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High Fructose Corn Spirit

Gym climber
Potemkin Village
Nov 6, 2013 - 10:13am PT
What I gathered from Dawkins, at least - Why worry about those things you can't change.

Everything's alright.

[Click to View YouTube Video]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkje4FiH9Qc

Till it isn't. ;)
High Fructose Corn Spirit

Gym climber
Potemkin Village
Nov 6, 2013 - 07:35pm PT
For the benefit of fellow evolutionary secular progressives, here's one more totally awesome Joe Rogan Sam Harris interview...

[Click to View YouTube Video]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHBfB7usIcU

Joe Rogan,
"I've watched a lot of your videos on line, I've enjoyed every one of them, and I liken some of those debates you get into with those old Gracie in Action videos... For martial arts it's really brilliant stuff to watch cause until the Gracies came along nobody really knew that there was one guy out there that could just sort of manhandle people like that - strangle them and choke them - that there was one martial art that was so superior when it came to grappling situations, you'd almost feel bad for the guy getting strangled but not really. That's how I feel when I watch a lot of your debates."
"Well that's very high praise but I can tell you it's not as satisfying in the debate format as it is on the mat. Because no one ever taps. It's like you're fighting an army of zombies - they've lost but they can't be forced to admit that they've lost." (-Sam Harris)

lol


Gracie Jiu-Jitsu In Action
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8jvy8XBsQk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kurwgdIcVIQ
Paul Martzen

Trad climber
Fresno
Nov 7, 2013 - 01:25pm PT
I don't see any evidence for the idea of Dysgenisis or for the idea that humans have stopped evolving. I do read speculation, assertions and assumptions that humans have stopped evolving and that technology is making us less fit for future survival.

On the very first page of this thread was a link to an article with evidence that human evolution is accelerating.
http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2011/05/human-hyper-evolution-have-mutations-changed-the-course-of-history.html

An excerpt below from that article.

Population growth is making all of this change occur much faster, Hawks says, giving a tribute to Charles Darwin. When Darwin wrote in Origin of the Species about challenges in animal breeding, he always emphasized that herd size "is of the highest importance for success" because large populations have more genetic variation, Hawks says.

The parallel to humans is obvious: The human population has grown from a few million people 10,000 years ago to about 200 million people at A.D. 0, to 600 million people in the year 1700, to more than 6.5 billion today. Prior to these times, the population was so small for so long that positive selection occurred at a glacial pace, Hawks says.

"What's really amazing about humans," Hawks continued, "that is not true with most other species, is that for a long time we were just a little ape species in one corner of Africa, and weren't genetically sampling anything like the potential we have now."

"Five thousand years is such a small sliver of time -- it's 100 to 200 generations ago. That's how long it's been since some of these genes originated, and today they are in 30 or 40 percent of people because they've had such an advantage. It's like 'invasion of the body snatchers.'"

HFCS - The cartoon with the fat guy and the skinny TV was funny. The mouse video was entertaining. However, your statement that,
Still, the plight of dysgenic effects, due to rising of technology and the undermining of natural selection in ever softening climates, is real.
Is an assertion presented as fact, but without any supporting evidence.

It is okay to speculate and have assumptions but lets try to be clear when they are speculation and assumptions.
High Fructose Corn Spirit

Gym climber
Potemkin Village
Nov 8, 2013 - 10:34am PT
Is an assertion presented as fact, but without any supporting evidence.

Paul, sure there is some assumption or speculation with these types of posts, but still I'm not sure where the confusion or disagreement, to the extent it exists, is.

When I think about the dodo bird (losing flight capability: dysgenic effect) or eyeless cave salamander (losing visual acuity if not eyesight entirely: dysgenic effect) or sea mammal (losing limb dexterity for mvt on land: dysgenic effect) or inguinal hernia patient and his progeny (losing let's call it abdominal wall integrity; dysgenic effect due to surgeon and repair technology) - and here I'll speculate - countless thousands of other examples large to small, macro to micro, anatomical to physiological, across species' gene pools, in phenotypes, phenotypic effects, etc., I have in mind entropy effects (increasing disorder) in the absence or reduction of selection pressure. This is just basic evolutionary theory. Right?

That said, remember I did point out above that what's "eugenic" or "dysgenic" is in the eye of the beholder. Right?

Regarding what's real or factual: The effect or phenomenon (dysgenic?) of flightless cormorants is real. Right? Or the phenom or effect (dysgenic?) of fearlessness of many Galapagos species - that's factual or real. Right? Given the arrival of Man to these islands a couple centuries back, I think many would opine or judge today that the relative defenselessness of the fauna - the cormorant flightlessness, eg, or blue footed booby defenselessness or fearlessness, the genotypes and phenotypes (structures) leading to these - to be "dysgenic." Curious if you don't agree assuming your interest is the preservation (esp the autonomous carefree preservation) of these critters.

I don't know if you had a chance to catch the Dawkins Shermer sitdown at Cal Tech interview I linked to above. I really haven't said anything different on these last couple pages, or anything more, than what was brought up in there.

There are growing eugenic efforts, eg, eugenic companies, around the world today. Just yesterday morning, in fact, on CBS This Morning, Charlie and Nora interviewed the founder of 23 and Me. In the future, there is little doubt (but sure, we could call it assuming or speculating) these eugenic efforts will increase; and they will play a greater role insofar as needed to offset dysgenic effects. Arguably all the more reason to learn about them today - and their associated processes - the mechanics if you will - across the citizenry so in the future there won't be such a mindless, reflexive, knee jerk reaction to them or their remedies.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQ0cRIrOOiA

http://www.23andme.com/

...

FM, very funny!

Thanks to the link to the Sam Harris piece. Missed that one. Will try to read it later today. I like the analogies or comparisons between the bullshit in martial arts and bullshit in religions. People are wising up. Some of them.

...

re: evolution of belief


I appreciate your tolerance of religion. I too had a sense of tolerance of religion for the most part. That tolerance began to die on 9/11/01. As the succeeding years have pasted and the Christian fundamentalist such as Bachman, Santorum, Perry, Barton, and Cruz began sounding more like the Taliban than Americans I decided the hell with it. Religion does not deserve to continue much less be tolerated. BS has to be called out and refuted.

YTube commenter, at above link.

Evolution's under way. People are coming around.
High Fructose Corn Spirit

Gym climber
Potemkin Village
Nov 14, 2013 - 12:03pm PT
David Christian at TED...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqc9zX04DXs

was on Steven Colbert this week talking about his Big History project...

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/430408/november-12-2013/david-christian

Entropy. Second Law of Thermo. Evolution. Reality vs. Perception of Reality. Reality vs. Representation of Reality. The Scientific Story. Meaning of Life.

.....

Fort,

Alas, a lot of folks didn't grow up with physics, chemistry and evolutionary history as a basis of biology - particularly long enough to imprint on them - so it's pretty easy to see WHY they don't view the world around them including their own lives in this context.

Internet and social media (Big History to Cosmos 2014, etc.) are changing everything though.


For many it's less to do with facts now, I think, and more to do with attitude.

Not that anyone asked but I'd say the meaning of life, or purpose of life, is to eat, survive, reproduce... and, above these basics, for Man, to actualize, to do, and by all means try to get in some fun along the way. :)
High Fructose Corn Spirit

Gym climber
Potemkin Village
Nov 14, 2013 - 08:38pm PT
re: our mechanistic nature

I have acquired an increasing sneaking suspicion that our mellowing, saddening and such with age is every bit as programmed in our makeup - by evolution and genetics - as (a) our reaching puberty and its effects or (b) other temporal hallmarks (graying, menopause, e.g.). Like clockwork. Though we like to think it's imparted by education, experience, wisdom or rational thought. Or due to breakdown, or breakdowns. But I'd bet, in large part, it is effect or output of clockwork laid down over eons by evolution and mediated in real time by genetic metabolism. All part of the Grand Balance (of dynamic equilibria) we can see operating across nature, human nature and general nature. Can't prove it though.
High Fructose Corn Spirit

Gym climber
Potemkin Village
Dec 5, 2013 - 01:07pm PT
7 Reasons Why It's Easier for Humans to Believe in God Than Evolution

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/11/seven-evolutionary-reasons-people-deny-evolution

I like Chris Mooney. These are seven good reasons. Another is just as basic, I think.

(8) Lack of life experience in nature investigation or lack of life experience in science.

Just as not everyone has a passion for rock climbing, not everyone has a passion for nature investigation or a passion for science.


Something we have to live with, I guess.
High Fructose Corn Spirit

Gym climber
Apr 7, 2015 - 03:38pm PT
digital technology could have a greater impact than anything that has come before. It will enhance the powers of some individuals and organizations while subverting the powers of others, creating both opportunities and risks that could scarcely have been imagined a generation ago.

http://medium.com/@dkroy/our-transparent-future-aa86a7bcfe85

"The tremendous change in our world triggered by this media inundation can be summed up in a word: transparency. We can now see further, faster, and more cheaply and easily than ever before — and we can be seen. And you and I can see that everyone can see what we see, in a recursive hall of mirrors of mutual knowledge that both enables and hobbles. The age-old game of hide-and-seek that has shaped all life on the planet has suddenly shifted its playing field, its equipment and its rules. The players who cannot adjust will not last long."

"As optimists, we would like to believe that this period of turmoil will push us toward organizations better aligned with the moral codes of civil society and powerful novel ways to correct deviant organizational behavior. But we cannot rule out a permanent weakening of our intelligence organizations that will reduce their abilities to identify threats."

"The new transparency will lead to a similar proliferation of tools and techniques for information warfare: campaigns to discredit sources, preemptive strikes, stings, and more."

"Time will tell, but it appears that we might be at the cusp of a radical branching of the organizational tree of life."

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-digital-transparency-became-a-force-of-nature/
High Fructose Corn Spirit

Gym climber
Jul 24, 2015 - 07:56am PT
Did natural selection make the Dutch the tallest people on the planet?

So their heads stay above water in a flood?

For many years, the U.S. population was the tallest in the world. In the 18th century, American men were 5 to 8 centimeters taller than those in the Netherlands. Today, Americans are the fattest, but they lost the race for height to northern Europeans—including Danes, Norwegians, Swedes, and Estonians—sometime in the 20th century.

http://news.sciencemag.org/biology/2015/04/did-natural-selection-make-dutch-tallest-people-planet

The study suggests that sexual selection is at work in the Dutch population, Stearns says: Dutch women may prefer taller men because they expect them to have more resources [eg., tools to toys?] to invest in their children.

So much mystery and speculation, so little time.
eeyonkee

Trad climber
Golden, CO
Topic Author's Reply - Jul 25, 2015 - 11:48am PT
There's only two things I hate in this world. People who are intolerant of other people's cultures and the Dutch.

I love that line. But seriously, I appreciate you keeping this thread alive HFCS. Turns out, I have changed my thinking on the subject of are humans still evolving - 186 degrees.

The book, The Beak of the Finch, changed my thinking on the subject. Evolution can happen a lot faster than I thought. And the reason it happens fast is the combination of "natural" and "sexual" selection. They seem to combine in this way that provides feedback that ultimately accelerates evolution. The most mysterious part, to me, is how, in an emergent species, the females "know" how to select those males having the new, fitter gene(s).

Having said that, our ability to engineer our progeny in the future will likely overwhelm natural and sexual selection, although this sort of evolution might still apply to some future underclass.
Pete_N

Trad climber
Santa Cruz, CA
Jul 25, 2015 - 03:52pm PT
1. Are humans still evolving? I mean significantly. Are we going to continue evolving bigger brains for instance. Since natural selection requires some sort of selection pressure, typically involving either a significant culling or isolation of a population, is this likely in a world of 7 billion where people move (and procreate) freely across the planet?

2. Is group selection, as advocated most notably by the evolutionary biologist E.O. Wilson, a viable process for explaining things like altruism or can this be explained entirely by selection at the organism or gene level?

3. What is the likelihood that the emergence of life on a planet will lead to intelligent life given 100s of millions or billions of years of evolution to work with.

1. Yes. As long as there's heritable variation and selection, you'll get evolution. Because the usual forms of natural selection are less applicable (that's arguable!) to humans, it's not clear just what forms of selection are likely to be most important for us currently.

2. I'm not up on the most current research here, I don't think that some of these phenomena _can_ be explained solely by selection at the level of the individual. Also, don't discount the importance of culture, which, I suspect, often leads to a form of group selection.

3. Don't know enough to comment...
cintune

climber
The Utility Muffin Research Kitchen
Jul 25, 2015 - 04:00pm PT
Anyone catch this last week?

http://news.discovery.com/animals/endangered-species/human-hands-more-primitive-than-chimp-hands-150714.htm


The study, published in the latest issue of the journal Nature Communications, determined that while human hand proportions have changed little from those of the last common ancestor of chimps and humans, the hands of chimps and orangutans have evolved quite a bit.
micronut

Trad climber
Fresno/Clovis, ca
Jul 25, 2015 - 08:17pm PT


I sometimes wonder if we are overall devolving as a species on a large scale (increase in obesity, heart disease etc...) while small subgroups evolve to unimaginable talent and physical prowess (ie Usain Bolt's 100m time.....the result of a terrific genetic gift coupled with a culture of skill and drive and effort......or your typical collegiate swimmer as compared to 1958.)

Some of our larger environments seem to dumb down the genetic pool, while others are selectively improving the progeny of the next generation. Ie. beautiful people marrying beautiful people which leads to beautiful children who will then marry beautiful people who will have good looking kids. Or I now know many couples who were both Olympians who are seeing their kids grow up to be Olympians and date olympians..... In three short generations you seem to have a really high chance of genetic specificity toward a particular sport. Couple that with a culture of a sport in a family and the potential for "selection" seems quite high.
climbski2

Mountain climber
Anchorage AK, Reno NV
Jul 25, 2015 - 08:40pm PT
My outlook outlook on human evolution. For a period of time from about 100,00 or 40,000 years ago to about 100 years ago human populations managed to separate and start a process of individual population evolution. Some physical characteristics began to diverge and become distinct. Perhaps other characteristics.

Regardless we are now in a time of homogenization. I now see only two sources of radical change in our species evolution. A massive depopulation event or taking our genetic code into our own hands or a combination of both...

I am highly optimistic about the future of the human race. While we may (likely) go though various depopulation events over eons, the species is robust and incredibly adaptable for survival in almost all environments on land that earth offers.

I grew up with Eskimos for a time and, wow, If one can subsist in that environment.. well it's gonna be hard to get rid of the human race.

I am hopeful that we will evolve into a species with better capability for peaceful sustainable civilization.

Yep YER GUNNA DIE.. we all will..but not likely all at once until we become something different.

BLUEBLOCR

Social climber
joshua tree
Jul 25, 2015 - 08:46pm PT

The study, published in the latest issue of the journal Nature Communications, determined that while human hand proportions have changed little from those of the last common ancestor of chimps and humans, the hands of chimps and orangutans have evolved quite a bit.

I wonder what it is in the environment that has caused these dramatic changes?

Bolts record in the 100, and 200 doesn't have to do with his genetic breeding. Although his genetics did allow him to reach this Plateau. But it was certainly the environment of the other top runners that pushed him to that extra -.05 record
BLUEBLOCR

Social climber
joshua tree
Jul 25, 2015 - 08:52pm PT

I now see only two sources of radical change in our species evolution. A massive depopulation event or taking our genetic code into our own hands or a combination of both...

These are both environmentally caused. If nothing more, it proves how much more the environment is in control of evolution over genetics.
BLUEBLOCR

Social climber
joshua tree
Jul 25, 2015 - 09:42pm PT
I hope people start thinking deeper about what Darwin actually said.
WBraun

climber
Jul 25, 2015 - 09:50pm PT
Americans have devolved.

So the stupid evolution theory is completely smashed.

De-evolution is happening also ......
High Fructose Corn Spirit

Gym climber
Jul 29, 2015 - 07:55am PT
BREAKING!

New hypothesis regarding evolution...



Taking a page from one Donald Hoffman, cognitive scientist and author of more than 90 scientific papers and three books...

the hypothesis - shown above in picture format - though probably untrue is presented precisely so that it can be proven precisely or disproven precisely...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYp5XuGYqqY
High Fructose Corn Spirit

Gym climber
Jul 29, 2015 - 09:01am PT
Good point.

And earlier I spoke of dysgenic effects. The point made was that whether or not an evolved change is dysgenic (or eugenic) depends on point of view and the the goal or objective.

That is one of the most interesting parts to me... how it is a function of how you look at it.

The dodo we can imagine with no interest in flying any more like its ancestors - after all it's home was paradise - why go (fly) anywhere else? - was of course proud of its newly (d)evolved upper limbs.

No interest until there is...


Is the eyelessness in the eyeless cave salamander net positive (eu-) or net negative (dys-)?
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