Has our BIOLOGICAL EVOLUTION ended?

[charles brough]

There is no reason why we need to evolve biologically any further. With evolutionary change taking place in time frames of hundreds to millions of years, what minute change might have occurred in the last 40,000 years is of no significance. What has counted has been the social evolution that has occurred during that time. The process is explained in the Atheistic Science Institute - home page   

 

If we take such societies as that of Ancient Egypt, the Greek-Roman society, the Persian, and Muslim societies, we find that they had a sort of life cycle in which, for a time, each dominated the mainstream world. Then, each turned down and weakened. Most of the old societies have died and no longer exist, their "cultures" residing only in museums. What has happened is that natural selection has been going on between these societies. That accounts for the growth of human numbers, culture and technology---not biological evolution.

It is like the Clash of Civilizations.

 

charles

[Turtle]

There is no reason why we need to evolve biologically any further. With evolutionary change taking place in time frames of hundreds to millions of years, what minute change might have occurred in the last 40,000 years is of no significance. What has counted has been the social evolution that has occurred during that time. ...

 

charles

 

We might need -or find beneficial- a larger brain to accomodate the accumulated knowlege that has evolved, as well as for a greater capacity to analyze that data. :smart: We could stand to have stronger backs too.

[charles brough]

We might need -or find beneficial- a larger brain to accomodate the accumulated knowlege that has evolved, as well as for a greater capacity to analyze that data. ;) We could stand to have stronger backs too. :naughty:

 

A larger brain means a larger cranium. The reason women die during childbirth is often because the baby's head is too large to pass through the pelvis. This is playing a natural selection process on us and has for several hundred thousand years. Actually, the size of the cranium has slightly decreased from that of the Ancient Sapiens some 200,000 years ago. Even so, look at the progress we humans have had during that time! Just because academics don't know what the social---not biological---evolutionary process is that does account for that progress does not mean it is not happening.

 

Our back problem relates to our upright posture. Most back problems appear after couples reproduce. There is no biological evolutionary mechanism, therefore, that would cause it to change biologically.

 

charles

__________________________

the Atheistic Science Institute - home page   

[Turtle]

A larger brain means a larger cranium. The reason women die during childbirth is often because the baby's head is too large to pass through the pelvis. This is playing a natural selection process on us and has for several hundred thousand years. Actually, the size of the cranium has slightly decreased from that of the Ancient Sapiens some 200,000 years ago. Even so, look at the progress we humans have had during that time! Just because academics don't know what the social---not biological---evolutionary process is that does account for that progress does not mean it is not happening.

 

Our back problem relates to our upright posture. Most back problems appear after couples reproduce. There is no biological evolutionary mechanism, therefore, that would cause it to change biologically.

 

charles

__________________________

the Atheistic Science Institute - home page* *

 

On the curanium, it could enlarge in length, not girth, and still pass through the 'standard' canal. Or, we might evolve larger canals. ;)

 

I meant to address the social evolution with my reply in post #5.

 

On the back, all I know is that mine is killing me, it's from heavy labor, and I hurt it before I reproduced. Pass the aspirin. :hihi: .......:naughty:

[charles brough]

On the curanium, it could enlarge in length, not girth, and still pass through the 'standard' canal. Or, we might evolve larger canals. ;)

 

I meant to address the social evolution with my reply in post #5.

 

On the back, all I know is that mine is killing me, it's from heavy labor, and I hurt it before I reproduced. Pass the aspirin. :hihi: .......:naughty:

 

If we could and it were beneficial to our growth in numbers, wouldn't we be evolving larger birth canals and lengthier crania? We really are not. The female pelvis spread out so much as to produce other problems compared to that of the male. According to what I have read in Science magazine on line, the cranium is a little smaller than it was some 100,000 or more years ago. Also, one of the most characteristic things about the Neanderthal skull is its more excessive fore and aft length.

 

Yes, Post #5 did give a good example of cultural adaption. Social evolution is behind our success in the last forty or more thousand years.

 

And yes, back problems are endemic. I really don't understand how Latin American immigrants are able to do stoop labor in the agricultural fields day after day and manage. Anyone have an answer?

 

charles

[Essay]

I really don't understand how Latin American immigrants are able to do stoop labor in the agricultural fields day after day and manage. Anyone have an answer?

Because they do it "day after day and manage." Those that don't manage....

:)

 

.

.

...Gosh, what a great thread:

page 1:

Right on, Pyro!

...and Nitak!

 

"What continues to evolve is our accumulated wisdom." -Turtle

 

"What will drive the evolution if the environment is no longer the stressor?" -Kayra

 

"If the change is extreme enough..., but as a species we're still quite young." -Donk

 

OP: "It is not races that are the entities which compete to survive! It is mainstream religions." -CB

 

Wow, I hope page 2 is as good!!!

 

"...and hunched backs from computers.....its not far off." -Ganoderma :iamsmiling:

 

Boerseun! Thanks for digressing!

...but despite the fact that "The environment is humanity's ***** -"

...if we change our behaviour [see Turtle], whip the environment back into shape; and we can pull this out and emerge... Type 1....

???

 

page 2:

Thanks also Hermes....

 

OP: "It is like the Clash of Civilizations." -CB

...back on topic? i.e.

OP: "Even so, look at the progress we humans have had during that time! Just because academics don't know what the social---not biological---evolutionary process is that does account for that progress does not mean it is not happening." -CB

 

...and what about brain evolution!!!

Just look at the 16 different Myers-Briggs Type Indicators

and their relative proportions in the population (i.e. INFP= 4.4%; INFJ= 13.3%)

 

...or is that just a part of the whole social thing?

===

 

 

Nitak,

Speaking of the whole biological side (i.e. AIDS):

...just wait for this to develop....

MRSA Death

MRSA deaths are on the rise in the United States and around the world. /

In fact, the number of MRSA-related deaths in the U.S. is significantly higher than public health officials once thought.

 

The MRSA death rate in the U.S. is now higher than the AIDS death rate.

===

 

OH! ...and Charles B! Thanks for mentioning epigenetics!

Just think what living in houses is doing... and antibiotics... and....

 

~ :naughty:

[Greg_G47]

As long as there is selection pressure, evolution will continue. The interesting thing is that that selection pressure doesn't operate in the way you'd expect. If you're a healthy middle class parent with two children, a spouse, a job, etc versus a heroin addict with 14 kids who lives in a box, evolution favors the addict (at the moment). The addict has reproduced more, and is likely to produce offspring that engage in similar behavior, thus reproducing more. Being wealthy, resourceful, intelligent, etc. are 'vestigal' behaviors/drives from a time when these things were required to prevent your starvation and ensure your ability to produce reproductively viable offspring. Selection pressure isn't "intelligent", and therefore doesn't know that people who do little other than mass-reproduction require others (who produce fewer offspring) to support them. The cycle resets when there aren't enough competent (and also altruistic) people to feed the 'reproduction only' group. Depressing stuff, but that's my understanding of the selection pressure on the human species. Correct me if I'm wrong, or add whatever you think I might have missed.

[charles brough]

As long as there is selection pressure, evolution will continue. The interesting thing is that that selection pressure doesn't operate in the way you'd expect. If you're a healthy middle class parent with two children, a spouse, a job, etc versus a heroin addict with 14 kids who lives in a box, evolution favors the addict (at the moment). The addict has reproduced more, and is likely to produce offspring that engage in similar behavior, thus reproducing more. Being wealthy, resourceful, intelligent, etc. are 'vestigal' behaviors/drives from a time when these things were required to prevent your starvation and ensure your ability to produce reproductively viable offspring. Selection pressure isn't "intelligent", and therefore doesn't know that people who do little other than mass-reproduction require others (who produce fewer offspring) to support them. The cycle resets when there aren't enough competent (and also altruistic) people to feed the 'reproduction only' group. Depressing stuff, but that's my understanding of the selection pressure on the human species. Correct me if I'm wrong, or add whatever you think I might have missed.

 

You said it all well. That may explain why there is now so little biological evolution going---mostly only temporary epigenetic change. But our "culture" grows because the belief systems that bind us into societies have become more accurate (that is, less INaccurate) over the many thousands of years. Each society based on a mainstream religion built a better civilization than the past ones because of that. Each also learned from and adapted from the past, then improved upon it.

 

The religions that bind us into these societies eventually grow old while new science and technology fortunately accumulate. This finally makes the old faith obsolete. It is then seen as "false" (that is, more INaccurate). There eventually arises a need to replace the old ideology and the secular doctrines that evolved from it into a totally new ideological system that seems totally secular.

[Michaelangelica]

You still have random collections of mitochondrial DNA with often a little bit added by the male sperm.

[charles brough]

You still have random collections of mitochondrial DNA with often a little bit added by the male sperm.

 

 

The males don't add much, do they?

[charles brough]

There is no further human biological evolution occurring in the sense that it accounts for the growth of the human cultural/technological/science heritage and the growth of our numbers.

Therefore, it is a sign of confusion to take each ethnic group or racial type and find ways it has genetically "improved" as an explanation of human "progress."

 

seems to me the field is obsessed with the idea that it must be due to biological evolution still going on. Most of our technology and population growth has speeded up during the last 40,000 years. Yet, we have no real evidence that people then had any significant differences from us today.

 

Just because the consensus harbors no adequate explanation of the social evolution that has instead characterized our march into civilization, such as it is, is no reason to focus on a million-year slow process of biological evolution to "explain" it.

[Michaelangelica]

Why not? We don't need biological evolution any more! Some say we are the same creature who emerged some 195,000 years ago.

It Seems to me that humans a three speed genetic evolution system

from the fastest to the slowest

1. Epigenetic (not proven, it is the fastest YET)

2 DNA

3 Mitochondrial DNA

 

So given our biology we don't seem to have a lot of choice in the matter-or do/will we?

We will continue to evolve, if our antiquated social systems- combined with the speed of technological change, don't kill us first.

 

I wonder if the Crocodile or Stromatolites, who seem happy the way they are, have a three tiered genetic system?

[charles brough]

It Seems to me that humans a three speed genetic evolution system

from the fastest to the slowest

1. Epigenetic (not proven, it is the fastest YET)

2 DNA

3 Mitochondrial DNA

 

So given our biology we don't seem to have a lot of choice in the matter-or do/will we?

We will continue to evolve, if our antiquated social systems- combined with the speed of technological change, don't kill us first.

 

Does the same 3-stage process go on between individual cells in our own bodies? If not, then why would any stages of evolution have to apply to us if what is actually evolving is the societies we live in, that is, our social organisms? There is a natural selection process going on between them that makes genetic change, like single-cell change within us, irrelevant.:)

[freeztar]

It Seems to me that humans a three speed genetic evolution system

from the fastest to the slowest

1. Epigenetic (not proven, it is the fastest YET)

2 DNA

3 Mitochondrial DNA

 

So given our biology we don't seem to have a lot of choice in the matter-or do/will we?

We will continue to evolve, if our antiquated social systems- combined with the speed of technological change, don't kill us first.

 

I wonder if the Crocodile or Stromatolites, who seem happy the way they are, have a three tiered genetic system?

 

Any eukaryotic organism will have all three "genetic evolution systems", as you put it. There might be an exception that I'm unaware of, but certainly for organisms like crocodiles.

 

Btw, organisms that seem "happy the way they are" still evolve. It's just much slower and harder to recognize, especially morphologically.

[Michaelangelica]

Yes, putting a fine point on it, everything had to evolve from something.

What I find hard to understand is the speed of some evolution and the slowness of things like crocodiles and stomatolites. 3.5 B years is along time between drinks.

 

With their long lineage stromatolites are life's royalty.

Usually, bacteria are not fossilised. But on occasions a mineral solution, like extremely fine-grained silica, seeps into a cell without destroying its wall. Thus, complete microbial cells have been preserved in cherty rocks. And such fossilised stromatolitic cells of cyanobacteria 2000 million years old look pretty much the same as their descendents of today. They are the most successful organism on Earth and a triumph of the status quo over change (2)

 

Cyanobacteria are prokaryotic one-cellers. Their cells are fore-runners of today's eukaryotic cells, which most life, plants and animals, share.

The prokaryotic cell is an indifferentiated bag of plasma with a strand of DNA thrown in. Reproduction is by cell division. Each new life is a replica of the old, a mechanical reproduction.

. . .

they installed the process of photosynthesis (*), about 3.6 billion years ago.

. .

The stromatolites at Hamlin Pool like the intertidal range: being exposed for a few hours, the rest under water.

Since their ancient fossils look so similar, one might assume, that their ancestors liked the same 3 billion years ago. But many of their ancestor's mounds are broader and taller than today's. Maybe it's because in those ancient times tides came higher and wilder than they do today. And they did so because the Moon, the master of our tides, was much closer then to a faster spinning Earth. During the stromatolites' haydays, 2 billion years ago, Earth spun so fast that a year had 8oo days. Mutual gravitational attraction and sloshing tides acting as brakes have slowed Earth down. Our lessening rotational energy accelerates the Moon in an increasing orbit. Mirrors left on the Moon by the Apollo Mission enable exact calculation with laser measurements. Result: The Moon is moving away by 3.8cm per year.

For stromatolites, the celestial mechanism isn't what it used to be..

:: OZ Greetings :: - Geology Articles

 

PS

In some cases evolution seems to be going backwards?

http://www.pastornet.net.au/gac/issues/evolution.php

[freeztar]

Yes, putting a fine point on it, everything had to evolve from something.

What I find hard to understand is the speed of some evolution and the slowness of things like crocodiles and stomatolites. 3.5 B years is along time between drinks.

An important thing to remember is that a big driver of evolution is environmental change and the species ability to adapt to these changes. If a species is successful early on, with little to no environmental pressure, then evolution does not happen as quickly. As an abstract analogy, if the Ford Model-T performed as well as modern cars when it was conceived, then we'd see them around today, or at least something that looked very similar.

 

From the quote you posted, "And such fossilised stromatolitic cells of cyanobacteria 2000 million years old look pretty much the same as their descendents of today." (bolding mine)

As I pointed out in the last post, morphology can remain intact over many, many generations while the internal machinery changes, or doesn't.

 

Here's an interesting abstract that you might be interested in. The link has the full paper:

 

The cyanobacterial radiation consists of several lineages of phyletically (morphologically and genetically) related organisms. Several of these organisms show a striking resemblance to fossil counterparts. To investigate the molecular mechanisms responsible for stabilizing or homogenizing cyanobacterial characters, we compared the evolutionary rates and phylogenetic origins of the small-subunit rRNA-encoding DNA (16S rDNA), the conserved gene rbcL (encoding D-ribulose 1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase-oxygenase large subunit), and the less conserved gene rbcX. This survey includes four categories of phyletically related organisms: 16 strains of Microcystis, 6 strains of Tychonema, 10 strains of Planktothrix, and 12 strains of Nostoc. Both rbcL and rbcX can be regarded as neutrally evolving genes, with 95 to 100% and 50 to 80% synonymous nucleotide substitutions, respectively. There is generally low sequence divergence within the Microcystis, Tychonema, and Planktothrix categories both for rbcLX and 16S rDNA. The Nostoc category, on the other hand, consists of three genetically clustered lineages for these loci. The 16S rDNA and rbcLX phylogenies are not congruent for strains within the clustered groups. Furthermore, analysis of the phyletic structure for rbcLX indicates recombinational events between the informative sites within this locus. Thus, our results are best explained by a model involving both intergenic and intragenic recombinations. This evolutionary model explains the DNA sequence clustering for the modern species as a result of sequence homogenization (concerted evolution) caused by exchange of genetic material for neutrally evolving genes. The morphological clustering, on the other hand, is explained by structural and functional stability of these characters. We also suggest that exchange of genetic material for neutrally evolving genes may explain the apparent stability of cyanobacterial morphological characters, perhaps over billions of years.

Evolution of Cyanobacteria by Exchange of Genetic Material among Phyletically Related Strains -- Rudi et al. 180 (13): 3453 -- The Journal of Bacteriology

 

PS

In some cases evolution seems to be going backwards?

Goldfields Alliance Church :: Is Evolution true?

 

 

From that link:

 

Science is the realm of things which can be observed, in the present, and are repeatable (can be put to the test by experiment). A scientific theory cannot be proven true. If many experimental results support the theory, all we can say is the theory is fairly good for now. But even one experimental result contrary to the theory is sufficient to disprove it.

 

If atoms-to-people evolution were a scientific hypothesis, it would be straightforward to run experiments to test it, just like any other scientific endeavour. There would be no huge fuss over it. But we can't. A dinosaur turning into a bird 150 million years ago is neither observable in real time, nor repeatable.

 

So, the very existence of the desperate creation-evolution debate tells us it is a matter of opinion and belief, not of science. Neither creation nor evolution are sciences, they are beliefs. This is why there is no objective definition of science that includes evolution but not creation.

 

The author obviously has never studied science. That link is pure garbage.

BTW, there is no "backwards" in evolution just like there are no time machines that can take us into the past. Everything progresses in a forward motion.

[Michaelangelica]

Great reply thanks freezar

your guy was looking at living cynobacteria who, like a lot of bacteria, swap DNA without regard to Church or State Evolution of Cyanobacteria by Exchange of Genetic Material among Phyletically Related Strains -- Rudi et al. 180 (13): 3453 -- The Journal of Bacteriology

 

I don't know enough about the unique WA stromatolite formations to argue the point> I just read that they had stayed the same for 3-4 billion years. When I think about it know I wonder how they can prove that. Fossil records would contain no usable DNA.

 

So stress makes for evolution?

 

So how come I haven't sprouted wings and flown yet? I have had plenty of stress. Another reaction to stress is to run away. I do this extremely well. My hero is Rincewind from Terry Pratchett's Discword series/books.

My Taswegian daughter was ticked to hear, that due to global warming, Victorian lobsters where packing their suitcases and migrating to Tasmania.

 

I guess a crocodile doesn't need to run away from anything; and a steady supply of Tourists to eat means no stress. (Note to NT Govt. New Tourist signs:- "Please don't poke big ugly crocodiles with a stick to get a better picture. This activity could be dangerous to your health")

I did open a tin can the other day that warned me it was sharp and could cut me.

What is the world combing too when even the tin cans start to become aggressive?

Have they evolved after the stresses of aeons of mutilation? ( In the Scouts we used to 'BBB' them- Burn bash and Bury- too cruel)

 

BTW I would think that T-model Fords would sell like 'hot cakes' if you made them again.

At least you could repair them yourself rather than paying for the mechanic's retirement Caribbean Island.

 

Forgive the overly frivolous reply I haven't had my pills yet.:naughty:

 

PS (Seriously) are you sure about evolution not going "backwards"?