such Agency]

I\'ve read parts of OoS but it\'s a very dry read by modern standards. Darwin had a very interesting life, as I think I mentioned earlier in the thread. I was fortunate enough to get to see the museum exhibit about his life and work when it was at the ROM in Toronto recently.

 

[treide]

No, but I plan to at some point. I understand it is a somewhat painful read - antiquated terminology and ploddingly slow. Nevertheless, I would like to hear it \"from the source\", so to speak.

 

[junior elf]

@NSA: I know that mutation doesn\'t mean a three headed guy. All that I\'m saying is that most evolution has got nothing to do with it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_selection

 

[freakinacage]

ok, quoting from that article:
Natural selection acts on an organism\'s phenotype, or physical characteristics. Phenotype is determined by an organism\'s genetic make-up (genotype) and the environment in which the organism lives. Often, natural selection acts on specific traits of an individual, and the terms phenotype and genotype are used narrowly to indicate these specific traits.

When different organisms in a population possess different versions of a gene for a certain trait, each of these versions is known as an allele. It is this genetic variation that underlies phenotypic traits. A typical example is that certain combinations of genes for eye color in humans which, for instance, give rise to the phenotype of blue eyes. (On the other hand, when all the organisms in a population share the same allele for a particular trait, and this state is stable over time, the allele is said to be fixed in that population.)

Some traits are governed by only a single gene, but most traits are influenced by the interactions of many genes. A variation in one of the many genes that contributes to a trait may have only a small effect on the phenotype; together, these genes can produce a continuum of possible phenotypic values.[2]

how do you think these genes become different in the first place? mutation!!

dude there is no argument against this. mutation is very rare but due to the insanely large amounts of animals that are living and have lived, it happens, a LOT

 

[Bill]

Originally posted by junior elf
@NSA: I know that mutation doesn\'t mean a three headed guy. All that I\'m saying is that most evolution has got nothing to do with it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_selection

Erm... no! All evolution has something to do with it. Without mutation, there wouldn\'t be evolution.

 

[No Such Agency]

Originally posted by Bill

Originally posted by junior elf
@NSA: I know that mutation doesn\'t mean a three headed guy. All that I\'m saying is that most evolution has got nothing to do with it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_selection

Erm... no! All evolution has something to do with it. Without mutation, there wouldn\'t be evolution.

More specifically, without mutation, there would be no variation, which is what natural selection acts on to drive evolution.

(my previous post was really just an excuse to post a mini photo and make this discussion somewhat topical )

 

[Theomar Pius]

The down side of Humans big brains, we as a species are passing on more and more poor traits that wouldn\'t normally be passed.
Example: ugly people become attractive from plastic surgery, gain mates that they may not have, and pass their ugly genes on.
Poor eyesight is another one. I can barely see without my glasses. In a hunt and gather society, I would certainly not have survived childhood, and never been in a position to pass my awful vision off to my children.

Humanity is essentially outsmarting itself into making natural selection obsolete and irrelevant within it\'s own genepool, for better and for worse.

 

[wiccanpony]

http://www.top20fun.com/funny_jokes/1048.html

 

[tzor]

Originally posted by Theomar Pius
The down side of Humans big brains, we as a species are passing on more and more poor traits that wouldn\'t normally be passed.

But I would argue, is that really a \"bad\" thing? Indeed you could argue that traits that are no longer needed are no longer optimized. (Bear in mind that most cases of \"bad vision\" aren\'t even in the genes but in development ... rates of growth and disease being the leading causes for poor eyesight in youth.)

More importantly natural selection only works in a species up until they start breeding. Errors in the DNA that don\'t have an impact until half way through the breeding lifespan can still propagate through the species. Errors that cause problems after the breeding lifespan of course will not be removed through natural selection.

 

[freakinacage]

Originally posted by Theomar Pius
The down side of Humans big brains, we as a species are passing on more and more poor traits that wouldn\'t normally be passed.
Example: ugly people become attractive from plastic surgery, gain mates that they may not have, and pass their ugly genes on.
Poor eyesight is another one. I can barely see without my glasses. In a hunt and gather society, I would certainly not have survived childhood, and never been in a position to pass my awful vision off to my children.

Humanity is essentially outsmarting itself into making natural selection obsolete and irrelevant within it\'s own genepool, for better and for worse.

yeah, you\'re right there. medicine covers symptoms but the genetic causes are being passed on. i am short sighted, colour blind and asthmatic. i would probably be dead by now

 

[Amazon warrior]

Originally posted by freakinacage

Originally posted by Theomar Pius
The down side of Humans big brains, we as a species are passing on more and more poor traits that wouldn\'t normally be passed.
Example: ugly people become attractive from plastic surgery, gain mates that they may not have, and pass their ugly genes on.
Poor eyesight is another one. I can barely see without my glasses. In a hunt and gather society, I would certainly not have survived childhood, and never been in a position to pass my awful vision off to my children.

Humanity is essentially outsmarting itself into making natural selection obsolete and irrelevant within it\'s own genepool, for better and for worse.

yeah, you\'re right there. medicine covers symptoms but the genetic causes are being passed on. i am short sighted, colour blind and asthmatic. i would probably be dead by now

Yeah but what to do about it? I seem to recall that one of the principles of eugenics was to prevent \"defective\" phenotypes from breeding- I think they even went so far as to sterilise mentally handicapped people to avoid them producing kids with mental problems. But who decides where the line between \"normal\" and \"defective\" lies? What kind of monster would that make you? Ordinarily, as you say, the harshness of nature would decide, but I think few people nowadays would accept artifical selection processes. Personally, I hope they keep working on genetic therapies, such as using viruses as vectors to replaced damaged or missing genes.

Incidentally, I believe that we get the name Eugene from eugenics.

 

[Theomar Pius]

Originally posted by tzor

Originally posted by Theomar Pius
The down side of Humans big brains, we as a species are passing on more and more poor traits that wouldn\'t normally be passed.

But I would argue, is that really a \"bad\" thing? Indeed you could argue that traits that are no longer needed are no longer optimized. (Bear in mind that most cases of \"bad vision\" aren\'t even in the genes but in development ... rates of growth and disease being the leading causes for poor eyesight in youth.)

More importantly natural selection only works in a species up until they start breeding. Errors in the DNA that don\'t have an impact until half way through the breeding lifespan can still propagate through the species. Errors that cause problems after the breeding lifespan of course will not be removed through natural selection.

Might be a bad thing, might not. Who\'s to say that an important antibody was never developed because of a weaker genome, which would leave people exposed to a catastrophic disease that wipes out the entire population? Maybe the alien slavers will pass Earth because it\'s full of ugly blind people who aren\'t as strong as what they like in forced labor? Maybe evolution is Gods plan, and to stop the process is to defy God?

Either way, I see humans forcing a process in the lab that should normally be left to nature, and nature has amuch better track record than humanity (although we are pretty damn good, we can\'t compare to nature.)

 

[junior elf]

Originally posted by wiccanpony


http://www.top20fun.com/funny_jokes/1048.html

Hahahahahahahahahahaha, urm..., um... get serious again, did I say that out loud, damn

OK, now we are moving away from the subject. We all believe evolution is real so what\'s the point arguing. I would really like to know what people who believe evolution is fake think of this. By the way I give up, I was wrong, mutation isn\'t as rare as I thought.

 

[funnymouth]

also keep in mind that natural selection is not the only evolutionary process - genetic drift is also quite important, so is sexual selection......
what, i believe NSA is getting to, is that evolution is often defined simply as any change in allele frequency over time.
> a change in the proportion of a trait in a population over time, thats it! a concept that is very difficult to dispute.

 

[junior elf]

So every body on CMON believes in evolution? THIS IS EVEN RARER THAN MUTATIONS (THE WIERD KIND WHEN THEY GET THREE HEADS).lol

 

[airhead]

Originally posted by junior elf
So every body on CMON believes in evolution?...

Na, we\'re just tired of arguing with those that know everything.

 

[junior elf]

That\'s the end of the thread then.

 

[freakinacage]

Originally posted by Amazon warrior

Yeah but what to do about it? I seem to recall that one of the principles of eugenics was to prevent \"defective\" phenotypes from breeding- I think they even went so far as to sterilise mentally handicapped people to avoid them producing kids with mental problems. But who decides where the line between \"normal\" and \"defective\" lies? What kind of monster would that make you? Ordinarily, as you say, the harshness of nature would decide, but I think few people nowadays would accept artifical selection processes. Personally, I hope they keep working on genetic therapies, such as using viruses as vectors to replaced damaged or missing genes.

well then you get into judge dredd territory, essentially a change of hair colour is a mutation, it\'s a VERY fuzzy line

 

[treide]

Originally posted by Theomar Pius

Either way, I see humans forcing a process in the lab that should normally be left to nature, and nature has amuch better track record than humanity (although we are pretty damn good, we can\'t compare to nature.)

Tell that to people dying of cystic fibrosis, Duchenne\'s Muscular dystrophy, or Tay-Sach\'s disease! We now have real potential to treat or even cure these genetic disorders, and we got there by improving our understanding of genetics. We have Darwin, Mendel, Watson, Crick and countless other geneticists to thank for that progress.

 

[Prophet]

Originally posted by airhead

Originally posted by junior elf
So every body on CMON believes in evolution?...

Na, we\'re just tired of arguing with those that know everything.

Not surprisingly, there is a very strong correlation between education level and acceptance of evolution.

http://www.religioustolerance.org/ev_publi.htm