We are too humane.

So the soul is like the cream filling in a doughnut?

what kind of people are you talking about that are kept alive, that are preventing our evolution?
Retards? Cripples? becuase if this is the case, i think your opinions are rather false. how many of these people are reproducing? some maybe but that is very very few few of them. keeping a retarded person or a criplle around doesn't affect that much. its like having homosexuals around, they aren't breeding either (unless they're false about it). I may be totally off of the point, but hows does being humane affect anything?

hi I'm from the 21st century - we use terms such as mentally disabled rather than "retard".

Please, no replies. Vercingetorix's posting privileges have been suspended. --Adminsince the adminstraitors don't have a ban on cussing i can say whatever the fuck i want as long it isn't directed at anyone in particular.thanks for you input 21st century man, but i like retard better., and i would like to congradulate you for you ability for staying on topic, you are good at it, great input, but my repsonse was to catholic scientist.This message has been edited by Vercingetorix, 03-02-2005 09:02 AMThis message has been edited by Admin, 03-02-2005 09:50 AM

I think maybe we can become something resembling gods, (if thats the word to use). Chiefly I think this because Humans do do somethings which animals don't. one is the manufacturing of machinery ,computers etc and another is purposful self alteration. Put these together with sufficient skill and you could have evolution at will.
minds could go into machines etc. Who is to say that this isn't something that can't be classed as evolution.

Hi CS - Good to see you are still asking some good questions.
There are several issues surrounding potential human evolution that you have raised here, either implicitly or explicitly. Stasis is a perception relative to time scales.
This might appear to be true if we think on the time scale of bacteria or insects, but not if we think on geologic time scales (provided we survive that long). you forgot to include "..before reproducing". I have often pondered this apparent conflict between human ethics and the lessons of population biology. The problem arises because of what is refered to as 'genetic load' in the population - the accumulation of various deleterious alleles in a population that occurs when selection pressures are relaxed.In terms of the frequency distribution of fitness among individuals in a population, however you define fitness, every natural population is like a huge bell curve with a short leading edge (representing a small minority of the 'most fit' individuals) and a much longer trailing edge (representing a large range of relatively 'unfit' individuals). The greater the genetic load of the population, the longer trailing edge becomes relative to the leading edge because selection is neither penalizing the unfit severely enough to curtail their reproductive success (RS), nor providing sufficently increased RS to the most fit in order to push forward the leading edge.So you are correct that by enabling the handicapped to survive to reproductive age (and encouraging their reproduction) we are increasing the frequency of the genes responsible for those particular handicaps. However, the problem is that the same 'physically' handicapped individuals may also possess 'mentally' superior genetics. So, for example, it would be difficult to objectively judge whether humanity would be better served or not by Stephen Hawking having children. Should we propagate the genes for a great intellect, but along with those that predispose ALS ?So on the surface, thinking simply of human evolution in terms of morphology and human physical fitness, it would seem that the consequences of medical interventions frequently defeat the natural evolutionary course of events. The best example I can think of is premature birth. The boundaries for the lowest survivable birth weight seem to be pushed forward every year. This can only mean that, over time, more and more babies will be born prematurely, only to require the same intensive care as their forebears, if not even more.But now let's think beyond the physical realm. There are various mechanisms by which the human species can evolve WITHOUT differential survival of individuals. Differential survival of groups can have a dramatic impact on population structure, and war is as prevalent as ever in our society. However, we don't usually kill off all our vanquished enemies as we might have at one time.A more intriguing, and far less widely recognized, mechanism by which I have little doubt we continue to evolve is sexual selection. Assortative mating can not only bring about unique genetic combinations, but can also affect the survival of alleles at population level. For example, mate-selection on the basis of intellect may be one of the reasons we are as intelligent as we are today. If 'smart' females consistently choose to mate with 'smart' males, this could conceivably accelerate the evolution of intellect in the population without any need for higher mortality among the stupid. This is because of a 'runaway' effect in which the adaptive benefits of intellect are obtained via getting the smartest possible mate and having the smartest possible children who, as a consequence also seek the smartest possible mates. You have to admit, humans are far more intelligent than they need to be just to survive and reproduce, at least until you add the element of group selection via tribal warfare etc. that provides added bonuses for cooperative ability.Another way humans can continue to evolve intellectually (and I would say this is far more important to our species than 'physical' evolution) without dramatic changes in population genetics is through culture. Culture can be thought of as another medium of information storage just like DNA, but one which does not require hundreds or thousands of generations to change at population level. I think this is along the lines of what was mentioned in message 50, except that the physical fusion of the human mind with machinces is not really a requirement for information perpetuation (provided we don't destroy our means of biotic survival).So there are many ways in which the human populations could continue to 'evolve' in some sense, despite increasing genetic loads. As a function of our intellect we are capable of various forms of evolution, both genetic and non-genetic, that other forms of life are not (OK, I'm excluding ID theorists here), even to the point of potentially manipulating / modifying our own gene pool.

I've just thought of something actually... I'm gonna say this as daft as it may sound, maybe purely for the sake of arguement, I'm not sure but here goes.
Maybe the physical fusion of mind and machine IS a requirement of information perpetuation. All of our means of biotic survival Will be destroyed at some point. Further more, I would like to suggest that, in keeping the "deleterious alleles" around, we further our ability to create work arounds for this, thereby actually increasing our potential to evolve.
Think about the diabetic and the efforts made to simplify insulin administration. Or at a more mechanical level, think about the intubated patient who only breathes because he is, temporarilly part of a machine, albeit a rudimentary one. Think of the advancement in prosthetics and their increasing integration with the host's nervous system.
On an individual level, the means of biotic survival known as the body will die. It is programmed to do so. Medical research and techniques are able to delay this for longer and longer and for more and more people.
Death can occur early in even the non "deleterious alleles" and, in this sense, our mortality us all potentially deleterious.
The idea that, at some point, ageing and dying could be a thing of the past is not inconceivable. (not saying this is desirable, just possible). This could be done through either genetic or mechanical means but either would be a case of auto-evolution if you like.
More specifically I guess, at some point, our sun and everything in our solar system will die also. The biotic survival unit known as Earth will also end. To survive, humanity will have to move home. But that's very tricky in this flimsy self destructive body. We could put ourselves into machines and fly off in those I guess but in such a large universe it might be more effort than it's worth, especially when we'll have to do the same thing all over again within a few billion years. It might be easier to integrate ourselves with our technology thus transforming into bio-machine hybrids that are hardier and more durable. I don't necessarily mean robotic bodies with whirring servos and a large battery back-up but maybe into nano-bots. What the hell.. whilst we're in such fanciful realms why not download our entire consciousness into something resembling a stream of photons. This way we can flit around the galaxy at light speed although that would be irrelevant as we would have eternity to get from A to B.
I guess what I'm getting at is that at some point, humanity will have to expand into the cosmos or die. Our biotic means of survival have a finite time limit on them and this throws a real spanner into the works as far as evolving any further is concerned. The kit given to us by Mother Nature, (read evolution), is so far, not up to this task and, frankly, probably never would be. Humans will have to integrate themselves with technological solutions, (in whatever form), and the best way to really understand how to do this is to beat mortality and morbidity with technological means.
maybe... I think This message has been edited by Orlando Dibisikitt, 06-02-2005 03:43 PM

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.

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EZ writes:

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As a function of our intellect we are capable of various forms of evolution, both genetic and non-genetic, that other forms of life are not, even to the point of potentially manipulating / modifying our own gene pool.

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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.

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Just because it doesn't look like it's going to happen in the US doesn't mean it isn't going to happen in another country.When it becomes apparent that others are willing to do this whoever is in power in the US at the time will have to take notice. If there is any sign some form of genetic manipulation of humans will confer a signicant economic or military benefit then the US will find a way to overcome whatever objections it has - even if the government in power at the time is ideologically similar to the current one.

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Oops! Wrong Planet

Actually, we are already doing just that. The research is ongoing at Area 104 which, if you ask anyone in Government, doesn't exist. One clear indication in support of this is that there are no funds allocated in the budget to either Area 104 or to Project Gotham.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

I agree with the demographic breakdown you present - that is the inescapable 'trailing edge' I was talking about. But consider this. The 'not smart' only win in a *quantitative* sense.
Quantitative measures of RS are only important for 'r-selected' organisms that produce large numbers of offspring and make a minimal investment in each. We are 'K-selected' animals - long-lived and producing few offspring, each of which requires a large investment to be 'successful'. In such species, an individual's RS is MUCH more determined by offpsring *quality* than by offspring *quantity*. The cost of fewer offspring is easily offset by the production of 'fitter' offspring (fitness in the human case being defined by societal values). Don't underestimate the potential power of sexual selection (SS). We have a thread discussing some of its implications in the Biological Evolution forum if you are interested. I don't think so either. We are no longer subjected to any physical forces on a day-to-day basis that might select for morphological changes that might be necessary to ensure our survival (fastfood commercials notwithstanding). We control our environment for the most part. Besides, our generation time is so long, significant morphological changes would take thousands of years to accomplish even with strong selection. I don't think any 'non-biotic' form of 'life-transposition' to some mechanized entity would afford me any solace above and beyond death itself. I am only concerned with the reasonable life expectancy of the human race within the lifespan of our sun. After I re-read what I wrote here, I thought geez - I hope no one thinks I was implying anything like eugenics. The problem with any manipulation of the human gene pool is that it requires one of three things:
-selective juvenile survival
-selective juvenile mortality
-genetic alteration of germ cell lines (eggs and sperm)Number 3 will likely never by deemed ethical by society or the scientific community (but you never know these days), and
can you imagine our Christian friends' reactions to either 1 or 2?This message has been edited by EZscience, 06-02-2005 09:33 PM

Gonna try to be a bit more serious this time. I've got some trouble with the idea that keeping some peolple alive somehow detracts from our ability to evolve...
Understand that I am not a genetecist (I'm sure you've already noticed!) but I do have a rudimentary understanding as I'm an A+E nurse and as such, did have to learn a little about genetics in training. Also, and probably more importantly, I spend most of my working life with the "deleterious alleles" of which we speak. My main concerns, I guess, are this... at what point do we consider "alleles" to be "deleterious"? and what do we consider to be "humane"?.
You touched on something earlier regarding Stephen Hawkings saying that although physically he is "unfit", mentally he is more evolved than most. I think this is imortant to expand upon for several reasons. Firstly, it is easy to see that if this "deleterious allel" hadn't been kept alive, we wouldn't have had his input into science but also, I see this as an indication of how many shades of grey there are here. Are any of us as "smart" as the following... Beethovan, Einstein, John Nash, Mozart and many other people of their ilk??? No I think not but there is strong evidence to suggest that all of these people were cyclothymic, bipolar or may have had some degree of autism, (Nash of course was a schizophrenic), and, therfore, by the standards mentioned here, all come under the catagory of "deleterious alleles" despite the fact that they have all done more to further humanity than any of us non-deleterious types in this discussion. You could argue that they are the exception to the rule but, in my experience, this is not so because most of the people with "true" mental illness that I meet tend to be very bright in deed. Unfortunatly, because they often find it hard to function, they have little chance to shine. Usually when they do it is because fate will lead them down whatever avenue turns out to be theirs.
And as far as "avenues" are concerned... how many of us would survive if all the farmers were suddenly to die out. How many would survive if all the water workers were to die out. What I'm getting at here is that most people have a role to perform and "intelligence" is not necessarilly a requirement for these roles. Strength, dexterity, speed or stamina are not pre-requisits for other roles either. The way our society is organised, (as a result of the type of organism we are), means that people of differing abilities in differing areas are needed in order to push humanity forward. If all of a sudden all were left but the academically "smart", humanity would cease to exist very quikckly. In reality, there is a possible role for people with all but the most severe of handicaps to play in our society and, indeed, in our further evolution.
It could be questioned then, what role do people with those "most sever handicaps" have to play?. I think there are several answers here.
Firstly, I'm thinking that the fact that we do look after these people is an indication of how highly evolved we are. We are now so comfortable in our environment that we can expend time and energy keeping these people safe and comfortable. Maybe if we were to change into a species that didn't do this we would actually be devolving if you like. You said something about preferring death to integration with technology. I for one would rather our race died out than evolved into something that didn't look after its unfortunates in the hope of evolving into even more of a super-race than we already are.
Secondly, I'm thinking that the numbers of people unable to contribute to society/humanity directly (because I guess thats what we are talking about), are so small that it could make little difference to our over all ability to evolve.
Finally, I'm thinking that if we didn't face the challenges of preserving life in whatever condition (up to a point obviously), and of improving quality of life, we would have nowhere left to evolve to. There would be no reason to further our development and, like the rest of the animal kingdom, we would find ourselves trapped in time where the slightest alteration in our environment could potentially wipe us all out.
I guess I'm back on the technology thing again here. Does anybody on this board take medication to keep their heart beating properly or to keep their blood pressure within normal limits. Even if you don't I'm sure you know somebody who does. At this point, a person is already integrated with technology. The chemicals we have created are now part of these peoples organic form and it is this that keeps them alive and functioning. Many people of reproducing age benefit from these and other teatments and go on to create offspring with possibly the same problems as themselves. Except that this isn't a problem however, as the condition no longer confers any major disadvantage allowing them to contribute whatever specialist skills they may have to human betterment aswell as their own genetic material.
I guess, to sum up, because of what we have evolved into, It's not as easy as describing disabled people as "deleterious alleles" and citing this as a cause of reduced evolvability. I think we have reached a point where we can bypass our genetic insufficiencies and we're getting better at it all the time. Its more accurate to say that any delay in evolution is caused by societies inability to accomodate and fully integrate the "deleterious alleles" than by the "deleterious alleles" themselves. This message has been edited by Orlando Dibisikitt, 06-03-2005 09:09 AMThis message has been edited by Orlando Dibisikitt, 06-03-2005 09:15 AMThis message has been edited by Orlando Dibisikitt, 06-03-2005 09:18 AM

I apologize in advance, but I have not read through all posts in this thread, so some of my post might be a repetition.

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Humans have stopped evolving.

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This primary premise of the thread is wrong. Humans have not stopped evolving. Just because in your lifetime or in the recorded history of humans there has not been a major morphological change in humans does not mean that humans have stopped evolving. In fact, it is impossible for a species to stop evolving, unless you can find a way to transmit DNA completely error free and keep the environment completely unchanged. And even under those circumstances evolution can still take place-- just at a much slower rate.

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One of the requirements of evolution is that those who are unfit for survival must die.

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Again, not correct. A requirement of evolution would be that certain allel frequencies are transmitted to offspring more readily. Death is not a pre-requisite.

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We strive to keep people alive who would die without our help, combating nature and preventing further evolution.

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The fact that we strive to keep people alive who would die without our help certainly does not prevent evolution. In fact, it was probably a vast accelerator of human evolution. Remember, we live in social groups. Any group member we keep from dying, be it from injury, disease or genetic defect will be able to continue to play his/her role in the social group, therefor also aid in the survival of the person who do the healing. Therefor, the capability to keep people alive who would otherwise die can certainly give a competitive advantage.

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Have we doomed ourselves by being too humane?

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That I would guess would be a valid question, if we could define what being 'too humane' means. If, in this context, humane means keeping people alove who, without human interference, would otherwise die, then the answer is "Of course not". Humanity may very well be doomed. Who knows? We have been around for such a short period of time and there is no convincing proof that highly evolved intelligence, compassion, speech, etc. is a winning strategy for long-term survival.

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What benefits could arise if our species was allowed to evolve?

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Since the premises of this question are wrong, its kinda hard to find an answer. In addition, an answer is further complicated by using terms like 'benefits' and 'evolve' in the same sentence. Evolution is non-directional: it does not have a goal and does not look for benefits. So, if you are looking for benefits, then you have to introduce specific selection into the mix... which would of course then rephrase the question to: What benefits could arise if we were to breed our species? Then of course the answer is simple: whatever benefit you look for and is physically possible. For example, using the right breeding techniques, we could very rapidly have only blond-haired and blue-eyed people populating this earth. Or we could have only people with dwarfism. The possibilities are endless.

wish i'd said it like that

Let's make one thing clear. A 'deleterious allele' is a faulty copy of a particular gene. It cannot be equated to the person carrying that gene. It is of obvious interest and benefit to the human race to eliminate alleles that are clearly recognized as 'deleterious' from the gene pool of the population. That doesn't necessarily imply being 'inhumane' towards the carriers. Take for example, the deleterious allele causing phenylketonuria. The population would be better off without any copies of this gene in circulation (some would probably still be produced de novo by mutation at some rate) but how do we accomplish this without denying reproductive rights to known carriers? Education may help, because with recognition of the known risks, many heterozygote carriers may opt not to have children. Same is true of Huntington chorea , which in this case is caused by a deleterious autosomal dominant allele.We are ethically required to be 'humane' to individuals - but have no such oblication to individual genes. There may still be take steps we can take to reduce the frequency such alleles. Going back to Stephen Hawking, I have no doubt that if you asked him, he would be in favor of any humanitarian means of reducing the chances of future generations of people receiving this particular allele that caused his predisposition to ALS. We need to remember that there are various ways our human gene pool might be improved (equals evolution) if we can manipulate the survival of individual *genes*. Thsi does not necessarily equate to having to eliminate all handicapped *genotypes* from the population. This is absolutely true. But it doesn't mean we need not be concerned about predictable increases in the genetic load of our populations. Go back to the example of premature babies. This is an effect of human artificial selection (medically) for earlier and earlier birth. In evolutionary terms, we are providing a 'payoff' for genes that permit premature parturition where none existed before. There is not a single deleterious allele involved, and I don't think there has been any attempt to characterize genetic attributes of premature babies, but evolutionary theory tells us that the more we artifically enhance survival to reproductive age of these babies, the more and more premature births we are going to have over time. We can be virtually certain that this is going to become an increasing and very costly problem for developed societies. But what to do about it? Here is where the conflict arises: human ethics dicatates one thing, evolutionary implications, the opposite, and human ethics will always win out politically.