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Evolution: A point to discuss
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
in General Chat
Darwins widely accepted theory of evolution states that the fittest will survive and breed, meaning that over the generations only the characteristics of the fittest will be passed on. Therefore, to survive in the surrounding world, you must become 'fit' - strong, intelligent and capable.
Humans are supposed to have evolved pretty well. We have made incredible advancments in technology, we have probably the most sophisticated language of any species, and our means of communications (phones, the internet, ect) are vast.
However, it occurs to me that with every advancement we make, we are actually impending our evolution. We are making ourselves less able to survive. Go back a few thousand years and man (maybe even a women) would have been able to go out and take on a sabre toothed tiger with a spear. I doubt that there are many humans who could take on a lion now, and the vast majoirty that could live in areas where the 'advancment' has been at a greatly reduced scale.
If there was a world wide power cut I suspect that a lot of the world would be screwed. We have come to rely on our inventions so much that we are no longer capable of surviving on our own. We are no longer the fittest. With every new invention and development we make ourselves weaker.
So I suggest that humans are not evolving, we are doing the opposite... we are maing our species weaker.
Or am I just far too cynical?
Humans are supposed to have evolved pretty well. We have made incredible advancments in technology, we have probably the most sophisticated language of any species, and our means of communications (phones, the internet, ect) are vast.
However, it occurs to me that with every advancement we make, we are actually impending our evolution. We are making ourselves less able to survive. Go back a few thousand years and man (maybe even a women) would have been able to go out and take on a sabre toothed tiger with a spear. I doubt that there are many humans who could take on a lion now, and the vast majoirty that could live in areas where the 'advancment' has been at a greatly reduced scale.
If there was a world wide power cut I suspect that a lot of the world would be screwed. We have come to rely on our inventions so much that we are no longer capable of surviving on our own. We are no longer the fittest. With every new invention and development we make ourselves weaker.
So I suggest that humans are not evolving, we are doing the opposite... we are maing our species weaker.
Or am I just far too cynical?
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The only hinderence evoultion has caused us is the evolution of the emotional brain, the only thing that could hold us back is the wishy washy aspect of humans, take vegetarinas as an exapmle, its a case where emotions have over come instinct and that isn't good news.
Sad to think about, but still won't convince me of going camping in the wild for a week to learn some basic survival skills.
Though I have thought of that before myself, so don't get to high thoughts of yourself
+ J, also posted a similar thread some time ago, called evaluation or de-evaluatio (or something similar)
but we've evolved so that is not neccessary, we are sitting higher on the food chain than ever before.
I'm pretty confident that I could live without technology anyway, catch, kill and cook my own food... you should really see my flat!
Apologies if that little ramble made little or no sense.
Evolution. Evaluate and devaluate is what capital and money does.
I would have thought that this technological advance would simultaneously be part of human evolution. Rather than evolving to grow much bigger, stronger or whatever, we've evolved to use the technology we have, which in this case is guns etc.
In this way, we've evolved NOT to use these skills that we once had.
Bleurgh. Does that make sense
Lets look at it another way... we have calculators to do our maths, we have televisions to keep our minds occupied (with shit, lets face it), we have computers to do... pretty much everything for us, we have cars to travel for us... all of these things mean that humans have to do less and less themselves. They are numbing our minds, they mean that we don't have to think as much. We don't have to develop our brains as much.
Then lets take guns. And missiles. And war and genocide ect... humans have created more and more efficient ways of killing their own species. WE have developed alcohol, cigarettes and drugs, all of which basically cause ourselves damage, whether it be brain damage, liver damage or cancer. We pollute the planet at an unbelievable rate, destroying our own home in the process.
Can that really be seen as evolving?
All good things have nasty side affects.
One way to look at this is to say that we've evolved to develop things to do with our time other than reproducing, thus have not completely overpopulated the planet, destroying everything in our wake.
[Yet]
But we are getting there very fast. The planet will die, unless some major changes are made. If evolution is about surviving in the surrounding world, I don't think that destroying the surrounding world can count as evolution.
This is evolving! By causing these toxins (a nasty side effect of our industrial and technological evolution) we are changing the planet and our own bodies. Via evolution, we will also evolve to cope with this polution, and as a species become stronger as the fittest will reproduce passing on their genes.
Plus, we can get pissed!
The jokes on our future gerenations! Before the planet is in a real mess, we'll all be dead! Hehehe!
Fair point, but we know we are doing this because we have the technology to measure such things. Therefore, there is hope that we may be able to do something about it.
We would never be as strong, or as fast as other animals on the planet, so we evolved with a much higher level of intelligence. We also have a remarkable ability to adapt to new situations. Humans being one of the only major species to survive the ice age, even though our bodies would have meant we would have perished. Our ability to adapt led us to invent clothes and fire. Our inability to kill animals with our bare hands led us to start using rocks, and later knives to kill our prey.
As for evolution slowing down, I think since the 1950's science has become the new form of evolution. Whereas our bodies will never improve naturally, science has taken over.
Within the coming decades we will be bred with many genetic improvements which can be passed down through the generations. Better skills, keener agility, increased strength, resistance to disease, improved ability to fight off disease, faster reflexes and improved intelligence.
I think humans will never vanish from this planet, not even in the face of catastrophe. We will adapt and overcome any challenges that are thrown at us by the universe, with our natural abilities, and our scientific abilities.
I'm afraid you've arrived at a wrongful conclusion. The facts speak the exact opposite.
You see according to history, 5 feet tall was a good manly height in Shakespear's day. In just a few hundred years we have evolved to be almost 18 inches taller, and proportionally heavier, stronger and fitter with it.
Go back a bit further.
Atila the Hun, the warlord who carved out an empire through conquest, was just over 3 feet tall. Ferocious of course, but almost any man today would out-reach him in any fight.
The thing is partly diet. You are what you eat, and rather than surviving for months without decent protein, todays people are well fed from birth until death. Sometimes over-fed, but always with plenty of protein to build a healthy body.
Advances in medicine, especially in childbirth now mean that a healthy woman is far more likely to survive childbirth. Did you know that childbirth was like flipping a coin one upon a time? The smallest thing went wrong and a fit healthy mother would die and never breed again because of a simple breech birth for example. Caesarian sections were invariably fatal.
Now consider immunisation. You think people who can wrestle tigers are automatically immune to measles, mumps, and plagues?
The bubonic plague alone wiped out 10% of the entire population of Europe. Think they were naturally the weakest? No, they were most often those strong enough to carry the bodies, social enough to have interacted. Your best chance of surviving the plague was to simply to be anti-social (not infected by others) and cleanly (no rats).
There is a great deal of difference between fitness to survive (which above all encompases adaptability and intelligence) and physical strength. After all, those Sabre-tooth tigers you mention were far fiter and stronger than humans, but where are they now?
Humans are one of the weakest creatures on the planet. Helpless at birth and not much better off for many years. However, our ability to adapt, and more importantly, to create and adapt our surroundings to suit us have been the key to our success. The person 'fittest to survive' isn't the man with the spear, its the geek who thinks up the idea of the house, the fire, medicine, etc.
And a slightly less convincing one, Captain.
Mindless these mind numbing influences, are they as mind numbing as sitting in a field ? doing nothing all day but hunt ? Are our minds now usless ? isn't it our minds that continue to push the boundaries of medical and technological advancment ? I think you'll find we are now of higher intelligence than ever, Throough the use of media and technology we have more information than ever before, we take in so much more about the world around us than ever before. Why not allow calculators to do our maths, what is wrong with that ? I can't see a problem with it, as long as when push comes to shove we can do the basics in our head that is all we will even need. Our travelling systems now allow us to see the world, to visit and experience so much more, all in all these advancements that you frown upon have enhanced life no end and have allowed us to continue to develop as a species way beyond you avergae wiold animal stuck to its terrirtorial acre.
War is natural, species fight, always have done, always will do, whether it be two deer locking thier ancholers or two human firing guns at one another, its instinct, complete harmony and peace isn't natural, survival of the fittest and all
We do pollute our planet, its wrong, but then the planet isn't going to be here forever, it too will die regardless of our activities, it nmay as well die prematurely as late, what does it matter ? save it for the future generations ? well one generation has to see it go, the next one is no different to any a thousands of years down the line, becasue even at that point, there would of been more to follow.
We simply have eveolved beyond all recognition, even in the past 100 years we as a species have evolved massively, not physically, but mentally.
At this point I could argue that yes, it has taken incredibly clever minds to develop what we have, but it is only a small minority of the species that can think in that way. The rest of us merely use the technology, and don't neccersarily know how it works. And we do not care.
I have to agree with whoever said it earlier... our brains have evolved into amazingly clever things, which give us the upper hand, along with opposable digit, over all other species. But our reliance on technology is preventing us from using our brains.
Are you suggesting that these comics aren't based on scientific logic?
Damn! No wonder I got an E in Biology A-level.
No, no, no its not - techonolgy of its time - the printing press, educational ? Technolgy is an instrument we use to improve our brains, not ruin them. If not for technology from where would you learn ? If anything you brain would be stuck, no more information, even paper was an advancemet in technology.
In my opinion, dependance, or reliance, is a bad thing.
Try living without technology, then come back and admit dependance isn't so bad after all
I do depend on technology, as we all do (Kirk - technology includes more than computers). However, this doesn't mean that dependance is a good thing. It would be much better if we did not depend on technology - if it wasn't neccersary. Because then, if we were for some reason forced to live without it, or without a vast majority of it, we would get along a lot better.
We should have a much lower standard of living based purely on the reasoning that it would be easier to adapt to a cataclysmic event that has no guarantee of happening ever? :rolleyes: