Naked Science Forum
General Science => General Science => Topic started by: Gordian Knot on 12/12/2011 20:44:31
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"I am surprised how little improvement there has been in human evolution. Oh, there has been technical advancement, but, how little man himself has changed." Khan Noonien Singh from the Star Trek original series episode Space Seed.
It is a question I wonder about. Just how much, if at all, has humanity evolved in the time span of recorded history. Say starting around 5,000 BCE till the present. If so, how so.
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In the past, gene pools would separate, and remain isolated for tens of thousands of years.
Over the last thousand years or so, there has been a tremendous re-mixing of long separated gene pools. I believe that to some extent, the "Hispanic" race has evolved as a mix between Native Americans and Spanish Europeans.
I've heard some people wonder if things like crooked teeth are related to the mixing of races and isolated gene pools.
Some people have thought that in Western countries, girls are going through puberty at younger ages, although the reason for this is not entirely clear, whether it is genetic, environmental, nutritional, or perhaps even hormone exposure.
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There are some isolated examples of recent human evolution.
The Tibetans have evolved over the course of the last 3000 years or so to live better in low oxygen conditions compared to Chinese that live close to them, but on lower altitudes. Source: New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/02/science/02tibet.html?scp=1&sq=Tibetans%20Beijing&st=cse)
Also, there was a study I heard of from a friend (can't be bothered to verify on internet today ☺) about a correlation of the discovery of how to turn rice into fermented alcoholic beverages in Southern China with the spread of a mutated Alcohol Dehydrogenase coding gene that was better capable of breaking down alcohol compared to the unmutated ADH gene.
Probably, there are more examples...
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with the spread of a mutated Alcohol Dehydrogenase coding gene that was better capable of breaking down alcohol compared to the unmutated ADH gene.
So, getting drunk aids with reproduction?
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So, getting drunk aids with reproduction?
Not getting drunk helps with reproduction you mean :) Cause the mutated gene metabolized alcohol better/faster
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I have long maintained that due to our criteria for choosing a 'mate' having changed from nature's selection of the fittest, best adapted etc etc to character, wealth, status etc etc, the human race is not advancing in evolutionary terms as nature intended.
This is going to sound cruel and harsh, but if we continued to apply natural criteria to the selection of mating partners, those with physical and psychological abnormalities would not be selected. Those with beneficial attributes would be selected and humans would continue to evolve to the next stage, whatever that may be.
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In a way, being wealthy or having a high status can still be considered as being "fit, or best adapted" to our current (capitalist) society. It's our environment that has changed. The current threats we face are no longer sabretooth tigers lurking behind a tree, but poverty and unemployment.
Whatever the next stage of evolution for mankind will look like, will depend greatly on how our global society and the world itself will evolve.
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with the spread of a mutated Alcohol Dehydrogenase coding gene that was better capable of breaking down alcohol compared to the unmutated ADH gene.
So, getting drunk aids with reproduction?
Historically taking alcoholic drink instead of plain unclean water increased your chance of survival ...
In those times of lower public sanitation, water-transmitted diseases were a significant cause of death. Because alcohol is toxic to most water-borne pathogens, and because the process of brewing any beer from malt involves boiling the water, which also kills germs, drinking small beer instead of water was one way to escape infection. Small beer was also produced in households for consumption by children and servants
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-alcohol_beer#Small_beer (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-alcohol_beer#Small_beer)
So there would be natural selection for those who had genes to consume alcohol without being (too) intoxicated.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_tolerance#Alcohol_tolerance_in_different_ethnic_groups (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_tolerance#Alcohol_tolerance_in_different_ethnic_groups)
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Easier travel possibilities have made mixing of racial traits more common. While that is probably a good thing for the race as a whole, I don't see that as anything to do with the evolution of the species.
I believe you are right that girls are going through puberty at earlier ages in some parts of the world. I think that is through easier availability of resources like food. Though it is a change in the human animal, I do not perceive it as an advancement in evolution of the species.
It is like the study that showed that modern Japanese girls are maturing with larger breasts and wider hips. That has nothing to do with evolving. It has everything to do with eating less rice and fish, and eating more western types of foods.
The Tibetans have indeed learned to thrive with a much lower oxygen level. That is a form of evolution I suppose, though more due to environmental exposure than any advancement in the species.
The basic tenants of what makes a human a human. I've heard nothing so far to indicate there has been any significant change. Take a man who worked on building the pyramids 3,000 years ago. If one could bring that person forward in time to today, give him a modern education, would he be in any significant way different from a 21st century man? I think he would fit in just fine.
That is what I am trying to get at by evolution of the species.
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Take a man who worked on building the pyramids 3,000 years ago. If one could bring that person forward in time to today, give him a modern education, would he be in any significant way different from a 21st century man? I think he would fit in just fine.
He'd likely be a bit smaller, not just because of nutrition, but also because of selection. However, 3,000 years isn't very long. It's only about 150 generations
Humans have created environments that eliminate the need for rapid evolution. If the environment(s) changed radically, certain traits would be favoured while others would die off leading to an acceleration in evolution.
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Take a man who worked on building the pyramids 3,000 years ago. If one could bring that person forward in time to today, give him a modern education, would he be in any significant way different from a 21st century man? I think he would fit in just fine.
He'd likely be a bit smaller, not just because of nutrition, but also because of selection. However, 3,000 years isn't very long. It's only about 150 generations
A life of heavy manual labor, the worker might be quite strong. However, I suppose nutrition, and whether the workers were abused would also play a role.
There are some conditions such as autistic spectrum disorders that are slowly increasing in prevalence.
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I think the high incidence of lactose tolerance in North West Europe is a relatively new adaptation that accompanies our enthusiasm for dairy farming.
On a simplistic level, survivors of major recurrent plagues may have been selected for by evolution. There is some evidence for this among descendants of the survivors of the plague at Eyam. By an odd coincidence they have a relatively high immunity to HIV.
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The Tibetans have indeed learned to thrive with a much lower oxygen level. That is a form of evolution I suppose, though more due to environmental exposure than any advancement in the species.
Uhm, isn't that how evolution works? Random mutations always occur, and if the environment changes, the best adapted individuals have a higher chance of reproducing..
Take a man who worked on building the pyramids 3,000 years ago. If one could bring that person forward in time to today, give him a modern education, would he be in any significant way different from a 21st century man? I think he would fit in just fine.
He would most likely not be a very bright student, since the average IQ has risen steadily the last centuries. Of course, the cause of this rise is debatable, and may very well have nothing to do with a change in our genetic makeup but rather our improved education.
However, and this is beautiful: Since Intelligence as we know it (as opposed to instincts) is one of the traits that separates man from animal, it is likely that there IS in fact a genetic basis for our rising IQ. The human gene pool has invested in this "path of growing intelligence" and we may very well not be at the end of that path. And maybe we are only able to improve our educational system because our brains are able to keep up ;)
NOTE: This is a hypothesis of mine, it should not be considered as fact.
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However, and this is beautiful: Since Intelligence as we know it (as opposed to instincts) is one of the traits that separates man from animal, it is likely that there IS in fact a genetic basis for our rising IQ. The human gene pool has invested in this "path of growing intelligence" and we may very well not be at the end of that path. And maybe we are only able to improve our educational system because our brains are able to keep up ;)
What if, as a society, we actively select against people with very low IQ's... Say having a societal threshold of 60 or so.
Would that be sufficient to push the genetics towards higher IQ's?
I suppose the question is whether this is actually selecting against certain genes, or if the very low IQ's are related to other processes that wouldn't necessarily be reflected in the overall genetic makeup.
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Possibly. There surely is some social awkwardness and eyebrow raising when two people with Down syndrome (or other cause of mental challenges) reproduce nowadays, but how that awkardness compares to the past, I have no clue.
In fact, this whole discussion now makes me wonder how the "geniuses throughout history" would score on a standardized IQ test. How would Einstein, Edison, Newton, DaVinci, Galileo, Plato and Ptolemy match up to one another..
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We have around three billion base pairs in human DNA. Each base pair can be one of four combinations. So three billion to the fourth power. The odds of two siblings getting the same chromosomes from the same set of parents is roughly 1 in 70,000,000,000,000. Add to that gene mutations that introduce new lines.
"The DNA between an egg and a sperm, in a human, has an estimated 91% chance of "getting it right", as it were, once fertilization occurs at arranging correctly to form another human. If you take into account genetic variation from sexual recombination, the number of possible combinations of DNA for the resulting offspring is astronomical. Our entire genome has upwards of 3.3 billion base pairs. If we consider that we have no way of knowing which base pairs will separate and which single strands will connect to which genes, the actual possible combinations is innumerable. If under the conditions in a zygote, the nucleotides bond around 91% of the time in a combination that is correct for a functioning human."
From DNA, Probability And Fallacy. (http://www.science20.com/philosophical_scientist/dna_probability_and_fallacy)
I sincerely doubt we need 'gene modifications', and we can't know what long term result such will have in my opinion. We're not apple trees, and our genome is not understood, even though nature knows what it does. We do a lot of 'copy and paste' to see what happens and some may want you to believe that they 'know' but looking at the figures I think they are overreaching. But it's the normal way we proceed with most new things as we want to make a profit, imitating nature telling the next guy "Not to worry, We know what we're doing" The more complex the situation, the less true that statement becomes.
And starting to create genetically 'perfect humans' :)
Nah, I've seen people, and countries, try that before and the only thing it lead to was atrocities, and in hindsight humanity might had been better off without those planning it.
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Some people have no "dens sapientiae" (wisdom teeth) or only 2 of them... [:D]
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We have around three billion base pairs in human DNA. Each base pair can be one of four combinations. So three billion to the fourth power. The odds of two siblings getting the same chromosomes from the same set of parents is roughly 1 in 70,000,000,000,000. Add to that gene mutations that introduce new lines.
Obviously Identical twins are possible, but for non-twin siblings, I believe you are over-estimating the numbers somewhat.
There are 23 pairs of chromosomes. Without crossovers, you would get 234 combinations.
With 2 to 3 crossovers per chromosome, it increases that number significantly. It is unclear the variability in the crossover loci, somewhere the information should be available. Anyway, it means that the probability of any two consecutive basepairs being from the same chromosome would be high. And, the total number of actual combinations would be far less than calculated above.
Well, maybe.
(3 Billion)4, and you should have a couple more zeros than above.
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As far as Eugenics, it is a very complicated issue.
Some of it can be done with just selective breeding.
For example, some people are choosing to select against Sickle Cell or Huntington's disease. I would predict that at least the prevalence of Huntington's Disease (an autosomal dominant disease) will drop significantly over the next century.
The question is whether it would be better to just select the specific desired genes, or to say just choose a different sperm donor.
If one ignored the strong desire to pass one one's own genetics to one's children, one could chose to select sperm (or eggs) from very smart donors, or from very long-lived families. But, with 7 Billion people on the planet, it would be difficult to do this on a society basis.
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It might give some short term effects but considering the possible combinations for each pairing of genes, as in conceiving a child, it seems very improbable to me that we can single out all effective combinations. But maybe short time?
"We know that DNA copies itself within an organism, and we know that small mutations occur in each copy, which, in part, attributes to the variance among one species of organisms and the continual differences that increase exponentially from generation to generation. This is why a new organism doesn't form in utero, within our cells or any other DNA duplication process. It would seem that organisms either evolved over a substantial period of time from other organisms and/or molecules came together under certain conditions to begin the life of a new organism."
Eugenics? Then again, I don't like killing at all, especially not when done by those keeping on living :)
It's all too easy to decide for someone else, much harder to apply the same logic on your self.
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Nizzle wrote: "He would most likely not be a very bright student, since the average IQ has risen steadily the last centuries. Of course, the cause of this rise is debatable, and may very well have nothing to do with a change in our genetic makeup but rather our improved education".
Interesting. I have not heard this before. You mention this is your theory. Do you have any facts to support it? I am not aware of any rise in IQ over the last few centuries.
In my experience there has been quite the opposite, a dramatic lowering of IQ the past few centuries. I believe this for two reasons.
1: Advances in medicine have allowed many to live who would not have lived in the past. This is a weakening of the gene pool in my opinion.
2. We have a dramatic drop in births amongst the more developed countries and a surge in births amongst undeveloped countries. It is my understanding this holds true for lower class individuals versus middle to upper classes. Lower classes tend to be less educated, and many tend to be easily swayed by religious organizations which have their own agenda. An agenda, I believe, that is best suited by keeping people ignorant.
Please note, I am not making any moral statements about the right or wrong of my statements. I am just stating facts as I perceive them.
The essential reason for, lack of reasoning skills was best summed up by Carl Sagan,
"....the lack is not in intelligence, which is in plentiful supply; rather the scarce commodity is systematic training in critical thinking".
Carl Sagan, Broca's Brain
That has nothing to do with evolution or lack thereof of the human animal.
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Eugenics? Then again, I don't like killing at all, especially not when done by those keeping on living :)
It's all too easy to decide for someone else, much harder to apply the same logic on your self.
I think you've confused Eugenics and Euthanasia.
While you could use the two practices in conjunction, that don't need to be the case.
Eugenics is simply planned improvements of the Human gene pool (breeding, gene therapy, etc).
Euthanasia is the elimination of those individuals that are no longer needed... for a variety of potential reasons.
Certainly 3rd world poverty doesn't necessarily equate to lower intelligence. However, there is a global risk of a racial shift as some cultures have families of 5+ children, and others have far smaller family sizes. Then, those with large families attempt to move elsewhere.
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Nope, no mistake as far as I see it.
Hitler practiced Eugenics. It's also called Ethnic Cleansing depending on taste, and what people sees as the nicest rewrites, but to me it all falls back on some human presumption of some genetic or 'racial superiority'. As for the intelligence rising I think Nizzle is correct. Intelligence is a very tricky word, but if we assume it to consist of what is commonly seen as useful to the society where it exist then we have a lot of better educated people today. And with education comes more choices.
But then we have beliefs, they exist everywhere and we all have some, unspoken or not.
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One level of Eugenics would be to minimize the number of births with certain genetic diseases. Abortion is a tool that could be utilized, but it doesn't have to involve killing individuals as other approaches to gene selection could be used.
Huntington's disease (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huntington%27s_disease) is an autosomal dominant neuro-degenerative disease that usually presents between age 35 and 45. So, it is usually noted in the grandparents, but the parents would be asymptomatic during the child bearing years.
A "carrier" would have a 100% chance of developing the disease if they aren't taken by some other event earlier, and would have a 50% chance of passing on the genes.
The disease could be virtually wiped out in a generation or two, with future cases only occurring due to a low rate of spontaneous mutations.
Cystic Fibrosis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cystic_fibrosis) and Sickle Cell (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sickle-cell_disease) are a bit more complicated as they are a recessive gene, and the heterozygous state may actually confer a minor benefit to the individual. However, it would be possible to avoid the birth of homozygous Sickle Cell and Cystic Fibrosis children.
These diseases could be 100% prevented with detecting the risk factors, then:
- Sperm or Egg Donation
- Ex-Vivo fertilization and detection in the early blastocyst stage
- Amniocentesis and Abortion
Down's syndrome (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Down_syndrome) can also be diagnosed prenatally. While genetic in origin, it has a different inheritance pattern, but can still be diagnosed prenatally.
Over the next half century or so, we will discover the genetic basis for a number of diseases including better defining cancer risk factors.
As a society, one way to extend the lifespan of humans would be to attempt to amplify the number of genes from centenarian individuals and long-lived families. Or, systematically eliminating things like cancer genes.
One could also amplify the genes of the super-intelligent individuals, although I personally believe that there may be a connection between intelligence and Asperger's syndrome. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asperger_syndrome) So, doing so might carry a hidden societal risk.
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Life's a lottery Clifford. You do not know the outcome until dead, and by then it is far too late to do anything about it :)
Nevertheless I agree on that we should try to give children that have a bad prognosis a chance for a better life. That is what I hope can be done in the gestation period, manipulating whatever deficiency's we see developing.
As for the idea of selectively manipulate and change genes (the human gene pool) I don't feel as comfortable. We have an enormous potential, all of us. Your son may become our next Einstein, we can't define it better than that. There is no proof existing that genius must come from education, or a special class of humans. Also it depends on what society need, and acclaim as 'valuable' at the period. A lot of the really ingenious math I've read about only come to be practical long after it's defined for example. And it's all kind of things, not only science, that can make it a better place to live.
Beliefs has a lot to do with it.
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I agree that at this point, it might be unwise to start splicing the human genome.
However, we already have the technology to diagnose severe genetic disabilities before birth, and in extreme cases, even terminate the pregnancy. How far this can, or should be taken, I don't know.
At this point, most of the human genes and gene variants are now being identified.
Will we be able to tell hair color, eye color, height, and other factors from an amniocentesis? How about getting a computer generated photo of your future teenager before choosing a name?
In a few decades, people will have to choose whether to "repair" children's genes. Certainly one will have to carefully consider whether things like cancer susceptibility genes should be repaired at conception.
Would there be the temptation to create a Barbie&Ken generation? xx(
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The Barbie&Ken generation would maybe became reality, but only in the "high society" of the world, since these procedures will undoubtedly be expensive (at least in the beginning).
If anything proactive gene splicing will only widen the gap between the rich and the poor.
And if we take it further: why would we only tinker with appearance once we master the art of Gene Manipulation? We could create immunity for any thinkable disease, we could become resistant to radiation, we could increase our retina's resolution, our muscle density, our skin's wound regeneration speed, ...
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What about genetically enhanced and international sports?
It would be complicated, but one could at least induce mild forms of polycythemia, even now. But undoubtedly we'll learn more about muscle genes and development in the future.
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It is interesting to me that a topic about the natural evolution (or lack thereof) of humanity thread has warped into a humans tinkering with human evolution thread.
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It is interesting to me that a topic about the natural evolution (or lack thereof) of humanity thread has warped into a humans tinkering with human evolution thread.
Yes, we do wander a bit...
The point is that if you look at the population of 7 Billion people, it would be difficult to see much genetic drift.
There will be a few local effects such as selection of phenotypes adapted to higher elevations in the Andes and Himalayas, perhaps over the most recent few thousand years.
Skin tone was also an adaptation to a balance between Vitamin D production and Sunburn, Melanoma, and etc. Again, more or less a local adaptation. We've reduced some of the selective pressures on skin tone by racial mixing, better foods, vitamin supplements, lotions, and etc.
It is believed that some diseases such as Malaria, and various European Plagues have left their impact on the Human genome by selecting for heterozygous Sickle Cell, heterozygous Cystic Fibrosis, and other genes. Undoubtedly the AIDS epidemic in Africa will select for some more HIV resistant genes. In fact, it is believed that some of the European AIDS resistance genes may be attributed to selection from earlier plagues.
For a large genetic shift to occur, one has to consider lethal conditions (or lack thereof) such as presented by AIDS or Malaria, or conditions that would cause certain genetic traits to reproduce more or less. In fact, socio-economic and racial traits do impact current, and potentially future birth rates which will impact the racial distribution on the future Earth.
Modern medicine is now saving millions of mothers and babies that would not otherwise be viable. The impact of procedures such as C-Section on the human genome has yet to be seen. Fertility treatments are also allowing otherwise sterile individuals to reproduce.
Undoubtedly the future will bring some genetic tinkering, but probably only a drop in the bucket of the current 7 billion people, and at least initially it will be limited to either genetic repairs, or redistribution of already existent genes in the human gene pool.
What about genetic manipulation for fighting a virulent disease?
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It is interesting to me that a topic about the natural evolution (or lack thereof) of humanity thread has warped into a humans tinkering with human evolution thread.
It's only a natural evolution of this topic ;)
The problem with "natural evolution" is that it has to infer an advantage in reproduction somehow. I think that we've reached the "natural" limits of our success rate and that "unnatural" evolution (read technological/scientific) is taking over.
You could view it like this: we have "naturally" evolved to be more proficient in using/discovering/inventing new technologies and scientific breakthroughs ;)
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In the United States, at least, large numbers of us improved the gene pool by not reproducing. When I ask others about this I almost always get the same response. One unsatisfying family experience is more then sufficient for one lifetime.
Back in the baby boom years it was almost completely unknown for married people not to have kids. There was only one such family in our town of about 1,500 people, and sometimes there was some light gossipy criticism they were somehow 'selfish'. I do not detect much stigmatism these days.
The results seem dramatic to me. For instance, I know hardly ANYONE from my cohort [early baby boom] who did not want to get the hell away from home as soon as possible. Now parents sometimes complain they can't get their kids to leave.
In summary, individual temperaments have significant genetic component. If you don't need kids to work the farm, and you do not have the requisite temperament anyway. The choice is easy. In fact, is suspect there are a fair number of grandparents who have four or fewer grandchildren.
, and those components that tend towards
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Lightspeed, I have to disagree with your basic premise, that large numbers of us have improved the gene pool by not reproducing.
***Warning. Completely, Totally, Utterly Politically Incorrect Statements to Follow***
From what I see here in the U.S., the part of the population with more learning has had a sharp drop in reproduction rates. The classes with a much lower level of learning, however, are spitting out babies faster than ever.
By "learning" I mean to say people who have a desire for knowledge, whether it be from a college education, or self taught. They are capable of deductive reasoning, which may or may not overcome unfounded biases they may have.
"Lower" level of learning, as I am using the term, is that group of people who see no real value in education. Who have no understanding of deductive thinking and who base their decisions on their own biases first, facts second.
End result is that it has skewed the level of intellect in this country downward by a significant margin.
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GN
Recent evolutionary pressures include, as you point out, potentially deleterious forces as well. You specifically mention basic IQ.
I have two responses. First, you don't need to be a smart person to be good and contributing citizen. Second, I suspect Marx, Engels, Lenin et all were way above normal intellectually speaking. They seem to have believed it themselves and worshiped their own intellects to the point of killing anyone who might have an inferior thought.
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you don't need to be a smart person to be good and contributing citizen.
True,
If you read Aldus Huxley, he invented classes of workers from Alphas to Epsilons. In a sense, I think we still do that with racial discrimination. However, machinery is now taking over some of the simpler tasks...
One might think of "Progress" in genetics as being:
Increased Intelligence
Increased Strength & Fitness.
Disease Resistance,
Longevity,
Is beauty a long-term characteristic?
etc.
Unfortunately, they may not always work together.
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Cliff - You wrote: "...In a sense, I think we still do that with racial discrimination..." I really wish people would get off this hobby horse. Half the entire Democrat Party proclaimed The Tea Party to be racist. Until Herman Cain became their darling. Cain is three times as black in every way then is Obama.
Jezzua Cliff. I was trained to fix typewriters by a black guy back in 1967. I then became a congressional investigator and BOTH my immediate supervisors were black. I NEVER had a black guy work for me.
However, the Huxley hierarchy of Alphas etc does not need to be engineered since already it exists in nature. One problem is WAY too many people believe raw IQ somehow justly confers a linear Alpha/Zeta status. I can just about guarantee Marx, Engels, and Lenin ALL had really really high IQ.
So high in fact, that some of them seem to believe anyone who expressed an inferior thought should simply be killed. The Alphas will do all the thinking and the rest should simply become members in 'The Dictatorship of the Proletariate'. THE STATE simply whithering away as the proper order of society took its natural and just end. Scientific Materialism.
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PS
The planet is in the most peaceful and prosperous era in its entire human history. Read "Better Angles of Our Nature". http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0670022950/ref=sib_dp_kd#reader-link
In this book Plinker points out that violent deaths per 100,000 population today could not even be shown on his timescale chart since it is less then one pixel. In some hunter/gatherer societies it sometimes approached one third of all deaths.
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I disagree that there isn't a type of racial hierarchy now. It is just more complicated than it was in the past.
In some places, 90% of the roofers are Hispanics, and quite likely undocumented. Likewise, many of our seasonal farm workers are undocumented Hispanics.
The creation of a semi-permeable boarder is of benefit to the USA by bringing in many people to do menial, and sometimes hard labor tasks for little pay.
Likewise, we have enjoyed a period of prosperity by paying Chinese a fraction of minimum wage to produce our everyday disposable items, and paying Thai workers even less to sit behind a sewing machine all day to sew together our clothes and shoes.
I fear that this blip in prosperity will come to an end as we eventually discover that we have nothing left to pay them with. Yet, we will be able to "industrialize" other countries in the future for the same purpose of serving our needs rather than improving their domestic infrastructure and standard of living.
Eventually computers and automation will take over some of the tasks. We could sew our clothes together with robots, it is just cheaper to pay Thai workers at this time.
If we do develop autonomous robots in the future, how we deal with them and their "rights" is still to be determined.
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Cliff
Almost all labor now goes towards non essential products. For instance, I believe one single farmer now feeds one or two hundred fellow citizens. In addition, we now have more housing then people who can afford it; even though almost no one goes without a roof over their head.
The single most serious health problem for 'the poor' in America is morbid obesity. Fat people on food stamps. Sounds like a Saturday Night Live skit. The best thing we could do for poor people is to replace food stamps with very large bags of rice and soy beans. Fat Chance. Pardon the humor.
As for Chinese slave labor? Its SORT of analogous to the weaving mills of New England two hundred years ago. Farm girls move to dormitories with long hours in difficult surroundings. No one seems to notice they had left isolated farming communities with long hours and difficult surroundings.
Someplace I have actual correspondence where one such young woman wrote home about the wonderful experience of having Sunday off in the big town of Lowell, lots of friends, and the prospective joy of being promoted to bobbin girl at age 16.
Chinese girls, of course, do not have Christian Social Organizations to look over them. The Chinese girls seem to have more difficult lives. Apparently they have an embarrassing high level of suicide. Probably the result, somehow, of American Social Imperialism.
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As far as evolution.
I'm not sure where we are with it...
But, consider the basic differences between pelvic shapes in Male and Female Humans.
The Female pelvis is necessarily wider for childbirth.
The Male pelvis presumably is narrower for added strength, and perhaps speed.
In the past, having a narrow pelvis might have been lethal for both mother and infant.
That is no longer the case in western society.
Will we see basic structural changes because of this, and perhaps a move towards an androgynous structure?
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General Mod Note
Can we stick to the science and make fewer sweeping generalizations about peoples/populations/races and their proclivities please.
Thanks
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GN
Recent evolutionary pressures include, as you point out, potentially deleterious forces as well. You specifically mention basic IQ.
I have two responses. First, you don't need to be a smart person to be good and contributing citizen. Second, I suspect Marx, Engels, Lenin et all were way above normal intellectually speaking. They seem to have believed it themselves and worshiped their own intellects to the point of killing anyone who might have an inferior thought.
Actually I never mentioned IQ! IQ is an artificial (and I would suggest arbitrary) measure of intelligence. And many of us know people with very high IQs that are incapable of functioning in day to day society. A high IQ, in and of itself, is not a good measure.
And I never mentioned being smart either. In fact I pointed out that people who are "learned" can be college grads, or people who are self taught.
Let me use myself as an example. I have 3/4ths of a four year college degree. So I never finished a bachelor's degree. Yet I have read extensively all my life, and continue to do so. Learning is important to me so I go out of my way to do that.
It is shocking to me how many people in the U.S. do not have a high school diploma, or worse, have one that is essentially worthless. The majority of these people, from my observations, do not value learning, and are not going to take it upon themselves to do so.
As to your responses. No, one does not need to be smart to be a useful, contributing citizen. There has to be something there though, call it wisdom, street smarts, whatever.
Secondly, yes learned individuals have been led down the wrong paths like the Communists you mentioned. Learning IS a two edged sword. Still, overall, I believe someone who is learned has a better chance of being a useful, functioning member of society.
As a matter of fact, it is the learned ones who follow an "evil" path that are so dangerous when the society in which they live is predominated by people who do not value learning. The examples of this in America the last decade are too numerous to mention. Our supposed leaders make the most asinine claims, and too many people accept those claims without question.
One cannot run a civilized society this way, and we see the negative results all around us.
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PS
The planet is in the most peaceful and prosperous era in its entire human history. Read "Better Angles of Our Nature". http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0670022950/ref=sib_dp_kd#reader-link
In this book Plinker points out that violent deaths per 100,000 population today could not even be shown on his timescale chart since it is less then one pixel. In some hunter/gatherer societies it sometimes approached one third of all deaths.
Light, I'm not picking on you. Promise! LOL.
I DO have some real issues with this guy's book, but cannot make much in the way of statements without having read it (which I fully intend to do!). Just looking at his premise though, that violent deaths are minuscule today compared to past centuries, seems to me to be a huge over simplification.
Of course hunter/gatherer societies would have a very high violent death rate. When one is hunting animals that can kill you, that will lead to more violent deaths.
When groups of people are completely dependent on the fickleness of nature, violent death is going to be higher.
Finally, when these people have no medical knowledge to speak of, any injury that would be considered mundane today would likely have meant death in primitive societies.
Modern industrial society has progressed to the point that most of us acquire our food already slaughtered, slabbed and packaged for us. Advances in agriculture has allowed us to feed huge populations that never would have survived in earlier times. And medicine has advanced to the point that many life threatening situations of even a generation ago are no longer necessarily fatal.
I haven't even started on violent death by warfare, which I cannot until I read what the author has to say. Seems to me that survivors in Rwanda, Somalia, Angola, though, would have a different opinion!
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The planet is in the most peaceful and prosperous era in its entire human history. Read "Better Angles of Our Nature".
http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0670022950/ref=sib_dp_kd#reader-link
Here is the main figure from the preview of the article.
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Figure 2.2
Percentage of deaths in warfare in non-state and state societies.
Now, there could be somewhat of a bias for the archaeological digs depending on what was actually dug up.
For example, if you did an archeological dig at:
Gettysburg,
Arlington National Cemetery,
or Little Bighorn,
You might conclude that we are a far more violent society.
However, considering the effects of the Iraq war on the USA. While many people may know someone that has been deployed, maimed, or killed. However, the vast majority of us are relatively insulated from the battles.
Industrial accidents have been minimized in the 21st century in Western nations.
How violent was the "old west"? Certainly most people aren't packing 6-shooters anymore.
One of the big differences in "Modern Society" is the ability for mass destruction. Two bombs dropped in 1945 killed over 100,000 people in Japan.
With some estimates of WWII deaths being in the range of 60-80 million (but, still only 3-4% of the global population. However, some countries lost between 10 and 20% of their population, and some locales loosing far more.
I would agree that much of the world is in a period of "prosperity". The life expectancy in many countries is now around 80 years.
Yet, depending on the estimate, the life expectancy in Swaziland, Angola, and Zambia is still in the 30 to 40 year range.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy
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