Zoiders
New Member
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- Ice Station Zebra
Almost everything you mention there is us diddling with our short term fate, none of it is part of a firm evolutionary process of selection.Zoiders, I think you've missed the point. There are always "drivers". In fact its actually more a case that a change in diet, culture or environment exposes a gene that acts positively to that change.
So what drivers can we point to that would, in time (remembering you and I are stuck in the present, the change comes through offspring), show evolutionary change?
-diet - we have over the past million years developed a taste for meat, and more specifically cooked foods. Our digestive system has adapted to that. Moderly we have eaten far more in the way of sugar and fat, this is actually killing off people who's bodies react to this change. Their offspring may well have a gene that has a coping mechanism (or the scientists may find one)
-environment - we were forest animals, cave dwellers.. we have slowly built our own homes and dwellings. We have raped the resources of the land. We could well find a time when clean water, over population and lack of food occur and as such those who can exist on less food and water will prosper down the line and be more likely to breed.
-disease - this IS an important one. Those who survive disease, just as with the Spanish Flu epidemic in the 20th century did so because they recated genetically positively towards the illness and were able to fight it off.
Current diseases such as flu (and the effects of vaccination) are being studied. The eradication of cancer may lead to other, more horrible diseases down the line. To push one negative thing out always seems to expose another. For the time being atleast.
Eugenics hasnt been confused with Evolution. However what could happen (and we wont know this until generations have passed) is that it creates an offshoot. Families who suffered from problems like mental illness, learning difficulties, etc, may have had some of that line stripped out in favour of other less favourable geneology.
Eugenics is just an example of what Richard Dawkins loosley discussed in the past. We see disease and negative aspects and feel repelled. We are genetically programmed to repell as it is a protective mechanism, just the same as we are genetically programmed to react to the genetically similar. The Selfish Gene, as Dawkins put it.
I work washing dishes. You'd laugh if I told you that people have had that said to them in my place, yet they have degrees, one even had a PhD. A job is a job, some chose my place because they enjoy it and the people. They make just as much money as some undergraduates, yet they get fit at the same time... but in some people's eyes thats a failure, forgetting that a) someone has to do the job, and b) if you cant find a Brit to do it you have to advertise abroad..
..thats a different topic though.
Spanish Flu wash hugely lethal and burned it self out very quilckly, highly lethal pathogens do that, that is why as a species we haven't realy developed any wide spread resistance to it, geography and chance decided who survived, there are still many gene pools that are hugely vulnerable to strains of common disease, New Zealand keeps a very close eye on flu out breaks for this very reason.
I can't think of a major killer disease from the last few thousand years that we as a species are really immune to, a lot of what we put down to natural selection is in fact better living standards and prevention. If it weren't for civil engineering and medical science we would still be carking it in huge waves from cholera and the black death, we didn't cure them or evolve a wide spread immunity.
As far as I can see all we are doing right now is watching the genetic brownian motion as we stir the great melting pot of humanity.
