Has human evolution stopped?

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Originally posted by Philip:
Well, peradventure, consider one small aspect of this enormously abstract world of love:
MUSIC!

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Its communication. You did a wonderful job of proving that. What you didn't prove is that there is anything metaphysical about it.

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Would anyone dare to fit music in Darwin’s survival scheme or the naturalistic universe?

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Like I said, it is communication. We humans depend upon complicated communication for a number of things all related to social structure. And we aren't much without a social structure. We are pack animals in the extreme.The mechanism which allow for this communication can spawn less adaptive offshoots or neutrally adaptive ones, so long as they are not detrimental. This is to be expected. These are the change which NS works upon.

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Music for music’s sake is a tried axiom. Its beauty is self-propelling, autonomous, spontaneous, compelling, and astonishing.

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Doesn't matter.

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Is not music an irreducible complexity with its finite chords and octaves of notes, or would you somehow argue that music, too, incrementally evolved?

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Digital music is math. How can that be irreducibly complex?And yeah, music probably did develop incrementally right along with the other aspects of human culture.

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On the other hand, we might accept that music was delegated to man by a benevolent curse-redeemer-Designer, to help wretched man rejoice in his plight and sing all his days, perhaps even eternally.

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We might, but we don't have any reason to do so.------------------
www.hells-handmaiden.com

Anyone else care to comment on the multi-tiered phenomenon of human music; has it evolved somehow for humans, by what mechanism, and/or has its human evolution stopped?Is its beauty merely mathametical and physical, or do we admit transcending/metaphysical phenomenon inherent therein? Any evo-musicians out there who'd care to hypothesize?Is the musical phenomenon peculiar to human's only, i.e., with its notes, treble and base clefts, harmonic chords, etc?

There are alot of mutations going on in existing genes producing both beneficial and detremental effects. But, mutations do not seem to produce additional genes which are necessary to produce the type of evolution that produced all the families of plants and animals that exist. So, I agree with you. That kind of evolution seems to have stopped. Now we must look for reasons why. The universal reply that morphological evolution takes place only in small isolated groups is a bit weak considering all of the isolated tribes of Homo sapiens that have lived basically alone for thousands of years.
William

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Originally posted by William E. Harris:
The universal reply that morphological evolution takes place only in small isolated groups is a bit weak considering all of the isolated tribes of Homo sapiens that have lived basically alone for thousands of years.
William

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Thousands of years isn't nearly enough time for radical morphological change, but I suspect that you didn't mean 'thousands' literally-- maybe something like tens of thousands. Within that time frame, we do find detectable morphological change.------------------
www.hells-handmaiden.com

This is very similar to the new topic proposed by Shtop Human evolution has ended

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For evolution to work, there must be natural selection to promote beneficiary traits.

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In my opinion, modern human societies actively prevent natural selection from taking place. Weak members are protected by social security systems, while strong members are working hard, often in highly stressful jobs. As a consequence, successful people tend to have less offspring, often choosing careers above family.

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In this context, it is important to think about what is successful in terms of evolution. We generally think of successful people to have wealth and power and such, but if this means they have less offspring, that is not at all successful in evolutionary terms. This guy for example is far more successful at spreading his genes, having no job at all, but having a family of 17.

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So, to me it looks like human evolution is no longer driven by natural selection, at least not in the way we would normally expect: Strong, intelligent, ambitious people do not necessarily get to contribute more to the gene pool than the weaker, lazier and slower members of modern society.

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What are your thoughts on this?

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(I know this sounds terribly elitist, but to quote a sig I’ve read here somewhere:
“If being elitist means not being the dumbest in the room, I’ll be elitist!”)

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EnjoyEdited by RAZD, : added quote

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand
RebelAAmericanOZen[Deist
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(this is really to Shtop not RAZD)This is a question I have thought upon a great deal. There seems to be a general belief that modern humans have more or less ended NS and are now evolving memetically or such (cultural evolution since biological evolution has stopped).I think it is true that we have removed many of the traditional selective factors that created our species. But I do not believe that we have in any way 'stopped' evolution or NS on our species. For one thing it is easy for us in the industrialized world to forget that a good number of our species do not benefit from genetic therapies, social security, modern agriculture, etc. Basically, there are millions of human beings who simply are going to die without reproduction. Millions more are going to live. So, if there is any non-random pattern to this survival there is going to be selection.Another aspect, one more vague that I might have trouble articulating, is that I think human beings do not have free will like we believe. I think a good number of human behaviors only seem like our idea. So we might believe we have seized the reins of evolution, but I suspect we are responding to impulses tens of thousands of years old (many no longer useful and/or co-opted for different purposes).For example there is a very real tendency to people to be attracted to someone resembling the parent of the opposite sex who raised them (for heterosexuals, any info on this for homosexual attractions?). Now few of us feel compelled to like a certain look nor do we feel some conscious genetic connection. We just like a certain collection of traits over others. We are not bound by it, but it is there. Knowing that and knowing the initial frequencies of traits in a human population, you could make very real predictions about what the next generation would look like (say you could put 1000 people on an island and watch them for generations). The tendency to like certain traits presumably evolved with us, is still in use and still influencing the population genetics of modern humans, therefore NS is still alive and well! (I apologize for how awkward that was)

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"I have seen so far because I have stood on the bloated corpses of my competitors" - Dr Burgess Bowder

There are also some selection processes we are putting on ourselves. Overpopulation comes to mind and the ramifications of that, but also the effect of technologies.The youth today are raised to multitask in ways their grandparents generally don't even understand. We may have reached the limit for biological brain growth, but are finding ways to augment that with accessories. Evolution can select those better adapted to take advantage of this technology.There is also the issue of immunity to diseases being a continued "arms race" with the pathogens, so evolution will continue in those aspects.

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand
RebelAAmericanOZen[Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
to share.

There is yet another issue.In recent history, at least since civilization on the order of City-State first began, the net of NS has had a very wide mesh. We simply have not experience on of the very small mesh net events in a long, long time.This means that the selection pressures have remained pretty stable as far as modern many (post "Water Lord man").When another major selective event happens, I believe it is reasonable to say that should mankind pass through the net what results will very possibly evolve into something else.While there are a number of possibilities here on earth, another Chicxulub type event, Global Warming, major warfare, population density growth, hyper virus or even some genetic break through, the one sure example I can imagine is if we expand towards colonization inside and outside this solar system.Once we set up isolated population on other planets, it is very possible, almost assured I would say, that we will see diverging speciation.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

What people frequently fail to take into account is evolution which does not express itself physically.We are still evolving. Sickle cell anemia is an evolutionary change to combat malaria. Lactose tolerance evolved in us along side domestication. There's a string of people in Italy who are immune to cholestoral.It's also very likely that there are trends which are going on and of which we are not aware.For example, it would be selective for sperm which can survive spermicidal jelly. Or woman who can get pregnant despite the pill. These are evolutionary changes which, in all likelihood, are actually being selected for, but which we are actually trying to avoid.Sure, we can point to removal of some pressures (food supply, diseases, infant mortality) as areas where evolution may be slowed. We can point to a lack of genetic isolation as a factor in diluting selective forces.But, in the end, the more things change, the more they stay the same. Evolution marches on.

There are also a lot of subtle things going on that are perhaps more difficult to notice. For instance, the increase in people with allergies to environmental contaminants such as airborne pollen is directly attributable to the increasing sterility of our lifestyle. IOW, there is some evidence to suggest that our immune systems "over-react" to minor contaminants because they haven't been "trained" to moderate their reaction by constant exposure to low levels of infection. This hypersensitivity appears to be hereditary (at least to some extent). It may not be classic NS (since I can't picture how this would relate to reproductive success), however if this is indeed hereditary, then we may be seeing an increase in the frequency of "allergic" alleles in some populations, notably in the industrialized nations.On a related note, although I haven't seen any studies documenting this, it also appears that there are more people today - at least in the industrialized world - who are hypersensitive to things like bee stings. If true, this may also indicate an "evolutionary" change in allele frequencies. However, in this case I would suspect that this particular form of hypersensitivity may represent an increase in alleles that were pre-existing in the species, but maintained at a very low level due to the likelihood of death accruing to the carriers. Modern medicine and supportive care may have allowed people who would otherwise have died from beestings in the past to continue a normal life. Epipens anyone?It is interesting to note that in all my travels I have not once encountered any indigenous group living in "primitive" conditions, constantly exposed to a chronic low-level of parasites, that are allergic to either pollen or stings.Both of the above may have the same cause or not, both may represent changes in allele frequency or not, but it is interesting.Of course, I could be completely off-base .

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n recent history, at least since civilization on the order of City-State first began, the net of NS has had a very wide mesh. We simply have not experience on of the very small mesh net events in a long, long time.

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This means that the selection pressures have remained pretty stable as far as modern many

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A new study that came out says that human evolution is accelerating. The very thing claimed in the above quote as stabilizing environments such as city-states are exactly what it thought to have been the selecting agent for the new mutations.As populations increase the number of mutations will also increase. With the increase of use of agriculture and close living communities selection pressures will change. Pressure on immune systems will increase since the spread of viruses will be faster in large populations. Availability of different foods would also increase evolution. The need to digest milk throughout life is an example.More information:
http://blog.wired.com/...cience/2007/12/humans-evolving.html
john hawks weblog - john hawks weblog
Gene Expression: Notes on the evidence for acceleration