Researchers Say Human Brain is Still Evolving 923
Oleg Alexandrov writes "Two genes involved in determining the size of the human brain have undergone substantial evolution in the last 60,000 years, researchers say, suggesting that the brain is still undergoing rapid evolution. The discovery adds further weight to the view that human evolution is still a work in progress, since previous instances of recent genetic change have come to light in genes that defend against disease and confer the ability to digest milk in adulthood."
It's remarkable how wrong this is (Score:5, Insightful)
That being said, it's conceivable that we're at the point where the human brain is the exception to the above. After all, what has been the driving force behind the evolution of the brain? Big-brained people surviving and succeeding in reproduction where little-brained people fail.
This isn't really happening anymore. Yes, smart people still trump over stupid people in most aspects of life, but stupid people still reproduce. Civilization has removed the engine through which drives the evolution of the species.
I can't believe how often highly educated people will pontificate on this subject, and get it wrong. Yes, usually the media is to blame -- science reporting is notoriously bad -- but that does not appear to be the case here.
Ironic that they should be so wrong on this of all subjects.
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You didn't know. [tinyurl.com]
Duh? (Score:5, Insightful)
I guess this could be news to people who don't actually understand evolution -- which, given the popularity of pseudoscience like "Intelligent Design" and non-science like "Creation Science" -- probably is quite a bit. Unfortunately, experience shows that they don't really care to learn anything about evolution anyway, so chances are they'll do little but mock the findings without even trying to understand them.
Now, wait a second... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Counter-evidence... (Score:5, Insightful)
Evolution optimizes for survival, nothing else. And unfortunately, in this country, there is a strong selective pressure against intelligence.
Sarcasm and "bling" on the other hand....
Gene distribution (Score:5, Insightful)
Another geneticist, David Goldstein of Duke University, said the new results were interesting but that "it is a real stretch to argue for example that microcephalin is under selection and that that selection must be related to brain size or cognitive function."
Basically this study shows that the 2 genes they studied are distributed with different frequencies in different populations, but occur more often in these populations now then 60,000 years ago. Anything else is just theory and speculation.
Evolving or devolving? (Score:2, Insightful)
Does this mean that we will evolve into beings that are better at hand-eye co-ordination, faking emotions, and playing music, while ignoring pure intellect?
Human evolution has STOPPED! (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:It's remarkable how wrong this is (Score:3, Insightful)
It's the morning coffee gene!
Re:Obviously (Score:5, Insightful)
The intelligent are now protecting the stupid in much the same way mankind has protected cattle. The stupid tend to breed with other stupid while the intelligent tend to breed with other intelligent people. At some point this should lead to a split in the species as the two groups evolve in different directions. Still it'd take quite a change to make the two groups incompatible for mating so you'll likely see the occasional mix.
Stupid people tend to breed faster than intelligent people but they also tend to live less healthy lifes which probably increases their mortality rate. I'd still imagine stupid people produce more children that live long enough to themselves reproduce than intelligent people though. To bad this topic is taboo because it'd be pretty interesting to study.
In the meantime - geeks unite and breed! Don't let the moron inherit the Earth! The fewer children you have the more likely they'll be wage slaves to stupid people. Fight back - have sex (with yourself doesn't count)!
Learn the nature of science. (Score:5, Insightful)
No, it isn't.
Evolution is nothing but a theory.
Creationists say this like it means that it's somehow on shaky ground. It isn't. "Theory" is the highest level that any explanation reaches in science. There is no higher label. The dismissing of evolution as "nothing but a theory" only demonstrates that the one making the dismissal is fundamentally ignorant of scientific terminology.
Ask any REAL biologist (like those with Ph.D.'s or those who work in colleges), and they will admit evolution is a theory.
And theories never get any higher in rank.
It is not fact.
"Facts" are simply statements about single observations, nothing more. "Facts" really don't mean anything in the long run in science.
It is not a scientific law.
And it never will be. Despite the ignorant rantings of creationists, theories do not ever become laws. Theories and laws are two different types of statements. Laws are general statements about collections of previous observations by which future observations are predicted. Theories are an attempt to explain the underlying causes of the observation. Example: the "Law of gravity" is a model of the resultant force caused by gravitational attraction between two masses. The theory of gravity -- more commonly known as "relativity theory" -- is an attempt to explain why that force occurs.
Laws are no more certain than theories. Theores do not "graduate" into laws. Laws can just as easily be falsified -- in fact, the "Law of Gravity" as we know it from Newton is false. Saying that "evolution is a theory, not a law" as if this casts some doubt on the validity of evolution again only demonstrates that you are fundamentally ignorant of how science works.
The cool thing Intelligent Design is we know God made us.
No, Intelligent Design postulates -- based upon faulty premises -- that certain features in biological systems are too "complex" to have come about through evolution, and therefore must have been "designed" by some unnamed designer. "God" doesn't enter into "Intelligent Design" as it is presented by the shysters who try to shove it into school cirriculums.
That you think that it directly refers to a god -- especially the God that you happen to worship -- only further demonstrates that ID is nothing but a sham to try to sneak religion into schools.
As for "know", I'm sorry but claiming that you "know" something isn't valid justification for scientific consideration. If you have no evidence, then you have no case.
Think about how the world was made. Science has a theory called "Big Bang". It is a theory which states that in the start the mass was so dense, it exploded and everything flew away randomly, making stars and planets, and life.
The Big Bang doesn't cover abiogenesis. Please actually learn the science behind it before attempting to discuss it.
For any people who know statistics, what is the probability of that happening? How many times would I have to flip a quarter and get heads in a row? 100,000,000,000 times? 100,000,000,000,000 times?
You know the statistical likelyhood? Please present the math. Show all of your work. If you can't then you don't have a case. Please avoid the fallacy of pointing to the "likelyhood" of the universe appearing in its exact configuration as it is and pretending that the universe couldn't have just as easily supported life had it come about in a somewhat different configuration unless you can demonstrate that it is the case.
You would have a better chance at taking a watch, hitting it with a hammer until it was broken into 1000 peices, and then putting it in a bag, shaking the bag, and having the watch come back together out of the random movements.
False analogy, demonstrating a fundamental ignorance of cosmology. Try to understand why physicists say what they say about universal origins before thinking that
Hoist by your own petard (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Theory or God?? (Score:5, Insightful)
Theory and fact are not exclusive. Stating something is a theory and is not a fact implies that the theory is wrong. Scientific laws are just "convenience" wrappers for theories. The things we call "laws" are theories just the same. They are still subject to the same rigor as theory.
The cool thing Intelligent Design is we know God made us.
And that is why you are NOT a science. Because you "know." You've moved from theory to statement of fact.
For any people who know statistics, what is the probability of that happening?
The probability of the event cannot be determined because we lack understanding of the state space.
How many times would I have to flip a quarter and get heads in a row? 100,000,000,000 times? 100,000,000,000,000 times?
The probability of getting N heads in a row is 1/(2^N). But that is irrelevant to the discussion.
You would have a better chance at taking a watch, hitting it with a hammer until it was broken into 1000 peices, and then putting it in a bag, shaking the bag, and having the watch come back together out of the random movements.
And you've calculated the probability of this how?
God made life. It is called a soul.
That it is incorrect. Life was bestowed upon the earth when the Flying Spaghetti Monster extended His noodly appendage and brought forth a midget in full pirate regalia.
Evolution ain't what it used to be (Score:2, Insightful)
"Survival of the fittest" doesn't apply to humans -- obesity kills a lot of people. You don't have to be fit (in any sense of the word) to survive. Who's reproducing more: smart people or idiots? I'd bet on the idiots (smart people think a little more about the implications of having [another] child). If the average intelligence of the human race is dropping (ever so slighly), how can we call that evolution?
Evolution seems to lead to diversity, and as a race humans are becoming (IMO) less and less diverse. The concept of evolution is intimately tied to diversity -- humans have quit evolving... we're done.
So a little variation here or there is natural... it's all statistics anyway. I guess any article that mentions evolution makes it on
Re:Theory or God?? (Score:5, Insightful)
Now that is a loaded statement.
Yes it is.
It doesn't go nearly far enough.
"Pseudoscience" implies that its proponents, cranky or not, at least sincerely believes in it. That is too charitable for "intelligent design".
"intelligent design" is a meticulously planned, focus-group designed, carefully executed fraud.
It is created only to deceive. It's intended purpose is not to explain anything, but only to diminish the public credibility of any real scientific explanatory model of life or the origin of our world.
Re:Theory or God?? (Score:4, Insightful)
And I say that if you're going to use the term "theory" to mean something other than what scientists mean and then claim that the theory of evolution is on shaky grounds because it is a "theory" by your definition then you're not arguing based upon facts, but upon dishonest semantics.
Which isn't surprising. I've observed that creationists are, in general, shameless liars. You're either one of them, or you're trolling. Your posts are more over the top than most creationists, but I do know that people have seriously expressed the insane and willfully ignorant sentiments that you preach in all seriousness, so it's hard to tell.
Re:Theory or God?? (Score:3, Insightful)
And that is why you are stupid.
Will this result in evolution or branching? (Score:4, Insightful)
So, we still have the genetic randomization going on, resulting in differences in humans. But, then what happens? All the strains of humans just keep going.
Does this result in the spectrum of humans spreading increasingly wider, so eventually subjects at two extremes barely resemble the same species?
Will any noticeable branching happen? In previous evolution, one group survived and thrived, replacing members without an adaptation. Now, since the others still survive, and the difference between the weak and strong won't result in a dramatic difference in results for either group. Probably not anything recognizable outside the normal differences between tall & short, thin & fat, smart & dumb.
Re:Duh? (Score:3, Insightful)
The scope of this article is over 60,000 years, the headline suggests the brain is "still" evolving. When you consider modern medicine and modern living the most basic mechanics of evolution (natural selection) aren't nearly as powerful as they were in hunter/gatherer societies.
So, it is news, and whats even more misleading is that the suggestion that evolution is happening due to environmental factors now. What factors exactly? Modern life is about preserving life no matter what and previously people who would have died due to a weak immune system, mental illness, etc are happily (or miserably) reproducing and passing their genes. Seems like evolution is in action but when the environment gives mixed signals, whose to say where its "going."
Re:It's remarkable how wrong this is (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Now, wait a second... (Score:5, Insightful)
While I agree that human engineering will likely eclipse natural selection in the near future, I have to say that from my observations, at least of modern industrialized society, that the number of offspring is still related to prosperity. However the relation is probably backward from what you were thinking. It seems that the poorest (and least educated so maybe that is the deciding factor) members of our society are the ones having children at the youngest ages and having more children over their lifetime.
Re:Milk (Score:3, Insightful)
I both lost and regained the ability to digest milk as an adult.
This is more likely due to changes in your intestinal flora over time than evolving at the age of 29 a gene for adult production of lactase.
One more thing... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:It's remarkable how wrong this is (Score:4, Insightful)
to see this, just look at dog breeds.
the same could easily be done with humans, certainly.
Re:It's remarkable how wrong this is (Score:5, Insightful)
I like how that's totally a fact you can back up with data from the local library's copy of "kids of athletes and models - 2005 edition".
But seriously, although eugenics does not sit well with me or anyone most likely, and while your logic is correct - two idiots can breed a genius, I would wager statistics would prove that people with higher educations breed people who contribute more to society, and it probably helps to be more "well off", too.
Before I get flamed to death, I am definitely not advocating birth control in this sense (or eugenics) - the key is in the education, which brings with it the wealth.
To me its always been a shame that one of the most promising tools for improving society gets the shaft over and over again... Not to get offtopic, but its a shame that probably more than half the teachers in our institutions should not be teachers, and that the ones who should teach out of a desire to teach and make a difference (rather than for the small compensation) - most everyone has that really good teacher they remember that really made a difference.
To be a teacher should require as much education as it does to become a Doctor - possibly more, and they should be paid more, too. The day we see that is the day we see some real advances in society.
WE HAVE STOPPED EVOLUTION! (Score:3, Insightful)
Technology has given people with hereditary conditions like diabetes and nearsightedness the same chance to pass its genes to the next generation.
We are a weaker race because of it. Not that I am complaining
Cheers,
Adolfo
Re:Theory or God?? (Score:3, Insightful)
Just don't expect to persuade anybody to see your point of view if you refuse to base your conversation on a common usage of specific scientific terms. If you refuse to actually crack open a dictionary and get up to speed on what the word "theory" means (hey, click here [reference.com] for a definition - it's free!), then the first job you'll face is to get people who do use a functional, consistent vocabulary to abandon it and use a new, made-up definition that suits your agenda.
You will learn more about evolution in the Bible than any PH.D. granting institution can teach you
Huh. Well, that's just not even slightly true on the face of it, so you're going to have to work on that from another angle.
How do you explain miricles?
Well, I don't know. Perhaps you mean "miracles." Luckily, though, I don't need to explain them, since they don't actually happen. On the other hand, there's the more common daily usage of that term, which equates roughly to "amazingly lucky" or "rare" or "long odds," etc. As in "It's a miracle that I won the lottery. Of course, it's simple probability, really."
How do you explain the works of Mother Theresa?
Well, she got up each morning and did things for people. And she was persuasive enough to get people to give her money so she could do more of it the next day. Are you saying that she did magic? That when she scrambled eggs for poor people, there were more plates served than could be accounted for by the eggs she bought? You don't need any magical thinking or mysticism to explain the day to day behavior of someone who decided that the only way to find meaning in her personal life was to be a servant. That was her call, and she worked the celebrity status she earned to raise more cash to do more of it. Miracle? No.
How do you explain it when modern medicine says a person will die, that there is nothing else that can be done, but a priest comes and the person wakes up?
A mistake. A prediction based on incomplete information. How do you explain it when a million people pray for Mother Theresa not to die, and she dies anyway? How do you explain it when someone survives a bus crash that kills a bunch of other people, and they say that Jesus was looking out for them? Did Jesus hate the other people on the bus? How do you explain it when churches get struck by lightning and burn down? How do you explain it when innocent little children are born into an agony of birth defects? Is God trying to teach those kids a lesson? Nice guy! For someone who is All Powerful and Loves His Children, he sure has a cruel sense of humor!
Or, how about this notion: it's all made up! It's a semi-comforting myth that's caught on with a lot of people for a variety of cultural reasons, and preys upon the intellectual cowardice that's built into most of us (mostly, the denial of death that we all hang onto, at least most of the time, because it would be hard to function day-to-day if we really stopped to think about how pointless the whole thing might seem, what with the fact that we're all going to die). Priests are just people in a uniform that shows they've made a career out of perpetuating the myth. It's actually pretty embarasssing - a lot of them are smart, and good communicators. They've just bought into the fantasy because it makes people temporarily feel good, and they've lost the will to make meaning in their lives, deferring instead to a canned religious product that's easier to serve up and sell.
Missing acidolphilis and other friendly bacteria (Score:4, Insightful)
Lots of people have stomach, mouth, and fungus problems of various natures which they try to treat with symptoms with pepto-bismal and other over the counter drugs when they would do much better to go out an eat yogurt every day for a week. Yogurt is high in friendly bacteria and will fix many symptoms you may have had for years.
One big cause of losing your friendly bacteria is taking anti-biotics. Some people take anti-biotics and struggle with intestinal and fungus problems for years because their friendlies have been wiped out by the anti-biotics. Doctors rarely prescribe yogurt with anti-biotic, but next time ask your doctor if taking pro-biotics is a good idea, and he will probably say yes. Why they don't bring it up on thier own has always been a mystery to me.
Re:Theory or God?? (Score:3, Insightful)
If you decide to make up your own definition for a word and then claim that scientists must also using your definition when they use the same word... I can think of a better place to put your "bullshit" label.
Theory already has a specific meaning when used by scientists. In this case, the various theories of evolution provide our current best explanations for the many-times-over observed fact of evolution (the fact that the frequency of alleles in a population changes over time).
You will learn more about evolution in the Bible than any PH.D. granting institution can teach you. And you will live a better life.
The first statement is patently false. Charitably, the Bible discusses the who and why of creation, but is woefully lacking any substantive discussion of how or when (which is what the theories and facts of evolution are all about). The second statement is irrelevant, since most graduate institutions don't explicitly attempt to improve how people live their lives (there is hope that by improving the quality/quantity of what people know, lives will improve, but it's implicit).
You should read "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" by Edwards.
Not a month ago, another Christian was yelling at me for saying that Christianity still use fear-based arguments to spread the word (and Christian morality). He said that I was ignorant and that those type of people were just a part of the ugly history of Christianity. Where were you to defend my assertion then?
I always get a chuckle when I think that according to the worldview of people like you, all us godless heathens must be just wallowing in sin and misery because we don't have a man in the sky to tell us what's right and what's wrong. A really useful ethics will be a lot more useful than any "list of rules" morality like you're going to find in your books. Some Christians will understand and agree with what I'm saying, but I don't expect it to make any sense to you (you may also say they weren't really Christians anyway
How do you explain miricles?
Which miracles?
How do you explain the works of Mother Theresa?
As the personal effort of a well-intentioned but poorly informed woman. (perhaps not so poorly informed, since she came to the West for her own medical treatments rather than be treated in the hospitals that she created... hmmm...).
How do you explain it when modern medicine says a person will die, that there is nothing else that can be done, but a priest comes and the person wakes up?
In the real world, we should often discuss probabilities instead of certainties, but if, based on a doctor's experience, a patient has a vanishingly small chance of survival, he'll conclude the patient is a goner and move on to the next guy. But vanishingly small probabilities are still non-zero and some people will pull through by sheer force of will (a.k.a. placebo effect, which is not a brush-off, but a really important set of biophysical effects that your body can do to itself).
Have a great day!
Ross
Re:Theory or God?? (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh this straw man again... Okay, tell you what: have a priest bring a brain dead individual back to full function and I'll bite. There has never been a documented case of a brain dead person coming back to any mental function. So you get that done then come back.
If you really want to know, it goes something like this: Doctors generally predict based on their experience, and very simple statistics will show that their sample set is not very good. Further investigation will show that if a doctor expects a person with a particular condition to die, then those who do die will be remembered as reaffirming his hypothesis and those who do not will be forgotten as being non-events.
This has been researched many times. Doctors are skilled artisans of medicine and surgery but, with very rare exception, they do not practice science and subject all their diagnoses and prognoses to scientific rigor. They use personal experience and anecdote, and those are quite fallible.
I believe you missed the point of the grandparent (Score:4, Insightful)
If nature wouldn't have allowed certain individuals to reproduce, and yet modern medicine/technology/whatever have, their "faulty" genes are allowed to continue past their naturally selected "use by date", so to speak. How in the hell is this not a bad thing for the population as a whole? By definition, natural selection has been removed and therefore evolution has ceased. Sure, the population is "evolving" (read: reproducing) but with a near 100% reproduction rate amongst those individuals who *choose* to reproduce (again, no evolution here), it is not "evolving" in the Darwinian sense. Only those with severe medical or physical problems are no longer "able" to reproduce, but again this does not evolution make (IMHO).
Re:Now, wait a second... (Score:3, Insightful)
Dominant != good. Dominant means it tends to happen with hetrogenious parents. Dont' confuse the two. My Alpha thalasemia is dominant but in areas without malaria it's a bad trait.
Re:Learn the nature of science. (Score:0, Insightful)
I choose reality. Not fucking idiocy.
Re:Missing acidolphilis and other friendly bacteri (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I believe you missed the point of the grandpare (Score:3, Insightful)
No. Those things changed what would be regarded as "fitness" in that context but didn't somehow magically suspend evolution.
If nature wouldn't have allowed certain individuals to survive attacks by wild animals, and yet throwing rocks and waving burning sticks at those animals have, their "faulty" genes are allowed to continue past their naturally selected "use by date".
Because there's no need for perfect physical health anymore? Seriously, how long would have Stephen Hawking survived in the - say - fifteenth century? Are you sure that mankind would be better off without him?
Seriously, just because you disagree with the laws of nature about what excatly "fitness" means doesn't make nature's definition wrong and yours right. "Fitness" means adaption to the environment, and the environment has changed, as has "fitness".
Re:It's remarkable how wrong this is (Score:5, Insightful)
The genetic diversity we're accumulating will help ensure that when the inevitable "culling of the weak" comes in some form or another, there are a few people who are strong in the right sort of way to carry on.
Considering the intermixing between cultures that occurs in modern society, as a species we're better off with as much genetic diversity as we can get until we manage to get off planet and remove the risk of a single superbug wiping us all out.
By the way, you're sorely misguided about the whole "stupid people breeding out of control" issue too. The problem isn't the stupid people breeding too much, it's the so-called "smart" people not breeding enough. We're on our way to a societal collapse because of it.
Re:It's remarkable how wrong this is (Score:5, Insightful)
Whether you have more money or not has absolutely nothing to do with whether your 'genes' are hardy enough to survive, propogate and evolve.
The state of modern society has in fact thrown out thousands of years of evolution in favour of 'creationism', and the 'golden law' - ie those with the most toys wins.
This has nothing to do with evolution, it has everything to do with the rich feeding the rich and the rich doing everything in their power to stay rich.
Look at how much 'old money' runs the world (in the US and abroad). You think that these same people, if given the same upbringing, financial situation and social status (ie 'socialist states') are somehow 'better' than those raised in capitalist 'everyone for themselves' environments?
I hardly think so.
The Bush family dynasty is the prime example of how this theory fails miserably.
When you have generation after generation of idiot propogating and continuing their 'dynasty', you inevitably result in the idiots rising to the top - hence gwb II 'the sequel' - and the rest of the old money families that think they know best and flounder around trying to play 'risk' and destroy the world...
Re:It's remarkable how wrong this is (Score:3, Insightful)
if i had time to write a long reply, i'd argue that it is in fact the presence of the "weaker" that allows for a humankind which is strong and adaptive as a whole.
to put it simply: if we were all rocket scientists, the world would be quite a messy place
I agree (Score:5, Insightful)
In order to sustain our population (which seems a reasonable target) we need to have about 2.1 children per woman. In the US, lower class people are doing just about that. It is the top half of the income distribution that is failing to do its duty by replacing itself in the next generation.
I have seen some estimates that we could lose as much as one point of IQ per generation due to differential numbers of children and mother's age at birth - a pretty scary thought if you ask me.
Unless some amazing new technology comes to save the day, in the next few years we are seriously going to have to consider more government manipulation of birthrates, or our society and culture could disappear.
Re:I believe you missed the point of the grandpare (Score:4, Insightful)
In that case, your definition of "fitness" is obsolete. In fact, it has been obsolete since humanity started using tools. Had your definition of fitness not become obsolete that long ago, well, we wouldn't be having this discussion on the internet.
I am simply supporting the idea that evolution has, for all intents and purposes, stopped in the human population due to these factors.
No, it has not. First of all, evolution is _slow_ compared to human lifetimes. How can you tell that a process has completely stopped that has time constants in the thousands of years ?
Also, these factors did not stop evolution at all. They merely modified the criteria used in the selection process. A very common fallacy of "critics" of evolution is that the criteria for selection stay the same. If this were the case, well, where are the dinosaurs ? They were wiped off the planet by a change in the selection criteria which they suddenly did not fulfill anymore
Food allergy (Score:1, Insightful)
Milk is very hard to digest and many people are allergic to it.
Re: Misconceptions about atheism and agnosticism (Score:3, Insightful)
Atheism is not the belief that a god does not exist nor does it require any proof of the non-existence of a god. Atheism is the lack of belief in the existence of a god or gods. A-thiesm means 'without theism' and nothing more. Atheism is not the positive belief "Gods do not exist". Atheism is not the opposite of Theism.
Agnosticism is more of a statement about the limits of human knowledge than a stantement about the existence of a god. Agnosticism is the belief that humans can never have knowledge of the existence or nonexistence of gods. Agnosticism is not a middle ground between theism and atheism. More importantly, agnosticism and atheism are not mutually exclusive. All true agnostics are atheists and so was Bertrand Russell.
In "Is There a God?" Russel writes:
"Many orthodox people speak as though it were the business of sceptics to disprove received dogmas rather than of dogmatists to prove them. This is, of course, a mistake. If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time.
-- Bertrand Russell, "Is There a God?"
As a scientist you are not required to prove that pink unicorns do not exist. A scientist does not believe in pink unicorns because there is not enough evidence or proof to justify that belief. Scientists that require a higher level of proof for religion than they require for science are making a mistake.
I was told that the Chinese said they would bury me by the Western Lake and build a shrine to my memory. I have some slight regret that this did not happen, as I might have become a god, which would have been very chic for an atheist.
-- Bertrand Russell, The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell (1967-1969)
Re:I believe you missed the point of the grandpare (Score:4, Insightful)
The tools that allow individuals to actually get that far along the way of reproduction.
Fire. Helps to avoid freezing off important parts during cold winter nights. Also helps to keep your offspring from freezing solid during those nights, and helps to keeps the tigers away that want to snack on you, your partner and your offspring.
Clothing. See above. Can also help to influence potential mating partner's preference towards the wearer.
Jewelry/other adornments. See latter point of clothing.
Weapons. See the part about tigers above. Also help to impress potential partners, keep rivals away and provide food to you, your partner and your offspring.
Blankets. Ever tried to have sex outside during the cold season without one ?
Houses. Better version of blankets for that purpose.
Reducing "fitness" to the short time from intercourse to conception is quite shortsighted (to the point of blindness). Whoever can reproduce and ensure the survival of the offspring is "fit". Regardless of the tools used in the process. If someone can't do this even with currently available tools, well, in that case they should come up with better tool or they'll end up "unfit".
Re:I (don't) agree (Score:4, Insightful)
I think of myself as pretty smart, but I know a lot of dumb people who earn more than I do. Wealth (and by implication survival in the modern world - although that is another questionable assumption) is far more a matter of luck and inheritance (wealth or status, not genes) than intelligence.
In fact, I suspect that there are far more important qualities, relating to the ability to focus on specific activities or goals that are relevant to an individuals wealth generating ability.
In any event, I would completely reject your implication that we kill off the poor because they are polluting the human gene pool. Your argument is based on false assumptions, could itself potentially remove useful variety from the gene pool, and goes against every compassionate human instinct I possess.
I don't like it.
Sorry.
At this point, I think we should invoke Godwin's law [wikipedia.org], and shut up.
* puke * (Score:4, Insightful)
Look, what you wrote is wrong on so many ways... Factually, morally, economically, you name it. People like you consider that misery is a feature of the system rather than a bug. You have wilfully renounced what has always driven human development.
You, sir, are evil.
Re:I (don't) agree (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I believe you missed the point of the grandpare (Score:3, Insightful)
This is wrong. Think about it, selection serves the 'purpose' of creating organisms best suited to the enviroment that challenges them. In no way has fitness any relation to procreation. It's just a correlation that fucking more used to equal being successfully adapted (enough food a) for the fucking and b) for keeping the kids alive). In the natural state, it just happens that the ability to procreate is a prequesite to having your genes selected for. At this point, the fitness of those genes meaning the prowness to survive in a given enviroment doesn't even enter in the equation.
As an krass example: Take human A, living in a culture that prohibts birth control, who is also a lousy farmer. Loaded with testerstron, he soon has 10 kids. Because he sucks so bad at farming one year his harvest failes. His family dies from starvation, because he also is'nt a savy saver. Human B is a sucessful farmer. He has little sexdrive and thus only has one kid. His harvests never fail, and if they do, he'd have saved enough to bring his family through the rough times.
It's obvious what just has been selected for: The ability to keep the family alive. B is an evolutionary success story because he was skilled and utilized long term planning not because he was able to out-procreate someone else.
Re:Theory or God?? (Score:2, Insightful)
Well, thats an accurate statement.
But it doesn't mean that Intelligent Design is more, or even equally, credible. There is solid evidence for evolution. While very little of it has been directly observed, there is a great deal of fossil remnants of various life forms that shows development over time, giving a strong, and direct suggestion that they evolved.
There is, well, no evedentiary support for Intelligent Design apart from the fact that things exist in the first place. People who say things are too complex- I can see their point. You aren't going to get a few chemicals to mix and out pops Homo Sapiens. But they forget- this took place over billions of years. Things that are far too complex to happen in an observable time frame can be very likely to occur over a longer time frame. I've heard this said of New York City, its a similar(though not identical) concept "Million to one chances happen 11 times a day in a city of 11 million". Basically, if you have a large enough sample size, incredibly unlikely things will inevitably occur. Of course, if you go with a purely literal interpretation of the Bible, there wouldn't be time for this. While I'll grant that as a legitimate belief to hold, cloaking it as a science is just total bullshit.
Note that this does not rule out God having a role, if you accept large parts of the Bible as allegorical. Which you really should anyways. The parables of Jesus were allegorical after all, that much is crystal clear even from a literal reading of the Bible. Considering that, where the Son of God used allegory to explain spiritual truths, why is it so out of line to think that the previous Prophets, and God the Father would not have used allegory? Presumably the people in Jesus time would be even *more* likely to understand a more direct way of stating things, so
Furthermore, look over the Genesis story again. Note how each step incrementally brought the world to the current stage where humans were dominant. Hmmmm... That sounds somewhat like evolution to me. More allegory? I think so. Also keep in mind that the Sun wasn't created until the second "day"- how could these days be meant literally, when the thing that defines a day didn't even exist when they were first counted as such?
Intelligent Design as it is pushed in the media is only supportable by a literal reading of Genesis, and the precedent in other sections(supposedly more important sections such as the Gospels), and simple common sense, suggest that it was meant as allegory. Allegory does *not* diminish the spiritual truths behind it. How many times have you found great wisdom in a science fiction story, or even a bit of wisdom humorously expressed in The Far Side? Does the truth of what you found change because the source was not literally factual? NO.
I have never seen those statistics directly (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It's remarkable how wrong this is (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't want to be an Alpha; they work too hard on boring jobs all day! I'm so glad I'm a Beta! My clothes are much nicer, and prettier colours! I'm so glad I'm a Beta! All my friends are Betas, not like those nasty Gammas and Deltas. I'm so glad I'm a Beta!
Re:Learn the nature of science. (Score:3, Insightful)
Sure we can.
Just one example off the top of my head...
Evolutionary theory states that wings and forearms evolved from the same structure in vertebrates. Therefore, evolution predicts that no vertebrate fossil will possess separate forearms AND wings (something like pegasus). This is a reasonable prediction because we already have plenty of INvertebrates that have forearms + wings (flying insects for example).
This hypothesis could be falsified by counterexample, i.e. the discovery of a vertebrate fossil that has separate forearms and wings.
Re:It's remarkable how wrong....no, we are wrong. (Score:2, Insightful)
I think we have been making a wrong assumption here all this time. Who said evoluntionary intelligence has anything to do with performing well in IQ tests? Maybe Mother Nature or God just don't like highly cerebral humans. Why?
Firstly, just as they are capable of great benefits to society, they are also capable of great harm, like intelligent criminals? Secondly, smart people can vastly impact the eco-system and not always for the best, how about short-sighted scientists? Lastly, maybe folks with lower IQ can relate better to others, empathize with the masses....becoz they in the majority! So they are easier to get along....same frequency perhaps.
So the next time, someone praised you for being intelligent and well-off....just bear these in mind.....seriously, it may not be a good thing in my not-so-honorable opinion ;P
Re:We're talking averages here. (Score:2, Insightful)
And while I am quite willing to look at studies that do prove the point, I will remain highly sceptical that poor=dumb. It is far more likely that rich = better(educated/nourished/supported/housed)= performs well on IQ tests, and *that*, surely is the point to be disproved.
You may already have read The Mismeasure of Man [wikipedia.org] by Stephen Jay Gould, which discusses many of these points far better than I could ever hope to.
I mentioned Godwin's law because as soon as you start discussions about there being a genetic basis to societal differences, you are one step away from discussing eugenics and National Socialism. I mentioned it, not because I did not want to seem a fool (I'm not quite sure why that would be, actually), but because that discussion looked like an inevitable next step. I was right, too, take a look further down [slashdot.org].
Now, saying "smart people make more money than *dumb* people", well *that* makes me look like a fool who should check what he writes more carefully
Re:I agree (Score:1, Insightful)
I have far more faith that natural selection is waiting to drop the guillotine than that we're going to forever dodge the bullet until we can manipulate our own genes successfully and start to apply our idiot prejudices to our own DNA, most likely permanently fscking our species over. So... I'm continuing to specialize in my knowledge as it allows me adaptation to this society, but at the same time doing everything to generalize my skills at basic levels. Could you grow/catch your own food? Could you build successful shelter? What if you had to?
College doesn't equal intelligence! (Score:3, Insightful)
Evolution is a process. It doesn't freaking select anything! ID may freaking select something. You have to prove an enity of actually meddling with humanity though to bring up ID though. We could invent some AI that lives in nano-bio-virsus that we inject into everyone and it subtly could control us or aliens could be meddling with us. When God decides to let the basic rules decide it is evolution.
I'd be curious about how humanity has evolved in the last 3000 years. Attendance at educational environments beyond HS or middle school do not show that US humans have evolved to be smarter than those that don't have that educational system in place.
What it does show is that those in attendance to any educational environments beyond HS produce vastly reduced numbers of offspring than those that didn't attend these environments. Attendance at an educational institution has no relation to an individual's intelligence.
What would be interesting is seeing a graphs of occupation and/or income vs number of childern. Hint: those that have less than 2 children are being selected against. Heck, put one up showing different religions vs number of childern or even number of toliets vs number of childern that would trully show a family stress level.
Evolution doesn't even care about numbers though. As long as we muddle through and reproduce and survive that's all that is needed.
Re:It's remarkable how wrong this is (Score:3, Insightful)
If you want some ancedotal evidence, look at Hollywood; generally considered to be the most attractive people. A large portion have light colored eyes...
Re:Now, wait a second... (Score:2, Insightful)
Relaxed selection speeds up evolution. Mutations that are mildly deleterious can stay in the gene pool and participate in the genetic mix'n'match. Eventually you get much more genetic variation than you do under heavy selection.
Further, evolution is sloooowwww by human standards. It goes in generations, lots of them. Nothing short of a catastrophic selection event - think Black Plague, only worse and worldwide - is going to have a significant influence on the relative frequency of specific genes in just a few generations. We're only a couple of hundred generations from the Late Bronze Age. So don't try to extrapolate from conditions in your own neighborhood during your lifetime to actual evolution of our species. It's silly.
Re:I believe you missed the point of the grandpare (Score:3, Insightful)
Woah! How did this get here? I mean, I'm a libertarian so obviously debate politics a lot but there really is no need to drag it into a debate on this topic. The rest of the post is exactly my sentiment. Problem is: the OP thinks that procreation should only occure in the natural way. In my opinion, the natural way is version alpha 0.01. We could do better, but thats an other topic all together. Point stands: doesn't matter how you do it, if you do it, you win at evolution
Re:I believe you missed the point of the grandpare (Score:3, Insightful)
Did you not read about sickle-cell anemia and malaria?
You have a fundamental misunderstanding of evolution. "Flaws" according to evolution are mismatches between environment and species. While we can modify the environment to some extent, it still acts on us and we become the "perfect" species to suit it. We can't not!
But if we start to impose an artifical "natural" environment to further progress toward a more perfect being then we are only setting ourselves down an artifical evolutionary path.
Imagine the species as one human, in a room with hundreds of doors. Each door leads toward a particular evolutionary development. (Keeping it simple, obviously this would be more like an interconnected labyrinth.) The more diversity we have, the more doors we have. If WE choose to fuck with evolution by selecting for things that WE consider more perfect (smarter, stronger, less disease in our understanding) then WE start to walk through doors and close off areas that may be necessary someday.
It is in our best interest to keep as many doors as possible.
Now YOU are perfectly able (indeed, heavily encouraged by nature) to practice genetic selection of your mate for your own progeny. But no one is capable of predicting what genetic variances that the species will need in the millions of years to come.
Inequitable distribution of resources (Score:3, Insightful)
Folks that appear dumb to highly educated DINCs might actually be quite intelligent, but using their intelligence differently (like trying to figure out how to feed, clothe, and raise 12 kids while still sticking around for their lives).
Or they may have substance abuse problems due to genetics and/or environment, it's certainly clear that intelligent people may have other problems that keep them from appearing successful in the mainstream culture.
It certainly is clear that the rewards of mainstream culture come easier to those who limit the number of children they have, however I don't think it is clear that mainstream cultural rewards correlate reliably with raw intelligence at this time.
E.g. 'smart' vs 'stupid' is not an objective measure of genetic intelligence, rather it contains a large component of culture: they are stupid because they are different vs. they are stupid because they lack processing power & RAM.
Re:I agree (Score:1, Insightful)
Argh. This kind of talk makes me crazy.
The set of children of downtrodden third world parents contains the same 1% of kids with genius-level intelligence as does the set of children of privileged first-world parents. And the set of children of poor parents contains the same 20% of kids with gifted-level intelligence
What you can do then as a "smart" privileged person whether you breed or not is make the world a better place. Work on your revolutionary open-source widget or whatever you do, so that the next generation of poor kids don't get beaten down. And you know what? No matter who their parents were, as long as they don't get beaten down they'll be able to step into your place when their time comes.
I don't believe IQ tests are reliable for anything, but mine has tested at 160. I only say this, anonymously, because