Still Evolving?
I'll quote my Biological Psychology textbook here.
As an interesting example, the trend seems to be that people with lower IQs tend to have more children than people with high ones. Thus, the current trend in human evolution is that we're evolving... to become more stupid.Have humans stopped evolving? Because modern medicine kan keep almost anyone alive, and because welfare programs in prosperous countries provide the necessities of life for almost everyone, some people assert that humans are no longer subject to the principle of "survival of the fittest". Therefore, the argument goes, human evolution has stopped or at least slowed down a great deal.
The flaw in this argument is that the key to evolution is not survival, but reproduction. One must survive long enough to reproduce, but what counts in evolution is how many healthy children (and nieces and nephews etc.) one has. Thus, keeping everyone alive doesn't stop human evolution. If some people have more children than others do, their genes will spread in the population.
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I think it's more of a case that society has evolved to the state where poor and stupid people can breed because they're actually not all that poor, despite unemployed and retarded.
I'd say that technology is now the way we should measure evolution. 10 years ago I did not have 3ghz of CPU in my computer. Computers could not do this and that etc etc whereas now we can. We can use these machines rather adeptly. Give someone from 20 years in the past a DVD player and they wouldn't know what to do with it.
But that's my take on the whole deal.
I'd say that technology is now the way we should measure evolution. 10 years ago I did not have 3ghz of CPU in my computer. Computers could not do this and that etc etc whereas now we can. We can use these machines rather adeptly. Give someone from 20 years in the past a DVD player and they wouldn't know what to do with it.
But that's my take on the whole deal.
As Xuenay's textbook says, the key to evolution is not survival but reproduction. A person with a misshapen chest would not be genetically superior from an evolutionary standpoint because no one wants to screw someone with a grody chest. In this situation the normal-chested person is the "fittest", and thus survives. That may seem like degeneration but it is still biological evolution.
ahem.
blind or not shouldnt everybody have echo location at that level then?
and whose to say we dont?
most of us arent blind and so most of us will never know.
really how often do you even see blind people?
I think maybe twice in 25 years.
you just naturally get hightend awarness.
I say awarness and not senses. cuzz i dont belive your senses change at all.
I think you just learn to pay better attention.
but hell in case it actually is a hightend sense thing...
Did you know if you loose one of your nuts the other will grow in size to compensate?
you cant call that evoluation.
youre probably not thinking on a large enough scale or not nearly over enough time.
I gurantee, If i stabbed my own eyes out right now, by next christmas, I'd be one echo locating son of a bitch too.
blind or not shouldnt everybody have echo location at that level then?
and whose to say we dont?
most of us arent blind and so most of us will never know.
really how often do you even see blind people?
I think maybe twice in 25 years.
you just naturally get hightend awarness.
I say awarness and not senses. cuzz i dont belive your senses change at all.
I think you just learn to pay better attention.
but hell in case it actually is a hightend sense thing...
Did you know if you loose one of your nuts the other will grow in size to compensate?
you cant call that evoluation.
youre probably not thinking on a large enough scale or not nearly over enough time.
I gurantee, If i stabbed my own eyes out right now, by next christmas, I'd be one echo locating son of a bitch too.
Last edited by kaos on Sat Jan 13, 2007 11:02 am, edited 1 time in total.
Granted, but this kid was able to walk past a bin, telling the reporter that there was a trash can there and then able to walk up and touch it. He beats all his siblings at videogames and he has no eyes.
It is a case of heightened senses, but has man ever used echo location to see? Now one has started to do this, maybe more will? Maybe in 10 years time all blind people will walk about clicking their tongues in their mouths to see. I'd call that evolution.
It is a case of heightened senses, but has man ever used echo location to see? Now one has started to do this, maybe more will? Maybe in 10 years time all blind people will walk about clicking their tongues in their mouths to see. I'd call that evolution.