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Is humanity still evolving?
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<blockquote data-quote="Grydan" data-source="post: 6222318" data-attributes="member: 79401"><p>This, basically.</p><p></p><p>Any living, reproducing, population that is using a method other than 100% perfect cloning (no errors, no matter how small, ever, or at least none ever allowed to be passed on to successive generations) to reproduce is evolving.</p><p></p><p>It's important to keep in mind that evolution is simply change. It's not progress. There's no devolution. There's no evolutionary ladder. We, as a species, are not 'more evolved' than any other species on the planet: every branch of the tree of life has the same trunk, at least in so far as we've been able to determine. We're all the same number of billions of years from that same starting point.</p><p></p><p>Another thing to keep in mind is that simply because a trait is found in abundance, doesn't necessarily mean it was selected <em>for </em>(that having it made an individual more likely to be able to pass on their genes): it can also simply mean it was never strongly selected <em>against</em> (having it never significantly lowered your chances of passing on your genes). </p><p></p><p>Our being smarter than the average bear doesn't necessarily mean there was some great selective advantage to brainpower at any point. It could be a coincidental side-effect of something else that was being selected for or against. Genetics is complicated: a tiny change in the right place can have ripple effects that result in significant differences at the macro scale, while much larger changes, if they happen to fall into a section of the code that's labelled 'junk', have no noticeable effect at all … until one of those tiny changes comes along and changes a label from 'junk' to 'read this'.</p><p></p><p>Now, that said, it's likely that at some point, yes, having more brainpower did provide a selective advantage: the human body simply devotes too much resources to our brains for it to have always been simply incidental.</p><p></p><p>But to the extent that intelligence (if we can ever figure out a satisfactory definition) depends on genetics, it's clear that there's no particular reproductive advantage these days to being the smartest guy in the room. Einstein had three kids. Hawking has three kids. Feynman had two kids. All pretty decent numbers … but there's people far less bright than those guys who've had far more children. Michelle and Jim-Bob Duggar are neither of them Einsteinian in their intelligence (I've never met them, never watched their TV show, and for all I know they're fairly bright individuals … simply not geniuses), and they've got 19 kids. The chances of their genes getting passed on are rather higher. Especially if there's a genetic component to their enthusiasm for having so many kids.</p><p></p><p>There's an upcoming movie, Delivery Man, in which through an error at a sperm bank, a man becomes the genetic father of over 500 children … the technology is certainly around by which one individual could be the father of millions, all without having to have any particular genetic advantage. It's a little bit more difficult (he says, putting it mildly) for a woman to similarly be the genetic mother of such vast numbers, but given that we live in a day and age where it's possible for one woman to carry another woman's fertilized egg to term, it's not impossible (though the ultimate upper limit is still lower than it is for men).</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Grydan, post: 6222318, member: 79401"] This, basically. Any living, reproducing, population that is using a method other than 100% perfect cloning (no errors, no matter how small, ever, or at least none ever allowed to be passed on to successive generations) to reproduce is evolving. It's important to keep in mind that evolution is simply change. It's not progress. There's no devolution. There's no evolutionary ladder. We, as a species, are not 'more evolved' than any other species on the planet: every branch of the tree of life has the same trunk, at least in so far as we've been able to determine. We're all the same number of billions of years from that same starting point. Another thing to keep in mind is that simply because a trait is found in abundance, doesn't necessarily mean it was selected [I]for [/I](that having it made an individual more likely to be able to pass on their genes): it can also simply mean it was never strongly selected [I]against[/I] (having it never significantly lowered your chances of passing on your genes). Our being smarter than the average bear doesn't necessarily mean there was some great selective advantage to brainpower at any point. It could be a coincidental side-effect of something else that was being selected for or against. Genetics is complicated: a tiny change in the right place can have ripple effects that result in significant differences at the macro scale, while much larger changes, if they happen to fall into a section of the code that's labelled 'junk', have no noticeable effect at all … until one of those tiny changes comes along and changes a label from 'junk' to 'read this'. Now, that said, it's likely that at some point, yes, having more brainpower did provide a selective advantage: the human body simply devotes too much resources to our brains for it to have always been simply incidental. But to the extent that intelligence (if we can ever figure out a satisfactory definition) depends on genetics, it's clear that there's no particular reproductive advantage these days to being the smartest guy in the room. Einstein had three kids. Hawking has three kids. Feynman had two kids. All pretty decent numbers … but there's people far less bright than those guys who've had far more children. Michelle and Jim-Bob Duggar are neither of them Einsteinian in their intelligence (I've never met them, never watched their TV show, and for all I know they're fairly bright individuals … simply not geniuses), and they've got 19 kids. The chances of their genes getting passed on are rather higher. Especially if there's a genetic component to their enthusiasm for having so many kids. There's an upcoming movie, Delivery Man, in which through an error at a sperm bank, a man becomes the genetic father of over 500 children … the technology is certainly around by which one individual could be the father of millions, all without having to have any particular genetic advantage. It's a little bit more difficult (he says, putting it mildly) for a woman to similarly be the genetic mother of such vast numbers, but given that we live in a day and age where it's possible for one woman to carry another woman's fertilized egg to term, it's not impossible (though the ultimate upper limit is still lower than it is for men). [/QUOTE]
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