Is the evolution of modern man going to stop

If someone claims to have mathematical evidence of something, then asking them to provide it (or a link to it) is far from unreasonable.But asking IamJoseph for numbers to back up his bizarre claims is actually pointless though.
He never has before - no reason to expect him to do so in the future.

Yes, asking for a link to mathematical evidence is fair.I made my argument based on similar conversations I have had in which people wanted me to back up my thought experiments with numbers and while getting those numbers would be possible, it would take more than forty hours of hard research and number crunching.Sometimes even just finding sources to back up my statements takes such a long time.

Welcome to EvC! Great to have some new blood, I'm sure you will like it here if you don't mind a robust playground.I would say that any correlation between education and number of offspring in tenuous at best.Moreover, access to and use of birth control is a more important factor. And we cannot forget that the working classes access health services less than the middle classes and thus live shorter lives.As I'm sure you will agree an effective survival strategy in social species is multi generational input into the young.Being able to access such resources as multi generational support is an advantage. As such, being able to accrue resources and access such resources would be selected for.

Well when someone writes: "The math says ..." then I think it's not unreasonable to ask to see the math. If IaJ had instead said that he was "shooting from the hip", then I would not have asked to see the math.

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o my supposition that you are trying to lump genes, chromosomes and so on and so forth in the word 'seed' so it fits in with your bible was correct.

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No, I was correct - I said that. I also said there is no other reading of the text and no other context. I challenge you or anyone else to sit in a time machine, go back 3,500 years and alter that statement to say genes and dna are the same as 'seed' - in the language of the people. I say you will either arrive as the same sentence or that you will not perform any better. Its also ridiculous to ridicule this writings - it gave the world more than any other humanity possesses - its the first advanced alphabetical book?

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Crocodile embryos do not have sex chromosomes, and unlike humans sex is not determined genetically. Sex is determined by temperature,....

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No it does not. Take a temp lump and perform that trick w/o the seed! You also ignore how 'a seed following its own kind' produces a croc - not a temp creature.

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I say this genetic configuration is better described as a code of a directive program, which contains all the data required in determining the offspring, to the extent it leaves no margin of play for any other factors as impacting.

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Any other factors. That would include temperature.

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Can't be put any clearer than that.

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You say it is the 'seed' alone; but a quick check of reality and you are shown to be very wrong.

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Other factors are not impacting because the offspring only follows its host parents. Remove the seed factor and then prove your case. That's what I call a reality check.

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Now can we get back to the topic?

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I am. You want to leap over a false premise as a proof of a follow-up false premise.

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However, it is fair to say that some genes will impact wealth.

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Literary comprehension transcends math. The term 'thereof' clearly answers the above:

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wherein is the seed thereof, after its kind.

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Clearly, if skeletal design is passed on, a host of other accumulated faculties retained by the host parents' seed will also be passed on - again to the extent all such work is performed and processed solely by the seed data, making all other factors nothing more than utilized stepping stones to effect the pristine science embedded in Genesis. That, IMHO, displays a transcendent math affirmed in the literary. Of course such views were never embraced because it affronts the new religion of athiesm and any who disagree are born of devils and/or apes or subjected to a bad career move.

Knock-knock! I did give you a mathematical proof resting on mathematical premises. I also tested your own math when I said an ongoing process is unaffected by the time factor. If anyone has a noive - I can also proof the vastness of the universe and the distance/time factor 'PROVES' no life exists outside earth by the mathematical 'probability' factor. Start such a thread if you dispute this.

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What about other environmental factors such as exposure to lead or mercury, or a mothers use of alcohol? Is there some subroutine in the seeds program that says if exposed to high levels of X then the offspring will turn out like this instead of that?

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One can conjure reasonable responses to this with credibility. If mercury effects the basic consruct in a human or other life form, to the extent that it becomes part of that life - it will be passed on. We know that one prone to desease factors can be assisted by tinkering with genes - so mercury can also cause such an effect. That does not mean the impacted external factor of mercuy is the cause of repro design; it means only that the offspring follows the host parent transmission. I would say if someone breaks a leg while horse riding - this will not effect the offspring because it did not become part of the host's imprint in the sperm cell/egg.Alcohol and other addictions appear to effect the metabolism and can act as a heriditary factor, becoming intrinsic of the person - meaning it can get transmitted down. Yes this does show an external factor can internally impact a life form, but this is varied from external impacts like environment, namely the fundamental factor is what is or becomes embedded in the seed transmission, while the external impact becomes a carry over only if it becomes part of the transmission as a side effect. The environment thus becomes ancillary or accumulated baggage to the pivotal transmission.The proof of this is acohol and mercury on their own do not cause an offspring without the seed factor. Clearly, these either are or are not conducive to 'baggage' carried over by the seed.The most prominent error made by evolution, IMHO, is that it says the observation of a process is the proof of the process. In effect this is more than a distortion or error; it is saying nothing; it is not a scientific methodology but a corruption of science, which is of course also open to widespread corruption for agenda based reasoning. Its like finding out how a car works and shouting Eureka! No car maker! I see the reverse applying: the process only proves a processor factor. Edited by IamJoseph, : No reason given.

No. I'd have noticed if you did something like that. No. I, for one, have no noive. Knock yourself out.

Yes/No are of course absolutely mathematical proof factors!

This does not mean anything.

Thanks for the warm welcome that I have received from a number of people.Larni, you say that you do not believe that there is a correlation between education and number of offspring (fertility). Do you have a source for this? Here is what Wikipedia has to say about the topic.Fertility and intelligence - WikipediaI don't like the word intelligence because the measurement of it is so controversial, so I prefer the much more measurable 'education'. Anyway, the inverse correlation between fertility and education has been noted in many times and places.Some will argue that this results in a limit on how educated a population can become because the less educated are always winning the demographic battle with the more educated.

I think that a quote from your wiki link is infromative, here: But tenuous was probably a strong word. However, I can't not hear the voice of one of my professors at uni drumming into my head that correlation is not causation.It's also important to remember that low IQ people having loads of kids does not mean that those kids are low IQ.My dad's and absolute duffer about anything other than horses and I'm reasonably bright. I know that anecdotes are not data points but it is an important point.And we must not forget cultural issues: Dr Bill the practicing Chatholic is going to have how many children?I'm certainly not saying that I.Q. is not correlated with low birth rate: but we cannot infer causation.To the topic at hand, would you say that humans are then doomed to evolve into lower and lower IQ types a la the film 'Idiocracy' because of the correlation of low IQ and low birth rate?

Larni,You mention correlation versus causation and I do not dispute that. The correlations are not too controversial and I am not prepared yet to say what is the cause and what is the effect.I am definitely not saying that humans are becoming dumber. My guess is that the negative correlation between fertility and IQ serves to lower the ultimate IQs that humans can reach. If the correlation were positive, then we would probably see IQs rise higher than the current average until a new steady state was reached. Average IQs are probably where they are now, because dumb people throughout history have not been good at keeping their children alive long enough the have grandchildren. Average people have the highest fertility, and smart people seem to get distracted by other pursuits than regular sex and raising children. Of course these are generalities. There are exceptions, but the generalities seem to drive the overall trends.

The question of this thread is "is evolution taking place right now?"I would most definitely answer yes and argue that evolution is much faster today than ever before.Evolution is just the slow change of organisms over time. It has two main drivers which are:1 mutations
2 selectionMutations are the random changes in genes that occur due to mutagens such as radiation and chemicals in the environment. By the way, when I talk about mutagens in the environment, I am not thinking about recent environmental problems such as industrial pollution or radiation from nuclear reactors, I am thinking of environmental toxins that have always been present in the natural environment. Mutations can also occur due to blind chance. The important thing to remember is that each organism that reproduces has a certain chance of a mutation. The more organisms and reproductive events that there are, the greater the total number of mutations. I would argue that more mutations are occurring today than ever before. I say this not because there are more mutagens in the environment, but because humans are having more children than ever before. For this reason, more than any other, evolution has sped up.The second important factor in evolution is selection. Both natural and human driven selection will drive evolution. The only question we must ask is, do some types of organism tend to reproduce to have children and grandchildren than other types? If the answer is yes, then evolution is moving forward.For the sake of this post, I will define natural selection as anything other than humans willfully choosing one type over another. An example of human selection would be wars or genocides that choose to kill off a certain type of person. Sometimes is is not clear whether selection is natural or artificial; does sex selection count?We know that blue eyes are a mutation that occurred only about six thousand years ago. Before that time, all humans had brown eyes. The blue gene spread so quickly throughout human populations that we know there was a strong selection pressure. It is unclear whether blue eyes provide a physical advantage or whether they are influenced by sex selection. Some evolutionary biologists believe that most humans find blue eyes more attractive and thus blue eyed people have more success at mating. Support for this theory is provided in that by far more blue colored contact lenses are sold than brown colored contact lenses. The question is this, is human sex selection natural or artificial? Are people even consciously aware that they are doing it?People say that modern medicine and welfare have slowed down or stopped evolution, but let's quote the bible for a moment. Jesus said, "the poor will always be with us" and they are. We have experienced a several hundred year run of extreme wealth in the US, but that is nothing new. Human history has always recorded that there are fat years and lean years. There are always times of feast and famine. For instance, it is well known that the people who die in wars tend to more often be poor than rich. The people who die in famines and plagues also tend to be poor. Human history is a several thousand year record of events that tend to kill off more poor people than rich people. All of the events that you see in the news where people die are evolution at work.In the 20th century it seems that nearly everyone in the US had plentiful food and healthcare, but this was a temporary illusion. The veil was briefly lifted in the 1930s and was well recorded in the book "Grapes of Wrath". Recent economic events in the US should make it clear that natural and artificial selection are still very much in play.