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a425couple

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May 21, 2019, 4:40:02 PM5/21/19
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https://www.inverse.com/article/55900-mars-city-near-sighted-offspring-could-find-sex-with-earth-humans-deadly

Near-Sighted Kids of Martian Colonists Could Find Sex With Earth-Humans
Deadly
Life on Mars will be an evolutionary roller coaster.

By Mike Brown on May 18, 2019
Filed Under Mars, 2050, Elon Musk, Evolution, Sex & SpaceX
Human
looking up at stars
It’s life, but not as we know it.”

The famous Star Trek refrain — actually a common misattribution — aptly
describes humanity’s future on Mars. And as more and more tech
entrepreneurs outline visions for how to erect settlements on the Red
Planet by the 2050s, Rice University professor Scott Solomon is already
starting to worry about what’s going to happen to the first Martian
settlers and, more interestingly, their babies.

“What’s interesting to me as an evolutionary biologist is thinking
about, what if we’re actually successful?” Solomon tells Inverse. “I
don’t think there has been nearly as much discussion about what would
become of the people that are living in these colonies generations later.”

Solomon’s 2016 book, Future Humans: Inside the Science of Our Continuing
Evolution, argues that evolution is still a force at play in modern
humans. In an awe-inspiring TEDx talk in January 2018 — which
inexplicably still has fewer than 1,000 views — Solomon outlined how
humans would change — literally — after spending a generation or two
living on Mars.

Far from waiting thousands of years to witness minuscule changes,
Solomon instead believes that humans going to Mars could be on the verge
of an evolutionary rollercoaster. He expects, among other things, that
their bones will be stronger, their sight shorter, and that they’ll, at
some point, have to stop having sex with Earth-humans.

“Evolution is faster or slower depending on how much of an advantage
there is to having a certain mutation,” Solomon says. “If a mutation
pops up for people living on Mars, and it gives them a 50-percent
survival advantage, that’s a huge advantage, right? And that means that
those individuals are going to be passing those genes on at a much
higher rate than they otherwise would have.”

Outside of Solomon’s field, discussion of this topic is relatively
sparse. Elon Musk’s SpaceX team is holed up in Florida and Texas working
on a stainless steel spaceship to send the first humans to Mars in the
2020s, establishing a city by 2050. Dubai has designed dramatic concepts
for its own Martian city, and the Matt Damon sci-fi flick The Martian
depicted how first trips to the Red Planet would take the form of
research missions.

These are all fascinating ideas, but they’re curiously short on how
humans may change under the treacherous, radioactive conditions of the
solar system’s fourth planet.

Mars
Human
Mars City: How Humans Could Change Over Time
Solomon outlined a number of ways — many of them covered in his Ted Talk
— about how humans could change.

Humans may develop denser bones to overcome the effects of Mars’
gravity, which is just a third of Earth’s. The reduced force could make
bones more brittle, which could lead to complications like fractured
pelvises during childbirth.
The inhabitants of smaller spaces may become more near-sighted, as they
no longer need to see as far as they would on Earth. Solomon cites
cavefish in deep trenches that have gone blind with no need for vision,
and studies that show children who spend more time indoors are likely to
become more near-sighted.
Mars inhabitants may develop a new skin tone to adjust to the higher
levels of radiation. Humans use melanin to fight against ultraviolet
rays, while other species use carotenoids. Mars residents may some day
have to develop another pigment entirely to fight off radiation.
Residents may perhaps learn to use oxygen more efficiently. A similar
change has been observed on the Tibetan plateau, where oxygen is 40
percent lower than it is at sea level. To adjust, Tibetans have denser
beds of capillaries to more efficiently move blood, and have the ability
to dilate their vessels to get more oxygen to the muscles.
One change that could occur relatively fast? Non-Earth dwelling humans
may quickly lose their immune system. In a sterile environment with no
microorganisms present, the residents may have no need for a body
capable of fighting germs. But this may not be such a bad thing, Solomon
suggests it could be an opportunity to eradicate diseases, treating the
ship flying to Mars as a sort of quarantine zone and ensuring the new
inhabitants can lead healthier lives.
It’s this latter change that may force humans to eventually splinter
irreversibly from their Earth-based counterparts. With no immune system,
sex between Martian humans and Earthlings would be lethal. That could
impose an artificial limit on how the two populations will be able to
interact and co-mingle. The inability to form families or send offspring
back and forth between the two planets could drive the two groups even
further apart, assuming the whole issue of “who pays who taxes” hasn’t
created an irreparable rift already.


Sparks around a campfire
Mars City: How This Human Takes Form
Solomon argues these changes will happen relatively quickly. Radiation
on Mars is extraordinarily high, he notes, without any sort of
magnetosphere to protect the humans. Children are normally born with
between 20 to 120 genetic mutations, but radiation could cause this
figure to spike and accelerate changes in genes.

Humans could also accelerate changes even more through gene editing.
CRISPR/Cas9 is a tool that could enable humans to ready our bodies for
Martian life more quickly, but with our current limited knowledge of the
human genome, random changes could have unexpected consequences. Still,
it could represent an avenue for alterations in the near future.

“Why wait around for this mutation to occur if you can just go in and
make them yourself?” Solomon says.

Another is the founder effect, which is the theory that gene traits of
the first inhabitants of a new area have a huge influence on the future
trajectory of the species. That means if we send up the most physically
capable humans to Mars, their offspring may be more genetically
predisposed to physical strength than humans on Mars.

It also means Musk and others will need to consider genetic diversity,
to ensure a good mix throughout the population. Solomon argues for
around 100,000 people migrating to Mars over the course of a few years,
with the majority from Africa, as that is where humans see the greatest
genetic diversity.

“If I were designing a human colony on Mars, I would want a population
that would be hundreds of thousands of people, with representatives of
every human population here on Earth,” Solomon says.

Hopefully the architects of these new worlds are listening.

Ted Nolan <tednolan>

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May 21, 2019, 5:28:56 PM5/21/19
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In article <qc1nm...@news2.newsguy.com>,
a425couple <a425c...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>from
>https://www.inverse.com/article/55900-mars-city-near-sighted-offspring-could-find-sex-with-earth-humans-deadly
>
>Near-Sighted Kids of Martian Colonists Could Find Sex With Earth-Humans
>Deadly
>Life on Mars will be an evolutionary roller coaster.
>

Sounds pretty unlikely to me.

For instance my Scotch-Irish & Irish family has lived in the US
South since colonial times. As my yearly dermatology appointment
vividly reminds me, we have not "adapted".
--
------
columbiaclosings.com
What's not in Columbia anymore..

Dorothy J Heydt

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May 21, 2019, 6:05:08 PM5/21/19
to
In article <gkj8sl...@mid.individual.net>,
Ted Nolan <tednolan> <tednolan> wrote:
>In article <qc1nm...@news2.newsguy.com>,
>a425couple <a425c...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>from
>>https://www.inverse.com/article/55900-mars-city-near-sighted-offspring-could-find-sex-with-earth-humans-deadly
>>
>>Near-Sighted Kids of Martian Colonists Could Find Sex With Earth-Humans
>>Deadly
>>Life on Mars will be an evolutionary roller coaster.
>>
>
>Sounds pretty unlikely to me.
>
>For instance my Scotch-Irish & Irish family has lived in the US
>South since colonial times. As my yearly dermatology appointment
>vividly reminds me, we have not "adapted".

Takes longer than that. There's a _Scandinavia and the World_
page

/takes time to search archives

https://satwcomic.com/we-re-all-too-fragile-for-this-world

explaining differences in skin color by where the people inside
the skin have been living for the last howevermany years: if
Norway gets into central Africa he gets terrible sumburn; if
Central African Republic goes to Norway, he gets vitamin
deficiencies. But we're talking hundreds of thousands of years
here; and it's not so much that the people adapt as that the ones
who don't have the right characteristics for the area die out, or
at least reproduce less often.

--
Dorothy J. Heydt
Vallejo, California
djheydt at gmail dot com
www.kithrup.com/~djheydt/

Dimensional Traveler

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May 21, 2019, 6:05:45 PM5/21/19
to
On 5/21/2019 2:28 PM, Ted Nolan <tednolan> wrote:
> In article <qc1nm...@news2.newsguy.com>,
> a425couple <a425c...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>> from
>> https://www.inverse.com/article/55900-mars-city-near-sighted-offspring-could-find-sex-with-earth-humans-deadly
>>
>> Near-Sighted Kids of Martian Colonists Could Find Sex With Earth-Humans
>> Deadly
>> Life on Mars will be an evolutionary roller coaster.
>>
>
> Sounds pretty unlikely to me.
>
> For instance my Scotch-Irish & Irish family has lived in the US
> South since colonial times. As my yearly dermatology appointment
> vividly reminds me, we have not "adapted".
>
Ya. The bit about low gravity _increasing_ bone density runs counter to
what we've already observed in LEO.

--
Inquiring minds want to know while minds with a self-preservation
instinct are running screaming.

Dimensional Traveler

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May 21, 2019, 9:15:05 PM5/21/19
to
That's the part of evolution that I feel so many people don't get. It
isn't "survival of the fittest", it much more "the lower survival of the
least fit".

Dorothy J Heydt

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May 21, 2019, 10:50:08 PM5/21/19
to
In article <qc27qm$731$1...@dont-email.me>,
Yeah. There's a BBC documentary on early hominins that said, I
think in the context of the advantage walking upright gave
_Australopithecus,_ "In order to become extinct, you don't have
to fail. You just have to succeed less often."

Carl Fink

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May 22, 2019, 9:08:50 AM5/22/19
to
On 2019-05-21, Dimensional Traveler <dtr...@sonic.net> wrote:

> Ya. The bit about low gravity _increasing_ bone density runs counter to
> what we've already observed in LEO.

Irrelevant. It isn't that individuals would react to low gravity by their
bones being denser. It's that the people whose bones are naturally denser would
have more children survive to reproductive age. Unrelated, literally (and
pun intended).
--
Carl Fink nitpi...@nitpicking.com

Read John Grant's book, Corrupted Science: http://a.co/9UsUoGu
Dedicated to ... Carl Fink!

Carl Fink

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May 22, 2019, 9:09:23 AM5/22/19
to
On 2019-05-21, Dorothy J Heydt <djh...@kithrup.com> wrote:

> explaining differences in skin color by where the people inside
> the skin have been living for the last howevermany years: if
> Norway gets into central Africa he gets terrible sumburn; if
> Central African Republic goes to Norway, he gets vitamin
> deficiencies. But we're talking hundreds of thousands of years
> here; and it's not so much that the people adapt as that the ones
> who don't have the right characteristics for the area die out, or
> at least reproduce less often.

In evolution, that's exactly what "adapt" means.

Michael F. Stemper

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Jul 18, 2019, 1:44:19 PM7/18/19
to
On 21/05/2019 15.39, a425couple wrote:
> from
> https://www.inverse.com/article/55900-mars-city-near-sighted-offspring-could-find-sex-with-earth-humans-deadly
>
>
> Near-Sighted Kids of Martian Colonists Could Find Sex With Earth-Humans
> Deadly
> Life on Mars will be an evolutionary roller coaster.

> “What’s interesting to me as an evolutionary biologist is thinking
> about, what if we’re actually successful?” Solomon tells Inverse. “I
> don’t think there has been nearly as much discussion about what would
> become of the people that are living in these colonies generations later.”

By complete chance, I just watched a video on this topic yesterday. (The
video itself has been out for a couple of years, but I'm just catching
up.)

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLR_a1MAy9I>

--
Michael F. Stemper
If you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce they taste much
more like prunes than rhubarb does.

Ahasuerus

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Jul 18, 2019, 2:04:29 PM7/18/19
to
On Thursday, July 18, 2019 at 1:44:19 PM UTC-4, Michael F. Stemper wrote:
> On 21/05/2019 15.39, a425couple wrote:
> > from
> > https://www.inverse.com/article/55900-mars-city-near-sighted-offspring-could-find-sex-with-earth-humans-deadly
> >
> >
> > Near-Sighted Kids of Martian Colonists Could Find Sex With Earth-Humans
> > Deadly
> > Life on Mars will be an evolutionary roller coaster.
>
> > “What’s interesting to me as an evolutionary biologist is thinking
> > about, what if we’re actually successful?” Solomon tells Inverse. “I
> > don’t think there has been nearly as much discussion about what would
> > become of the people that are living in these colonies generations later.”
>
> By complete chance, I just watched a video on this topic yesterday. (The
> video itself has been out for a couple of years, but I'm just catching
> up.)
>
> <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLR_a1MAy9I>

Tellingly, the top-voted comment reads:

> We are more likely to have full control over our genetic code way
> before any substantial evolution-driven change can occur

Which may or may not be the case, but it reflects a shift in human
expectations.

ObSF: H. G. Wells. Always H. G. Wells.

Dorothy J Heydt

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Jul 18, 2019, 3:31:17 PM7/18/19
to
In article <QGQB5G$C03$1...@dont-email.me>,
Michael F. Stemper <michael...@gmail.com> wrote:
>On 21/05/2019 15.39, a425couple wrote:
>> from
>>
>https://www.inverse.com/article/55900-mars-city-near-sighted-offspring-could-find-sex-with-earth-humans-deadly
>>
>>
>> Near-Sighted Kids of Martian Colonists Could Find Sex With Earth-Humans
>> Deadly
>> Life on Mars will be an evolutionary roller coaster.
>
>> “What’s interesting to me as an evolutionary biologist is thinking
>> about, what if we’re actually successful?” Solomon tells Inverse. “I
>> don’t think there has been nearly as much discussion about what would
>> become of the people that are living in these colonies generations later.”
>
>By complete chance, I just watched a video on this topic yesterday. (The
>video itself has been out for a couple of years, but I'm just catching
>up.)
>
><https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLR_a1MAy9I>
>

Well, I'm not going to watch it, but can you say how *long* the
guy thinks it would take for this to happen? How many generations?
Humans from Northern Europe have been interfertile with Native
Australians, who've been isolated for the last ten thousand years
or so.

a425couple

unread,
Jul 19, 2019, 12:00:45 PM7/19/19
to
On 7/18/2019 10:44 AM, Michael F. Stemper wrote:
> On 21/05/2019 15.39, a425couple wrote:
>> from
>> https://www.inverse.com/article/55900-mars-city-near-sighted-offspring-could-find-sex-with-earth-humans-deadly
>>
>>
>> Near-Sighted Kids of Martian Colonists Could Find Sex With Earth-Humans
>> Deadly
>> Life on Mars will be an evolutionary roller coaster.
>
>> “What’s interesting to me as an evolutionary biologist is thinking
>> about, what if we’re actually successful?” Solomon tells Inverse. “I
>> don’t think there has been nearly as much discussion about what would
>> become of the people that are living in these colonies generations later.”
>
> By complete chance, I just watched a video on this topic yesterday. (The
> video itself has been out for a couple of years, but I'm just catching
> up.)
>
> <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLR_a1MAy9I>
>
I have watched 3 minutes of it - so far.
Very interesting.
Informative for sci-fi reading and for real life thoughts.
Thank you for informing us of this.

j...@mdfs.net

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Aug 2, 2019, 2:13:03 PM8/2/19
to
a425couple wrote:
> “Evolution is faster or slower depending on how much of an advantage
> there is to having a certain mutation,” Solomon says. “If a mutation
> pops up for people living on Mars, and it gives them a 50-percent
> survival advantage, that’s a huge advantage, right? And that means that
> those individuals are going to be passing those genes on at a much
> higher rate than they otherwise would have.”

Only if those Martian humans chose not to breed with those Martian humans
who did not have that trait. History has shown that humans will mate
with whatever humans are available, regardless of genetic "fitness".

Evolution can *only* happens when there is a subset of the population
that does *NOT* breed, as evolution is the elimination of those that
do not breed.

David Johnston

unread,
Aug 2, 2019, 2:19:17 PM8/2/19
to
On 2019-08-02 12:13 p.m., j...@mdfs.net wrote:
> a425couple wrote:
>> “Evolution is faster or slower depending on how much of an advantage
>> there is to having a certain mutation,” Solomon says. “If a mutation
>> pops up for people living on Mars, and it gives them a 50-percent
>> survival advantage, that’s a huge advantage, right? And that means that
>> those individuals are going to be passing those genes on at a much
>> higher rate than they otherwise would have.”
>
> Only if those Martian humans chose not to breed with those Martian humans
> who did not have that trait.

Or lack of the trait significantly reduced the chances of a child
surviving through prime reproductive age. Although lets face it, if the
trait was that good they'd just end up splicing it into all their kids
anyway.

Robert Carnegie

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Aug 2, 2019, 3:53:15 PM8/2/19
to
On Friday, 2 August 2019 19:19:17 UTC+1, David Johnston wrote:
> On 2019-08-02 12:13 p.m., j...@mdfs.net wrote:
> > a425couple wrote:
> >> “Evolution is faster or slower depending on how much of an advantage
> >> there is to having a certain mutation,” Solomon says. “If a mutation
> >> pops up for people living on Mars, and it gives them a 50-percent
> >> survival advantage, that’s a huge advantage, right? And that means that
> >> those individuals are going to be passing those genes on at a much
> >> higher rate than they otherwise would have.”
> >
> > Only if those Martian humans chose not to breed with those Martian humans
> > who did not have that trait.
>
> Or lack of the trait significantly reduced the chances of a child
> surviving through prime reproductive age.

Uh, yeah. Evolution favours a survival trait because
you have to survive and /then/ breed.

> Although lets face it, if the
> trait was that good they'd just end up splicing it into all their kids
> anyway.

True; if you can't get fine genes already by mail order,
it'll come soon. But only if you recognise the valuable
gene as being that.

But maybe Martian humans will have to have much smaller
brains. In which case, oh well. Artificial intelligences
will look after them.

Dorothy J Heydt

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Aug 3, 2019, 12:51:17 AM8/3/19
to
In article <90358c16-8ccb-47e2...@googlegroups.com>,
<j...@mdfs.net> wrote:
>a425couple wrote:
>
>....History has shown that humans will mate
>with whatever humans are available, regardless of genetic "fitness".

That's not entirely true. Humans, and other creatures, will
preferentially mate with members of their species who *look
healthy.* The peacock attracts the peahen with his flamboyant
tail because it takes a lot of his energy to grow it, thus
attesting to his superior health and strength. Humans
preferentially mate with humans who have smooth skin, healthy
hair, and other indicators of health, and in the case of males
choosing females, looking as if they are young and therefore
probably not pregnant by some other male yet.

I recommend to your attention to _Survival of the Prettiest,_ by
Nancy Etcoff, who fills a dual role as faculty at Harvard Medical
school and a psychologist at Massachusetts General Hospital.

But yes, many humans will mate with whoever or whatever is
available, including, so I was once informed, a knothole if
that's all that's available. "Aren't they worried about
splinters?" I asked, and the reply was, "The middle-aged guys
will. The teenagers won't."

Humans, having developed the ability to think beyong the dictates
of their genes, do sometimes mate for political or financial
reasons. Or, individual humans will chose *not to mate at all,*
for reasons varying from religious faith through squeamishness to
"I don't want to get pregnant, I don't want to give birth, I
don't want to spend the best years of my life raising kids!"
Thus defeating the billions of years of effort on the part of
their genes to develop superior methods of propagating
themselves.

>Evolution can *only* happens when there is a subset of the population
>that does *NOT* breed, as evolution is the elimination of those that
>do not breed.

I quote from a BBC documentary on early hominids: "To become
extinct, it is not necessary to fail; it is only necessary to
succeed less often." You can become extinct by starving to death
in a changed environment that has eliminated your food supply, e.g.,
even if you breed like rabbits.

J. Clarke

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Aug 3, 2019, 2:07:01 AM8/3/19
to
On Sat, 3 Aug 2019 04:35:20 GMT, djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt)
wrote:
There's mating and there's marriage. It only takes one mating to get
pregnant and no marriage is required. And men will mate with quite a
wide range of women that they will not marry.

>>Evolution can *only* happens when there is a subset of the population
>>that does *NOT* breed, as evolution is the elimination of those that
>>do not breed.
>
>I quote from a BBC documentary on early hominids: "To become
>extinct, it is not necessary to fail; it is only necessary to
>succeed less often." You can become extinct by starving to death
>in a changed environment that has eliminated your food supply, e.g.,
>even if you breed like rabbits.

There is this notion that evolution means that the "better" species
succeeds and the "worse" specied dies out. It doens't work that way.
This one finds a niche, that one finds a niche, they both keep going.
Somwhere backalong lions, tigers, hyenas, and housecats all have a
common ancestor. Go back far enough and we and a tree have a common
ancestor.

Dorothy J Heydt

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Aug 3, 2019, 8:20:02 AM8/3/19
to
In article <cs8akel76vngi1jeb...@4ax.com>,
Right. "Better" = "better for surviving in the current
environment," which may change on you without warning.

J. Clarke

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Aug 3, 2019, 11:35:33 AM8/3/19
to
On Sat, 3 Aug 2019 12:02:16 GMT, djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt)
And may be different the next valley over.

Then there's the Galapagos finches, where these ones adjusted to be
insect specialists and those ones adjusted to be seed specialists and
so on out to something like 25 different varieties.

Dimensional Traveler

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Aug 3, 2019, 1:09:36 PM8/3/19
to
And people say we're not evolving. How is eliminating from the gene
pool those who won't mate and reproduce "defeating" an evolutionary
effort to promote self-propagation?

J. Clarke

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Aug 3, 2019, 2:05:42 PM8/3/19
to
And then there's someone I know who mates quite a lot but has no
children and doesn't want them. It is the 21st century. Mating does
not imply parenthood.

Kevrob

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Aug 3, 2019, 2:08:08 PM8/3/19
to
On Saturday, August 3, 2019 at 1:09:36 PM UTC-4, Dimensional Traveler wrote:

> And people say we're not evolving. How is eliminating from the gene
> pool those who won't mate and reproduce "defeating" an evolutionary
> effort to promote self-propagation?

If I were the one who "wouldn't"* mate, my "removing my genes from
the gene pool" might have been disadvantageous for the species, even
if avoiding the expense and trouble (and any consequent benefits)
of children was advantageous for me, personally.

Caveats:

1) I'm not an altruist, and
B) I have siblings who have children: one brother and one sister.

How likely is it that I have _unique_ genes that will be "lost?"
Both my mother and my father had siblings who had scads of kids.
I'm talking 10 from one of my aunts, as I am one of 9. My mother
was one of 12, and I have a bunch of cousins on that side. Nost
of these all had kids.

* It isn't that I was against it. Things just never fell that way.
I don't expect to pull a "Strom Thurmond" in the last third (?)
of my life, but, never say never.....?

Kevin R
a.a #2310

Dimensional Traveler

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Aug 3, 2019, 3:49:32 PM8/3/19
to
I did say "mate AND reproduce".

J. Clarke

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Aug 3, 2019, 3:51:57 PM8/3/19
to
On Sat, 3 Aug 2019 11:08:05 -0700 (PDT), Kevrob <kev...@my-deja.com>
wrote:

>On Saturday, August 3, 2019 at 1:09:36 PM UTC-4, Dimensional Traveler wrote:
>
>> And people say we're not evolving. How is eliminating from the gene
>> pool those who won't mate and reproduce "defeating" an evolutionary
>> effort to promote self-propagation?
>
>If I were the one who "wouldn't"* mate, my "removing my genes from
>the gene pool" might have been disadvantageous for the species, even
>if avoiding the expense and trouble (and any consequent benefits)
>of children was advantageous for me, personally.

Think highly of yourself, do you?

Removing your genes from the gene pool is not "disadvantageous"
becuase your genes are genes that don't reproduce.

>Caveats:
>
>1) I'm not an altruist, and
>B) I have siblings who have children: one brother and one sister.
>
>How likely is it that I have _unique_ genes that will be "lost?"
>Both my mother and my father had siblings who had scads of kids.
>I'm talking 10 from one of my aunts, as I am one of 9. My mother
>was one of 12, and I have a bunch of cousins on that side. Nost
>of these all had kids.

Barring mutation, any genes you have you got from your mother or
father, who got them from his or her mother or father and on down the
line. There are billions of us. Just about any gene you care to
mention will be multiply replicated.

Kevrob

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Aug 3, 2019, 9:18:18 PM8/3/19
to
On Saturday, August 3, 2019 at 3:51:57 PM UTC-4, J. Clarke wrote:
> On Sat, 3 Aug 2019 11:08:05 -0700 (PDT), Kevrob <kev...@my-deja.com>
> wrote:
>
> >On Saturday, August 3, 2019 at 1:09:36 PM UTC-4, Dimensional Traveler wrote:
> >
> >> And people say we're not evolving. How is eliminating from the gene
> >> pool those who won't mate and reproduce "defeating" an evolutionary
> >> effort to promote self-propagation?
> >
> >If I were the one who "wouldn't"* mate, my "removing my genes from
> >the gene pool" might have been disadvantageous for the species, even
> >if avoiding the expense and trouble (and any consequent benefits)
> >of children was advantageous for me, personally.
>
> Think highly of yourself, do you?
>

If I thought really highly of myself, I wouldn't have
used "might." besides, the "really good genes" might
be recessive, and not expressed in l'il `ol me. :)

> Removing your genes from the gene pool is not "disadvantageous"
> becuase your genes are genes that don't reproduce.
>
> >Caveats:
> >
> >1) I'm not an altruist, and
> >B) I have siblings who have children: one brother and one sister.
> >
> >How likely is it that I have _unique_ genes that will be "lost?"
> >Both my mother and my father had siblings who had scads of kids.
> >I'm talking 10 from one of my aunts, as I am one of 9. My mother
> >was one of 12, and I have a bunch of cousins on that side. Nost
> >of these all had kids.
>
> Barring mutation, any genes you have you got from your mother or
> father, who got them from his or her mother or father and on down the
> line. There are billions of us. Just about any gene you care to
> mention will be multiply replicated.
>

What I figured.


> >* It isn't that I was against it. Things just never fell that way.
> >I don't expect to pull a "Strom Thurmond" in the last third (?)
> >of my life, but, never say never.....?
> >

Heredity isn't everything. Some naturally snotty folks have
been taught manners, for example.

Kevin R
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