We are too humane.

Humans have stopped evolving. One of the requirements of evolution is that those who are unfit for survival must die. We strive to keep people alive who would die without our help, combating nature and preventing further evolution. Have we doomed ourselves by being too humane? What benefits could arise if our species was allowed to evolve?

If we are still evolving, which direction are we headed?, or, what changes can we expect?changes in allele frequencies = micro-evolution, right?I was originally thinking on the lines of macro-evolution, I think the frequencies of alleles will change without the 'environment exerting influence'. Do you think that keeping people alive who would have otherwise died, from genetic disease for one example, can prevent us form overcoming these diseases naturally? Isn't it anti-evolutionary?

I do. I think that because of our consciousness, our ability to make decisions to change what our future would have been, makes our decisions 'un-natural' or not governed by nature. The baboon troops aren't making conscious decisions, those changes in allele frequency as a result of the strong allowing the weak to survive are natural. When we do it, it's not. We do it because we might feel bad if we don't help, or helping makes us feel good, emotionally. This is the humanity I'm speaking of that is inhibiting our evolution. When the baboons do it its instict, and natural. I would not consider this anti-evolution...more PRO-evolution. But I also think genetic screening is inhumane, if I'm sure what genetic screening is. Thanks for this info, I hadn't thought of this and think it could strengthen my point.perhaps: humane = anti-evolution, pro-evolution = inhumane

wrong. The history of what happened has a direction, from simple to complex life, from primative apes to modern humans. My question is what's next? I doubt we go backwards, a direction, and turn back into primative apes. Where are we going? This question assumes that humans are still evolving, which I originally stated that I didn't think we are, but someone said we were, and I wondered...into what?

hmmm...uh, well, I don't know what to say. ok, fine everything is evolving all the time. As far as micro-evolution, allele frequencies will be changing and such. Again, I must say I want to get away from micro-evolution and talk about macro-evoltion, where a species evolves from another species. When I type FROM it really makes me think theres a direction. From one species to another, from A--->B, arrow pointing in 'the direction'. Now I realize that speciation is much more complex than A--->B, actually you usually get two species from one (because they have been somehow seperated), but, the formation of a species involves that species going in some direction away from the one it formed from, not physically walking away but evolving away. In this sence of evolution, humans have stopped evolving, even though allele frequencies change and thats considered evolving. I'm talking about a new species of human...not gonna happen.One more thing on the micro-evolution, maybe I can relate my which direction? question, and perhaps you can answer it. As far as humans and evolving, and changing alleles...what changes do you think will happen to us, over the course of many generations? Will they all just be genetic subtleties or something more physically noticeable?

Well Cashfrog,we're talkin apples and oranges I guess. I completely disagree with your view on evolution, perhaps we could start a new thread? I larned Darwinian evolution, and micro/macro evolution (in a biology class btw). I don't see how changes in allele frequencies and sexual selection promote speciation.edit:
ok, I read a little about sexual selection, which i learned is part of Darwin's theory, a 'selective process'. Its a branch of natural selection, I though you were saying it was something different when you said evolution is about sex and not death. I disagree, and I think natural selection requires a lot of death for big changes in species and speciation. I don't see individuals or groups out mating each other and evolving the species. I think the fittest survive and the others die.This message has been edited by Catholic Scientist, 01-28-2005 21:11 AM

All I know about evolution is from a college class I took and what I read on the internet. I went through 12 years of catholic school then went to the University of Illinois were I took a class on evolution, and they taught me about micro and macro evolution. The only time I heard creationist talk about it was after I read your post and googled macroevolution and found some creationist websites talking about macroevolution, but there were also scientific websites talking about it.p.s. I'm going out now and won't be doin anymore replying tonight

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No, I didn't...I think evolution provided God with a species that was able to appreciate love...thats why he 'created' us and 'injected' us with a soul...but this is a whole nother argument on why he didn't just create the perfect species in the first place instead of letting us evolve, which revolves around free will...Crashfrog,We have such different opinions All theories are just 'views' on what evolution is. In my opinion(IMO), everyone/thing who stays alive will live long enough to attract a mate, the question is not if you will be ABLE to, but if you will live LONG enough to attract a mate, get it? If you live to a 'ripe old age' and haven't attracted a mate yet, then I agree with you and you aren't helping at all, but IMO if you aren't fit to survive then you die first and will be unable to pass on your lousy traits and won't live long enough to reproduce. wow...thanks for helping me understand your point...NOT! No...it means that those who were un-fit were not able to reproduce before they died.Sidelined said: I think this strengthens my point about evolution relying on death more than sex.Syamsu,you totally lost me...to put it in the words of Cashfrog... In order for your scenario to work, type A would have to have to have a trait that made it be more likely to be struck by the lighning, one individul being struck for no reason should have no affect on the entire population. They seem to be different to me. The randomness of scenario 1 should have no affect on the reproductive success of that entire population. Basically, to put it bluntly, you are entirely wrong. Sorry, I don't understand your math... what does the chance of reproduction have to do with the complete randomness of being struck by lightning, unless one of the types has a higher probability of being struck? which should have nothing to do with their eyesight, unless you are talking about dodging lightning? Thank you for responding to my question...I think I agree with this point of yours. In my original point of being humane and inhibiting our evolution I also leaned that promoting our evolution could be in-humane. This point you made strengthens that, I think that we would have to use gene-manipulation/therapy in order to further evolve our species, but I also think that it is in-humane to do that. As do most christians, and the like, who are against gene manipulation/therapy and stem cell research and all those 'in-humane' things that might allow our species to evolve further.Thus, my original point / opining topic...We are too humane and we are stopping ouselves from evolving, unless we lose some humanity and let poeple die or start messing around with genes and practically create our own types of people oursleves.And please don't respnd about how our allele frequencies are changing so we really ARE evolving, I don't want to get into this discussion again.This message has been edited by Catholic Scientist, 01-29-2005 05:40 AM

I have no evidence, those are my opinions. Thats why I started with "I think". So where is YOUR evidence, you say I have no evidence and that I'm wrong and then give no evidence. Thanks for your opinion. Just another opinion that my opinion disagrees with. Humans are unique on this planet in having a consciousness, I think this makes us seperate form the other animals. Perhaps, but "humane = anti-evolution, pro-evolution = inhumane" is just a simple analogy of an idea running around in the back of my head. I'm not really looking for a black and white answer, just thinking and expressing some opinions. yes, I'm working as a chemist, but I got a BS Engineering in Materials Science specializing in polymers. I consider myself a scientist more from my degree than my job, but I am working in the field. I understand the concepts of evolution theory, some of my opinions differ from the theory (especially about humans). But it is just a theory so I don't think my differing opinions should be considered misconceptions.

I'd bet there are other differences between humans and animals but consciousness is the big one, the one that really makes us different. There isn't a scientifically testable definition of consciousness. One of the problems with positivism is disregarding things that aren't observable. You can't scientifically test love, but we all know that it exists. My simplified definition of consciousness would be 'self aware and capable of thought'. I don't think animals are either of these. You can't prove that they aren't but you can't prove that they are either. Sometimes it seems that some animals may be conscious (I've seen some really smart dogs that seemed to know what was going on). I think the closest we've come is teaching chimps sign language, but linguists say that it isn't actually language when chimps use sign language. Its still just a response to a stimulus, which isn't neccessarily consciousness.darn, I gotta go back to work...I'll continue this post later, sorry.

I was thinking on the time scale of trait changes. I still don't think humans are gonna noticeably 'change'(physically). This is what I meant by the statement "Humans have stopped evolving", which I realize is, in general, a false statement. But I was getting at the idea that we are preventing change by being humane. Thats what I'm talkin about. Well phrased. Agreed. This is one of the major things I was thinking about. One person asked if I was talking about cripples and retards and how keeping them alive doesn't affect anything. I was thinking more of infants. How far do you think the infant mortality rate has dropped? And not just from premature babies surviving. I don’t wanna sound harsh but we're sorta junking up the gene pool, so to speak. It is. This is one thing that makes me think we should let nature take its course. It seems that our humanity gets in the way of nature's course. OK, I hadn't really done that for the OP. So, as we have become more humane, the differential survival of groups has had less of an impact on population structure. This supports the idea that being humane has a negative impact on how much evolution is occurring, and that being humane is preventing change. The ‘smart’ people usually have about 2 children and wait until they are old enough to afford and take care of those children. The ones who are not ‘smart’ usually have more children and at younger ages. So, while it seems that ‘smart reproduction’ would make more smart people, the not-smart’ ones are winning the reproductive race and possibly lowering the average intelligence of the population.Its like welfare perpetuation. People on welfare have a bunch of kids at young ages and are not going to be able to get off welfare if they just keep getting more. Now, if you just cut off the welfare, those populations would not be able to survive their current situation and change could be expected. But, this is very inhumane and its not gonna happen, and please don’t think that I think it should happen. All these things that OD is talking about, I would consider to be inhumane. And I agree that if we loose some of our humanity, then we will be able to ‘evolve’ again.OD: You say we’ll have to integrate with technology because the kit that Mom gave us isn’t up to the task of surviving the end of our planet. Well, hopefully before this happens we can just hitch a ride with some aliens that stopped by to say hello. I think its more plausible that this could happen before we could integrate with machines or whatever you were talking about. Now, I realize that I wasn’t using the term evolution properly, but, would you really consider changes in the population that were not genetic to really be evolution? I guess you could call it cultural evolution, since there’s cultural anthropology. Yeah, you're right. Like I said earlier though, when I wrote the OP i was thinking physically, and we also seem to agree that this 'evolution' is being hindered by our humanity. Yeah, but this seems inhumane to me and it doesn't look like its going to happen. Heck, our president won't even let us do research on stem cells.