LLD101

[breakbeatz2]

OMG I admit I didn't read those long posts, so maybe TacoBell's question was already answered:

[heprea]

yes, i believe in evolution

[dragonfire_god]

I intend to debate this with vigor tonight, I hope someone is there for it.

Please know that I am not for evolution or creation, both have their points and facts but both have their flaws.

However tonight I think I will be pro creation for the sake of this thread and see if we can't solve this

[DD[2]]

Not to curve the overall direction of this discussion, but if we evolved from monkeys or w/e, then does that not mean we can KEEP evolving? If its true that humans came from monkeys, why can it not be true that humans can over millions of years evolve into something else? If this is true, why havent we seen changes in humans or any other animals. I guess maybe the time factor is the main reason, but still. But if evolution is true then we will continue to evolve (unless Armageddon happens by this time). Heh, I cant wait till the day we have four arms, playing diablo 42 exp, and creating threads saying OMG i cant believe we came from those lame ass humans 2 million years ago.

[Waramp]

humans arent likely to evolve any more because there is no more natural selection. there are no pressures that would make one human more likely to survive until reproduction than another (unless they die before sexual maturity).

[DD[2]]

What about the rapidly diminishing atmosphere of the earth? And all the other problem shit. If in five hundred thousand years the earth has changed drastically, maybe we will too

[ubermoose]

Well, we could evolve immunities to some of the diseases around at the moment.

Also, humans are still evolving, but because it takes millions of years to see any real difference its hard to tell. Just like looking at the hour hand on a clock for 24 hours and not really noticing it going round.

recent human evolution

[DD[2]]

Well, you mentioning the immunity development n those articles about brains, i guess that the only major evolution we will make is how smart and up-to-date on the environment we are. So, maybe in a million years we wont have four arms, but we can still make threads saying OMG i cant believe what dumbasses we were back then. Yessssss

[KnightXENO2]

actually you could make the argument about sublte evolution of humans already. Look back far enough and people were smaller in most ways (height, muscle, etc). Much more glaring than that is the continuously rising life expectancy. Intelligence could also maybe be argued... but there are too many people you and I know as exceptions for that to be a strong argument.

Now granted alot of the height/muslce issues can be explained away due to better/more readily availible nutrition. Life expectancy has also been rising mainly do to medical advances. BUT thats within the near future, life expectancy has been rising in a curve for hundreds (maybe thousands) of years.

And I think you would all agree that our immune system has evolved considerably (even before the introduction of antibiotics).
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If nothing else, the reason you haven't seen any obvious biological evolution in humans is because of how we constantly attempt to artificially remove ourselves from naturally selecting pressures. Due to culture, choice, and technology the "weaker" of the species are not left to die before they breed. While this allows "weaker strains" to breed true in concept, the reality is that it has probably allowed some of the better minds of our times to live. Einstine (spelling sorry)? Steven Hawkin ?name another important person None of those people were physically "fit" in an evolutionary sense, but they were quite "fit" in what current culture valued (they were intelligent and used it to pruduce... knowledge in this instance but still).

And as for monkeys didn't have human babies, your quite right... up to a point. One of the more outrageous theories evolution-wise was about punctuated evolution, a theory postulating that sometimes evolution happened in rapid bursts. Some people beleive that this explains some of the gaps in fossil records concerning human evolution (missing links etc), and as an idea it is appealling. Unfortunately it has no proof (and is almost unprovable by its very premise unless we observe a case of punctuated evolution by accident). Also, for years evolutionists have fought creationists harping about by the fossil record holes by spinning threads of fancy about how certain geological changes whipped out fossil records for that time.... itself a very questionable postulation.

The best 2 books on evolution I ever read were VERY good. One was a non-fiction book with lots of hard science, but told more in a novel type basis (for the sake of easy arguments) and made use of lots of examples/metaphors etc... then followed it with science. I had to look up the title since its been a while: "The selfish gene" by Richard Dawkins. It is used quite often at the university level as the text for an evolution course for biology majors. The other book is surprising a book of fiction, Darwin's Radio (by Greg Bear), but it gave a very clear/detailed view about the theory of punctuated evolution with a story graphed onto it.

[breakbeatz2]

[KnightXENO2]

Possible, or you could argue that knowledge/ideology undergoes evolution since most of humanity's adaption has been by way of technology (from fire and the wheel to electricity etc).

and while thats probably true on some levels, it has problems. Good ideas DON'T always spread...in the short term. However, evolution of memes is probably similar to genes in that it only looks to work over the very long term (thus we can't get a proper view on it at the moment). Example, good/more correct discoveries are eventually red-discovered (genetics is a great example... mendels work buried for many years till rediscovered). but whether that= good ideas/memes winning out in long term (evolution)? who knows

*EDIT* and with our current understanding of genetics, attempting genetic engineering on a human is little better than picking numbers out of a hat. Sure we can identify many genes, but no where near all... and I won't even get started on all the alternate splices, alternate foldings, and suppossed "junk DNA" (since we have no idea WTF it does at the moment.

[breakbeatz2]

[DD[2]]

[breakbeatz2]

There is no longer any selective pressure that would let a smart person live to the age of reproduction where a stupid person would not

[KnightXENO2]

Its all point of view though. For instance, its not natural selection of animals not even traits. It occurs at the genetic level I think we could all agree.

But look how it all started, simple replicating molecules competing with each other over materials. RNA was the best system so it won out, and was then later supplanted by DNA. After that anything that gave an advantage of replication over other replication systems was preserved. Lifeforms were a random mutation that allowed a replication system to improve itself. Instincts for animals, same thing. Body balance (no lions teeth on a rabbit etc) is conserved in basically all lifeforms because it worked. Humans share most of our DNA with other animals because it worked. Intelligence allowed even MORE replication, so it was preserved.

At its heart, all DNA is concerned about is replicating itself more. A human vehicle is just the current best ride.
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Meme theory is that ideas/knowledge etc is similar to DNA. An idea that promotes longevity (or even more importantly increases population of specis) is conserved in the enviroment. In this instance intelligence is just carriers for memes, as people/plants/animals were just successful vehicles for DNA replication.

Weird idea, I know. However its basically been proven that the idea WORKS for genes. Its the only way to explain why there are so many repeats due to viruses in our DNA. Somewhere in our descent a retrovirus hitched a ride and graphted tons of repeats of itself into our DNA, but because they didn't hinder DNA replicating itself at all it was preserved. Does it work for ideas?? Not sure if its proveable, but personally it explains FADS, cults, etc alot better than any other theory. Ideas spread throughout a population, and until they are proven to be disadvantagous they remain. In fads, they remain until displaced by something else because they neither improve not hinder anything. Science is supportive of "evolutionarily selfish DNA", but memes are taken as a joke by and large. But ask yourself, why does understanding technology keep progressing reguardless of our brain physiology? Our culture/school/family/peers program us with ideas as we grow up, and over long periods of time the general thoughts shared by a majority of the world keep progressing... Something to think on atleast