Next Step in Human Evolution
Artificer
evolution. Better tolerance to sun radiation, resistance to extreme
temperatures, (because the globlal warming) better night vision, etc?
By the way I heard that most people can't tell apart purple from
indigo I do but I highly doubt that it could become a useful trait in
the near future.
John Wilkins
There is no "next step". Populations will adapt to whatever environments
they find themselves in if there is enough genetic variation to do so,
and time enough. Nothing is predetermined.
--
John S. Wilkins, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Philosophy
University of Queensland - Blog: scienceblogs.com/evolvingthoughts
"He used... sarcasm. He knew all the tricks, dramatic irony, metaphor,
bathos, puns, parody, litotes and... satire. He was vicious."
corky
"Artificer" <eliezer...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:37667ed3-79ec-4dd5...@c23g2000hsa.googlegroups.com...
>I am amusing myself thinking about the most likely next step in human
> evolution.
Look at the factors influencing reproduction.
Medical science allows almost anyone born to reproduce.
Highly educated have fever children, overall.
Rural and patriarchal cultures have more children.
Races mixing and spreading.
Underdeveloped and politically unstable countries subject to ethnic
cleansing,genocide and mass murder.
What is the next step in human evolution? I have no idea. The race is still
undergoing mass expansion, mixing and lower mortality. When resources grow
thin(and they will) or serious breakdown occurs, who will pay?
Overpopulated, impoverished nations have a lot to fear from the powerful
nations if the hammer falls.
Mr D.
news:1ia96h4.quqvyh3sz4gkN%j.wil...@uq.edu.au...
> Artificer <eliezer...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I am amusing myself thinking about the most likely next step in human
>> evolution. Better tolerance to sun radiation, resistance to extreme
>> temperatures, (because the globlal warming) better night vision, etc?
>> By the way I heard that most people can't tell apart purple from
>> indigo I do but I highly doubt that it could become a useful trait in
>> the near future.
>
> There is no "next step". Populations will adapt to whatever environments
> they find themselves in if there is enough genetic variation to do so,
> and time enough. Nothing is predetermined.
Still, how about 'resistance to some of the more rapidly deleterious effects
of high-energy, processed-food diets?' If Westernisation is subjecting more
and more populations to such diets, and also leading such people to have
children slightly later in life, then might not there be selection pressure
in such a direction..?
M.
John Wilkins
Yes, but that is the *present* step, not the "next" step. We are
constantly adapting to present environments, but nothing is guaranteed.
peter
> Artificer <eliezerfigue...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > I am amusing myself thinking about the most likely next step in human
> > evolution. Better tolerance to sun radiation, resistance to extreme
> > temperatures, (because the globlal warming) better night vision, etc?
> > By the way I heard that most people can't tell apart purple from
> > indigo I do but I highly doubt that it could become a useful trait in
> > the near future.
>
> There is no "next step". Populations will adapt to whatever environments
> they find themselves in if there is enough genetic variation to do so,
> and time enough. Nothing is predetermined.
But fortunately in many human populations the adaptation can now be
"intelligently designed" rather than relying on natural selection to
kill off the less adapted individuals before they have a chance to
reproduce. So if UV levels increase the adaptation can take the form
of more use of sunscreen or clothing. If better night vision is
needed then use night vision goggles, etc. The differential
reproductive success that comes from natural selection requires that
many of the less well-adapted individuals fail to reproduce -
generally because they die prematurely in wild populations. Better to
develop technological adaptations and not rely on NS.
And eventually I expect that population-wide genetic changes will also
be "intelligently designed" through genetic engineering. Initially to
eliminate genetic defects that lead to inherited diseases but then
extending to genetic modifications designed to enhance particular
traits and abilities.
Ron O
> "John Wilkins" <j.wilki...@uq.edu.au> wrote in message
>
> news:1ia96h4.quqvyh3sz4gkN%j.wil...@uq.edu.au...
>
> > Artificer <eliezerfigue...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >> I am amusing myself thinking about the most likely next step in human
> >> evolution. Better tolerance to sun radiation, resistance to extreme
> >> temperatures, (because the globlal warming) better night vision, etc?
> >> By the way I heard that most people can't tell apart purple from
> >> indigo I do but I highly doubt that it could become a useful trait in
> >> the near future.
>
> > There is no "next step". Populations will adapt to whatever environments
> > they find themselves in if there is enough genetic variation to do so,
> > and time enough. Nothing is predetermined.
>
> Still, how about 'resistance to some of the more rapidly deleterious effects
> of high-energy, processed-food diets?' If Westernisation is subjecting more
> and more populations to such diets, and also leading such people to have
> children slightly later in life, then might not there be selection pressure
> in such a direction..?
>
> M.
There has to be selection against reproduction. The affected
individuals reproduce before they die.
To evolve more resistance to radiation we would have to actively
select for it. Modern medicine will see that natural selection
pressure will be minimal. No selection pressure, no shift in allele
frequencies except by accident.
Ron Okimoto
Jim Willemin
b9dd-70f...@c23g2000hsa.googlegroups.com:
The next step in human evolution could well be extinction. As I see it,
the population levels are rapidly becoming unsustainable, and the
ecological support system is nearing collapse. If a catastrophic
population implosion leaves pockets of survivors, then those pockets could
well go many different ways, depending on local conditions. For example, I
beleive it was in this group that I read recent results that suggest the
short stature of pygmys may be a result of adaptation to (very) short life
expectancies. Some groups might adapt to extreme drought, others to other
pressures. However, if the pygmy hypothesis is correct, I suspect the
survivors of the future may be kinda short (hobbits?).
Kent Paul Dolan
> I am amusing myself thinking about the most likely
> next step in human evolution.
The keepers of the Doomsday Clock will be happy to
inform you how close it is to a mortal lock from
moment to moment that the next step in human
evolution will be the very same one as for all but a
tiny fraction of all the species ever evolved:
extinction.
HTH
xanthian. Electing a second god-flogging luddite
who intends to govern based strictly on what he
hears from the voices in his head, to lead the most
spun out of control nuclear power on earth, would
pretty much ring that clock's midnight chimes, I
suppose. Oh, well, always remember: "lighten up,
it's just life, it ain't no how permanent anyway".
Inez
> I am amusing myself thinking about the most likely next step in human
> evolution. Better tolerance to sun radiation, resistance to extreme
> temperatures, (because the globlal warming) better night vision, etc?
I doubt there is much selective pressure along these lines, what with
sunscreen, winter coats/bikinis, and street lights.
> By the way I heard that most people can't tell apart purple from
> indigo I do but I highly doubt that it could become a useful trait in
> the near future.
My guess is that evolutionary changes will be overwhelmed by genetic
engineering.
Sir Frederick
IMO the "next" step will be the "Singularity" :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The technological singularity is a hypothesized point in the future variously characterized by the technological creation of
superhuman intelligence, unprecedentedly rapid technological progress, or some combination of the two.[1]
Statistician I. J. Good first considered an "intelligence explosion", suggesting that if machines could even slightly surpass human
intellect, they could improve their own designs in ways unseen by their designers, and thus recursively augment themselves into far
greater intelligences. Vernor Vinge later called this event "the Singularity" as an analogy between the breakdown of modern physics
near a gravitational singularity and the drastic change in society he argues would occur following an intelligence explosion. In the
1980s, Vinge popularized the Singularity in lectures, essays, and science fiction. More recently, some AI researchers have voiced
concern over the potential dangers of Vinge's Singularity.
Others, most prominently Ray Kurzweil, define the Singularity as a period of extremely rapid, even infinite, technological progress.
Kurzweil argues such an event is implied by a long-term pattern of accelerating change that generalizes Moore's Law to technologies
predating the integrated circuit and which he argues will continue to other technologies not yet invented.
Critics of Kurzweil's interpretation consider it an example of static analysis, citing particular failures of the predictions of
Moore's Law. The Singularity also draws criticism from anarcho-primitivism and environmentalism advocates.
Following its introduction in Vinge's stories, the Singularity has also become a common plot element throughout science fiction."
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Read more at :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity
Who knows what the intelligent nonbiological machines
will do with us biological machines.
By definition we will be obsolete, by several measures.
Richard Harter
Wilkins) wrote:
>Artificer <eliezer...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I am amusing myself thinking about the most likely next step in human
>> evolution. Better tolerance to sun radiation, resistance to extreme
>> temperatures, (because the globlal warming) better night vision, etc?
>> By the way I heard that most people can't tell apart purple from
>> indigo I do but I highly doubt that it could become a useful trait in
>> the near future.
>
>There is no "next step". Populations will adapt to whatever environments
>they find themselves in if there is enough genetic variation to do so,
>and time enough. Nothing is predetermined.
No, John, no. Of course there is a next step. The next step is
whatever happens next. Predetermination has nothing to do with
there being a next step.
Who wrote that passage about the simple game? The idea is that
prophets and seers predict the future. Humanity accords them a
great deal of respect and honor, and then, when the prophets are
safely dead, go off and do something completely different. It's
a simple game, but it seems to be satisfying and people have been
doing it ever since when.
Be that as it may, there has been a good deal of evolution in our
species going on in our species for the last 50,000 years and the
pace is (IMNSHO) accelerating. The twenty first century will be
a major selection event.
Mark VandeWettering
How would any of those things help you score more with the chicks?
Mark
James Goetz
New SNP's?
Tim Tyler
> On Jan 4, 10:33 pm, Artificer <eliezerfigue...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> I am amusing myself thinking about the most likely next step in human
>> evolution. Better tolerance to sun radiation, resistance to extreme
>> temperatures, (because the globlal warming) better night vision, etc?
[...]
> My guess is that evolutionary changes will be overwhelmed by genetic
> engineering.
Genetic engineering is a type of evolutionary change: evolution is
about changes in gene frequencies.
--
__________
|im |yler http://timtyler.org/ t...@tt1lock.org Remove lock to reply.
Tim Tyler
> Artificer wrote:
> > I am amusing myself thinking about the most likely
> > next step in human evolution.
>
> The keepers of the Doomsday Clock will be happy to
> inform you how close it is to a mortal lock from
> moment to moment that the next step in human
> evolution will be the very same one as for all but a
> tiny fraction of all the species ever evolved:
> extinction.
5 minutes to midnight? After 63 years of world peace
with no nuclear weapons detonated in anger?
Buy those guys some anti-depressants - they are just
pointlessly making the planet jittery.
Tim Tyler
> I am amusing myself thinking about the most likely next step in human
> evolution. [...]
Replacement by engineered organisms, derived more from our technology
than from our genes.
luke...@gmail.com
> Artificer <eliezerfigue...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > I am amusing myself thinking about the most likely next step in human
> > evolution. Better tolerance to sun radiation, resistance to extreme
> > temperatures, (because the globlal warming) better night vision, etc?
> > By the way I heard that most people can't tell apart purple from
> > indigo I do but I highly doubt that it could become a useful trait in
> > the near future.
>
> There is no "next step". Populations will adapt to whatever environments
> they find themselves in if there is enough genetic variation to do so,
> and time enough. Nothing is predetermined.
> --
Don't be surprised if the next step in human evolution is decided by
humans. It may take hundreds of years but eventually medical science
will know the exact purpose of each of the sequences in our DNA and be
able to make accurate predictions on the outcome of any changes to
those sequences. With that kind of knowledge you could make all sorts
of useful modifications. Kind of scary when you think about it.
Keith
James Goetz
> Artificer <eliezerfigue...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > I am amusing myself thinking about the most likely next step in human
> > evolution. Better tolerance to sun radiation, resistance to extreme
> > temperatures, (because the globlal warming) better night vision, etc?
> > By the way I heard that most people can't tell apart purple from
> > indigo I do but I highly doubt that it could become a useful trait in
> > the near future.
>
> There is no "next step". Populations will adapt to whatever environments
> they find themselves in if there is enough genetic variation to do so,
> and time enough. Nothing is predetermined.
"Populations will adapt to whatever environments they find themselves
in if there is enough genetic variation to do so, and time enough"
sounds like a a belief in probabilistic causation.
Tim Tyler
> Don't be surprised if the next step in human evolution is decided by
> humans. It may take hundreds of years but eventually medical science
> will know the exact purpose of each of the sequences in our DNA and be
> able to make accurate predictions on the outcome of any changes to
> those sequences. With that kind of knowledge you could make all sorts
> of useful modifications. Kind of scary when you think about it.
In "hundreds of years" no one but evolutionary historians
will care about our primitive form of nucleic/amino acid slime.
Tim Tyler
> IMO the "next" step will be the "Singularity" :
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity
Bah:
http://alife.co.uk/essays/the_singularity_is_nonsense/
Sir Frederick
>Sir Frederick wrote:
>
>> IMO the "next" step will be the "Singularity" :
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity
>
>Bah:
>
>http://alife.co.uk/essays/the_singularity_is_nonsense/
Good ol' hubris makes us like to practice that ol' SPECIAL
magic. Copernicus Revolution mows down the grass of hubris.
There are many good thinkers considering these issues :
http://www.edge.org/
for a few.
Steven L.
> I am amusing myself thinking about the most likely next step in human
> evolution.
The same thing that's already happened in the past:
Adaptation to better resist new disease threats.
Sickle-cell anemia was an adaptation to resist malaria.
I expect we'll see better adaptations to resist HIV and Norwalk virus,
for example.
Beyond that, I predict we'll see more uniform blending of the races, as
intermarriage becomes more and more common. If America is still around
in 300 years, most citizens will look like African-American Hispanics
with Asian epicanthic eyefolds.
--
Steven L.
Email: sdli...@earthlinkNOSPAM.net
Remove the NOSPAM before replying to me.
Tim Tyler
> If America is still around in 300 years, most citizens will
> look like African-American Hispanics with Asian epicanthic eyefolds.
You expect humans to have so few changes in 300 years?!?
IMO, there will be no recognisable humans around in 300 years
outside of museums - the dominant species then will be angels.
AC
That's because you're not actually reading for comprehension, but rather for
cheap rhetorical comebacks.
--
Aaron Clausen mightym...@gmail.com
fnor
Bob Casanova
appeared in talk.origins, posted by James Goetz
<james...@yahoo.com>:
Is that a problem, or did you have some arcane definition in
mind for "probabilistic causation"? He probably also
"believes in" the Solar Phoenix reaction, and in the 2nd Law
of thermo.
--
Bob C.
"Evidence confirming an observation is
evidence that the observation is wrong."
- McNameless
James Goetz
> On Sat, 5 Jan 2008 10:18:12 -0800 (PST), the following
> appeared in talk.origins, posted by James Goetz
>
>
>
>
>
> >On Jan 5, 2:13 am, j.wilki...@uq.edu.au (John Wilkins) wrote:
> >> Artificer <eliezerfigue...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> > I am amusing myself thinking about the most likely next step in human
> >> > evolution. Better tolerance to sun radiation, resistance to extreme
> >> > temperatures, (because the globlal warming) better night vision, etc?
> >> > By the way I heard that most people can't tell apart purple from
> >> > indigo I do but I highly doubt that it could become a useful trait in
> >> > the near future.
>
> >> There is no "next step". Populations will adapt to whatever environments
> >> they find themselves in if there is enough genetic variation to do so,
> >> and time enough. Nothing is predetermined.
>
> >"Populations will adapt to whatever environments they find themselves
> >in if there is enough genetic variation to do so, and time enough"
> >sounds like a a belief in probabilistic causation.
>
> Is that a problem, or did you have some arcane definition in
> mind for "probabilistic causation"? He probably also
> "believes in" the Solar Phoenix reaction, and in the 2nd Law
> of thermo.
The last I heard, Wilkins is a staunch proponent of classical
determinism.
Robert Carnegie
> I am amusing myself thinking about the most likely next step in human
> evolution. Better tolerance to sun radiation, resistance to extreme
> temperatures, (because the globlal warming) better night vision, etc?
> By the way I heard that most people can't tell apart purple from
> indigo I do but I highly doubt that it could become a useful trait in
> the near future.
One form of evolution is where genes that already exist in the
population become more common. For instance, living with high
ultraviolet radiation in sunlight will favour dark skin; well, it's
available.
I thought Isaac Newton was supposed to have fiddled the rainbow
colours so that they came out to a mystical number of seven - or
rather that he preferred that interpretation. Kind of like the
"canals" on Mars, which seem to have been vision defects suffered by a
few influential astronomers. However, unusual sets of colour vision
genes can be positive as well as negative - but since colours that you
see are likely either to be generated by computer displays which have
a limited range, or else to be subject to agreement with less gifted
individuals (e.g. agreeing with a partner on home decor choices), you
may find yourself a misunderstood genius of colour. SInce you're
occupying yourself here it's very plausible.
Kent Paul Dolan
> 5 minutes to midnight?
You doubt that?
Pakistan, whose idea of a fun electoral process
is to see how many tries it takes to assassinate
the rival candidate to the one in power, is a
nuclear weapons equipped nation.
xanthian.
John Wilkins
Depends on the day of the week and my beer intake. I push classical
determinism as far as I can, but I have said, more than once, that
things get all probabilistic at some point. The issue is at what level
and whether the underlying stochasticity is screened off from the gross
morphologies.
John Wilkins
"That's a lovely indigo dress you are wearing, my dear."
John Wilkins
> Kent Paul Dolan wrote:
> > Artificer wrote:
>
> > > I am amusing myself thinking about the most likely
> > > next step in human evolution.
> >
> > The keepers of the Doomsday Clock will be happy to
> > inform you how close it is to a mortal lock from
> > moment to moment that the next step in human
> > evolution will be the very same one as for all but a
> > tiny fraction of all the species ever evolved:
> > extinction.
>
> 5 minutes to midnight? After 63 years of world peace
> with no nuclear weapons detonated in anger?
>
> Buy those guys some anti-depressants - they are just
> pointlessly making the planet jittery.
The having of so many nuclear weapons is enough to give that time. The
fact that now many of the former soviet republics have them makes it
worse. The fact that Israel has them makes it worse still.
We only have to hit midnight once.
Cory Albrecht
> Kent Paul Dolan wrote:
>> Artificer wrote:
>
>> > I am amusing myself thinking about the most likely
>> > next step in human evolution.
>>
>> The keepers of the Doomsday Clock will be happy to
>> inform you how close it is to a mortal lock from
>> moment to moment that the next step in human
>> evolution will be the very same one as for all but a
>> tiny fraction of all the species ever evolved:
>> extinction.
>
> 5 minutes to midnight? After 63 years of world peace
Um, world peace?
Korean War
Vietnam War
Bosnian War
Croatian War of Independance
Afghan Civil War
Iran-Iraq War
Sudanese Civil Wars
Nigerian Civil War
Mozambique Civil War
Rwandan Civil War
Congolese Civil War
Eritrean War of Independance
Somali Civil War
Angolan Civil War
Ugandan Civil War
Burundi Civil Wars
Ethiopian Civil War
Liberian Civil War
Sieera Leonean Civil War
Algerian War of Independance
Algerian Civil War
Guatemaltec Civil War
Lebanese Civil War
North Yemeni Civil War
Indonesian Invasion of East Timor
Persian Gulf War
El Salvadorian Civil War
Tamil Conflict in Sri Lanka
Nicaraguan Rebellion
both Chechen Wars
Greek Civil War
Kashmiri Insurgency
Turkey/PKK
Kosovo War
Indo-Pakistani Wars ('47 & '65)
Sino-Indian War
Turkish invasion of Cyprus
Waziristan War
Falklands War
Chiapas Rebellion
What world do you live in?
Tim Tyler
> Tim Tyler wrote, on 2008/01/05 13:10:
[Doomsday Clock]
>> 5 minutes to midnight? After 63 years of world peace
>
> Um, world peace?
>
> Korean War [...] Vietnam War [...] Bosnian War [...]
> What world do you live in?
World peace: opposite of world war :-)
Looking at:
http://www.thebulletin.org/minutes-to-midnight/
...these guys list global warming as something that could
inflict "irrevocable harm" on humanity. They obviously
have a rather different notion of what constitutes an
existential threat from me.
Robert Carnegie
> World peace: opposite of world war :-)
Perhaps. As has been pointed out, we have had arguably the absence of
world war, which is not exactly an opposite - and some commentators
consider the "Cold War" as "World War Three" - but not an absence of
war from the world.
max maypo
news:1iaap41.lek68iphxas4N%j.wil...@uq.edu.au:
> Depends on the day of the week and my beer intake. I push classical
> determinism as far as I can, but I have said, more than once, that
> things get all probabilistic at some point.
yep...and photons are always your friends in that regard
--
max
Bob Casanova
talk.origins, posted by max maypo <max....@notinsane.net>:
Especially if there's only one and you pop it through a
slit...or 2 slits.