Have humans stopped evolving? If not, how are we evolving?

[peter grimes]

Well, having spent some time searching around on ScienceDaily, I've failed to find the article I thought mentioned that there was some meager anecdotal observation that indicated some backwards pathways in algae or bacteria...

Perhaps I'll have better luck hunting around tomorrow. In any case, it wasn't reported to be a very large effect, but that fact that it seemed to be information flowing in the opposite direction is what caught my eye.

Back on topic, Has anyone here read Kurtzweil on The Singularity? I'm just starting it now...

 

[warpus]

Kurzweil is full of crap

 

[frekk]

If you believe natural selection is the primary driver of evolution, then evolution for humans has probably slowed significantly.

Actually, it's the other way around.

Natural selection inhibits traits. That's why it's called selection. Less natural selection, means a greater diversity of traits.

Natural selection is still at work, of course. Mostly things that affect youth mortality, but also things that affect parents (since, in mammals, parents contribute to the viability of their offspring until maturity). So susceptibility to lifestyle diseases is being selected against; aggressive tendencies are probably being selected against (eg genes that make people prone to domestic violence, criminal violence, aggressive driving and so on); and so on.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

I've read years ago that our lifestyles partly influence which genes are expressed in our children and Lamarck was not completely wrong. For example when people were overweight during their childhood their children or even grandchildren have a higher chance to be diabetics, children of parents who survived a famine have a longer life expectancy.
Since I don't remember the original article anywhere and my grasp of genetics and the english language is insuffifient to adequately explain the concept I'l take the easy route and link wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epigenetics

 

[ori]

(...)So susceptibility to lifestyle diseases is being selected against; aggressive tendencies are probably being selected against (eg genes that make people prone to domestic violence, criminal violence, aggressive driving and so on); and so on.

almost all lifestyle diseases have late onset (50+) and won't affect the number of surviving offspring much or at all - also nowadays in Industrialized societies kids need not reach maturity to survive.
I also very much doubt that aggressive traits are under selection pressure over all - while some dangerous behavior (aggressive driving) may reduce the number of offspring slightly over all - some other behavior (like domestic violence) is likely to even increase the number of offspring if anything.
If there are traits that increase the likelihood of getting some sort of education - then its those that are under heavy selection pressure - just compare literacy rates and other education measurements and birthrates worldwide - it is well known that female education reduces birthrates drastically .

 

[frekk]

almost all lifestyle diseases have late onset (50+) and won't affect the number of surviving offspring much or at all - also nowadays in Industrialized societies kids need not reach maturity to survive.

Lifestyle diseases may not be fatal until 50+, but the thing is that they lower fitness much, much earlier, especially now - all the 9 year olds these days are shaped like a pear.

Also ... numbers alone aren't enough in mammalian reproduction, viability counts for alot. In today's society, parents and grandparents assist their children in numerous ways that aren't always so obvious. Not to mention the burdens associated with early-onset lifestyle diseases. If your parents get very sick you might, for instance, put off having children. While your neighbour, with healthy parents, is getting on great because his parents are helping with time and money instead of consuming the same.

I also very much doubt that aggressive traits are under selection pressure over all - while some dangerous behavior (aggressive driving) may reduce the number of offspring slightly over all - some other behavior (like domestic violence) is likely to even increase the number of offspring if anything.

How is domestic violence going to increase the number of viable offspring? Sure, that family may spawn a whole slew of hardcore alcoholics, junkies, teen suicides, and so on. But that's not viable.

If there are traits that increase the likelihood of getting some sort of education - then its those that are under heavy selection pressure - just compare literacy rates and other education measurements and birthrates worldwide - it is well known that female education reduces birthrates drastically .

All those populations are subject to periodic collapses involving massive loss of life. Particularly in the modern era. These act as a bottleneck through which only a few pass. So, its really neither here nor there how many they have, because those aren't sustainable numbers. The people whose offspring almost always survive are those in the developed world, and the wealthy and educated in the developing world (who have an easier time insulating themselves or fleeing abroad).

Over the last 50 years, we have had an unprecendeted explosion of population in the developing world because of the Green Revolution in the postwar era. New fertilizers, new strains of crops, irrigation projects and so on maximized agricultural output, and allowed these populations to continue to grow. But we've hit the limit. The output can't increase at those rates anymore, and we're already getting back to the way things used to be. The only difference being that the larger populations mean things are even more precarious than before. The developing world has already entered a global food crisis.

 

[Mise]

I thought this might be relevant here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8227442.stm

We are all mutants say scientists
By Sudeep Chand
Science Reporter, BBC News

Mutations - SPL
Each of us has between 100 and 200 new genetic mutations

Each of us has at least 100 new mutations in our DNA, according to research published in the journal Current Biology.

Scientists have been trying to get an accurate estimate of the mutation rate for over 70 years.

However, only now has it been possible to get a reliable estimate, thanks to "next generation" technology for genetic sequencing.

The findings may lead to new treatments and insights into our evolution.

In 1935, one of the founders of modern genetics, JBS Haldane, studied a group of men with the blood disease haemophilia. He speculated that there would be about 150 new mutations in each of us.

Others have since looked at DNA in chimpanzees to try to produce general estimates for humans.

However, next generation sequencing technology has enabled the scientists to produce a far more direct and reliable estimate.

They looked at thousands of genes in the Y chromosomes of two Chinese men. They knew the men were distantly related, having shared a common ancestor who was born in 1805.

By looking at the number of differences between the two men, and the size of the human genome, they were able to come up with an estimate of between 100 and 200 new mutations per person.

Impressively, it seems that Haldane was right all along.

Unimaginable

One of the scientists, Dr Yali Xue from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Cambridgeshire, said: "The amount of data we generated would have been unimaginable just a few years ago.

"And finding this tiny number of mutations was more difficult than finding an ant's egg in an emperor's rice store."

New mutations can occasionally lead to severe diseases like cancer. It is hoped that the findings may lead to new ways to reduce mutations and provide insights into human evolution.

Joseph Nadeau, from the Case Western Reserve University in the US, who was not involved in this study said: "New mutations are the source of inherited variation, some of which can lead to disease and dysfunction, and some of which determine the nature and pace of evolutionary change.

"These are exciting times," he added.

"We are finally obtaining good reliable estimates of genetic features that are urgently needed to understand who we are genetically."

BBCsciencearticle/10 but hopefully someone has some more info/thoughts on it.

 

[Enkidu Warrior]

Back on topic, Has anyone here read Kurtzweil on The Singularity? I'm just starting it now...

Kurzweil is full of crap

Kurzweil is indeed to some extent full of crap, but his central ideas are nonetheless very convincing, even when he tries his best to put you off them by getting all carried away. I have little doubt that biological evolution will be eclipsed quite massively this century by technological means, but we aren't there yet, and biological evolution is indeed continuing at much the same rate.

Eran mentioned sexual selection on page 1 - this is something that has led to numerous major evolutionary changes in the past, and although people aren't dying off quite so easily as they used to, we haven't got any less picky about who we raise children with.

 

[Torgny]

If humans are evolving depends much what view we have of who we are. Some people think that we are only biological bodies and that this has produced all we are. Other people see it as we are souls who live in a physical body.

It the biological body will evolve more, I don't think so. But if we are souls, yes by increasing the connection with our soul I think that our possibilities are unlimited.

 

[warpus]

If humans are evolving depends much what view we have of who we are. Some people think that we are only biological bodies and that this has produced all we are. Other people see it as we are souls who live in a physical body.

It the biological body will evolve more, I don't think so. But if we are souls, yes by increasing the connection with our soul I think that our possibilities are unlimited.

You obviously did not understand the question

 

[Torgny]

You obviously did not understand the question

Could you please tell me what it is I have not understood?

 

[dwaxe]

'Evolving' in a Science & Technology forum does not include whatever kind of evolution you are talking about. There is no empirical evidence for any kind of soul, and although I believe that the question of whether there is a soul is still up for grabs, it is a question for metaphysics--not science.

edit: The evolution we are talking about is this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Introduction_to_evolution

 

[Torgny]

'Evolving' in a Science & Technology forum does not include whatever kind of evolution you are talking about. There is no empirical evidence for any kind of soul, and although I believe that the question of whether there is a soul is still up for grabs, it is a question for metaphysics--not science.

edit: The evolution we are talking about is this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Introduction_to_evolution

There has been done a lot of research of the soul. Ex near-death-experiences. If we only accept evidence based upon what we can experience by the five senses - we know for sure that the five senses give us a false information about reality. A table we see before us we perceive as being solid, but it is in fact most empty space with a few atoms. What we can see with our eyes is only the energies within the spectrum of visible light. All energies that are below and above it we can not see, so what we see with the eyes give us an incomplete and thereby false information about reality.

However, if this tread is about a belief-system that can not be questioned or investigated with critical eyes, let there be so.

 

[warpus]

Could you please tell me what it is I have not understood?

You do not understand what evolution means in the context of "The Theory of Evolution", is what I mean.

 

[Mise]

There has been done a lot of research of the soul. Ex near-death-experiences. If we only accept evidence based upon what we can experience by the five senses - we know for sure that the five senses give us a false information about reality. A table we see before us we perceive as being solid, but it is in fact most empty space with a few atoms. What we can see with our eyes is only the energies within the spectrum of visible light. All energies that are below and above it we can not see, so what we see with the eyes give us an incomplete and thereby false information about reality.

However, if this tread is about a belief-system that can not be questioned or investigated with critical eyes, let there be so.

Why critical eyes? Investigating with only your eyes leads to an incomplete and thereby false view of reality. What you have not understood is that the dainty whiff of evolution transcendentalises even the most perceptuous of nostrils.

 

[Torgny]

I have studied natural science so I know the context of "The Theory of Evolution." I just think that evolution as Darwin explained it tells us a lot, but it does not explain everything. I have said that I do not see much further development of the biological body. However, I believe in evolution and I don’t believe what some churches say that man was created 4000 BC.

Another person who also believed that the theories of Darwin can not explain everything was Alfred Russel Wallace, who produced the theory of evolution together with Darwin and several other people in the 19th Century. Wallace said that he believed “in a non-material origin for the higher mental faculties of humans.”

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

 

[peter grimes]

There is still no evidence at all that the 'higher mental faculties of humans' have a non-natural origin. In fact, all the evidence gathered so far points towards a strictly natural physical origin for all life on Earth.

 

[warpus]

I have studied natural science so I know the context of "The Theory of Evolution." I just think that evolution as Darwin explained it tells us a lot, but it does not explain everything. I have said that I do not see much further development of the biological body. However, I believe in evolution and I don’t believe what some churches say that man was created 4000 BC.

Are you sure you really understand the theory? Do you understand how species slowly change over time - a process that *never* stops?

 

[Torgny]

There is still no evidence at all that the 'higher mental faculties of humans' have a non-natural origin. In fact, all the evidence gathered so far points towards a strictly natural physical origin for all life on Earth.

What we know from facts is that we can find old fossiles from animals showing that they have developed slowly through the years. Both Darwin and Wallace developed the same basic ideas at the same time, and these theories were very similar. They also influenced each other and had a lot of correspondence between them. However their conclusions are somewhat different.

Wallace could find no evidence that the ideas of Darwin could explain the emergence of human genious, such as Beethoven, da Vinci and others. He could see no other explanation that a facility outside the human brain. "that natural selection cannot account for mathematical, artistic, or musical genius, as well as metaphysical musings, and wit and humour."

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

 

[Torgny]

Are you sure you really understand the theory? Do you understand how species slowly change over time - a process that *never* stops?

Yes I have understood it, I have studied both Darwin and Wallace (although not as a specialist in biology). It is a gradual biological process, that however is not liniear but now and then takes big jumps forwards.

I have no problem with biological development, but in my experience this is not the only development. We also have to understand the energies that are above and below the spectrum of "visable light" that influences us.