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quote:And unless someone does the impossible and invents anti-gravity...
quote:Originally posted by ukmickyHi Neil. I can't see us ever colonising other planets, because we find it to hard just getting off earth. And unless someone does the impossible and invents anti-gravity and then goes on to find a way to bypass the effects of relativity the furthest we will be going is mars and even then it will be a case of the few rather than the masses.
quote:Originally posted by neilepWhen I posed the question I thought it might just be taken for granted and assumed that I meant 1: the life that we create is able to evolve and become sentient and that 2: I have no doubt that (assuming we do not anhiliate ourselves or some catastrophe does not destroy us)...then I see no reason why we should not be able to make a planet....Please don't apply our current ways of thinking and abilities to the future !!
quote:I also believe that we may even be able to control the sun so that it does not destroy us. However, Our lives are destined for the other side of the atmosphere....It's a neccisity for our survival and so we are either going to have to find a way to find habitable planets and then somehow get there...or create our own...maybe create many.
quote:Originally posted by neilepI realise our ability to live for interstellar periods is impossible..today...but tommorrow ?..in a thousand years ?...who knows ? I may be part cyborg...or all android, perhaps that's the future for astronauts !!..there may be a way to stop/pause the aging process or slow it down to a grinding halt, perhaps evolution can be human made too. Does one really have to die to aid continuity to evolution
quote:Originally posted by DoctorBeaverEvolution relies on the mutation of DNA. I don't see any reason why, in the future, we couldn't effect such changes in living creatures including ourselves. Admittedly, I doubt we could ever turn ourselves into fish overnight!
quote:but mutation can be anything that effects a change that allows one system to take a niche previously occupied by another system (for system you can read animal, or anything else that can perform the requisite function, and that is capable of self-replication)
quote:The important thing about evolution is that it is not something one can do to oneself. Evolution depends upon the constraints the environment places upon the units operating within it. The units cannot dictate to evolution how they should evolve, only the external environment is capable of doing that.
quote:Originally posted by DoctorBeaverI don't agree. Grey squirrels are taking over habitats previously occupied by reds & there is no mutation involved in that.I don't know the exact definition of "mutation" but I take it to mean a sudden change in structure that would not occur in normal reproduction. That is certainly how mutation is thought of in genetics. Ordinarily, DNA exactly reproduces itself. Mutations occur when something happens to cause the DNA not to replicate exactly.
quote:mutation \mu*ta"tion\ (m[-u]*t[=a]"sh[u^]n), n. [L. mutatio, fr. mutare to change: cf. F. mutation. See Mutable.] Change; alteration, either in form or qualities. [1913 Webster] The vicissitude or mutations in the superior globe are no fit matter for this present argument. --Bacon. [1913 Webster]
quote:Originally posted by DoctorBeaver quote:The important thing about evolution is that it is not something one can do to oneself. Evolution depends upon the constraints the environment places upon the units operating within it. The units cannot dictate to evolution how they should evolve, only the external environment is capable of doing that.Again, I beg to differ; that may be the case in the natural world, but not in the laboratory.The hybridization of plants has been going on for ages. Growers have produced variations that will grow readily in different soil types. Such hybridization is caused by forced mutation & mutation, as I stated above, is the method of evolution. Therefore, by hybridizing plants we are causing evolution into different types. GM crops are a case in point. They are merely artificial mutations of existing strains of crops.
quote:As such I see no reason why humans should not force their own evolution. By identifying cancer-causing genes (or whatever it turns out to be) and either eradicating them or switching them off, we would, if these modified genes were allowed to propogate through natural reproductive means, have forced a mutation upon ourselves & caused our own evolution into a cancer-resistant species.
quote:Originally posted by neilepSurely the evolution of humans is affected by the way and how humans live, where we live, what we live in and the tools that we use in everyday life, be it a razor to shave or a train to travel in.......Is it plausible that the very method of our ways of living, using the tools that humans have created, affects evolution ?
quote:What I said is that an organism cannot govern its own evolution. In your example, humans are a part of the environment of the plant, and it is the environment (the humans) that govern the changes in plants, not the plants that dictate their own changes.
quote:One can to a limited degree retrofit new components to old models of vehicle, but ultimately one will come to a point where one cannot keep patching up the old, and has to work with a new design from the ground up.
quote:Originally posted by DoctorBeaverquote:What I said is that an organism cannot govern its own evolution. In your example, humans are a part of the environment of the plant, and it is the environment (the humans) that govern the changes in plants, not the plants that dictate their own changes.I wasn't implying that plants govern their own evolution. I was leading up to the point that by messing with genes we are already creating new species or, at least, new variants of species. (my knowledge of taxonomy is non-existant so I don't know if "species" is the correct term or whether I should have used "genus")According to that link you included, it seems my definition of mutation was pretty much accurate. I didn't realise, however, that scientists apply it only to naturally-occurring changes & not to those induced by human intervention. (I'm sure, though, that when I read about that mouse with a giant ear on its back it was referred to as a mutation)
quote:I accept that we are capable of mutating species. For the most part, as you say, whether what we create is a new species or just a new breed is a diversion. But the point is that mutation is only the first requirement of evolution. The second requirement is that the mutated entity be successful within the environment, and that cannot be determined by the organism itself, but by the nature of its environment.