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The Evolution of Man through the Ages
Ian:
If you look at it from a hard scientific point of view, human beings are the only species on the planet that actively work to stop evolution from occurring. Bare with me... Through our advances in medical science, we are able to treat diseases, disorders, and various other maladies that had nature taken its course, the people afflicted by them would have never reached an age to reproduce or never been given the opportunity to reproduce. So we're allowing problems that shouldn't be passed on through reproduction to continue. I'm in know way saying that we should stop curing diseases or start preventing people with certain problems from reproducing, but the truth of the matter is we're reversing some aspects of natural selection! :)
Sir Ulrich:
I dont even think humanity evolves fast enough for the technology we create, some of us adapt to it better than others such as myself. I adapted quickly to use computers rather well, while my father struggles with them and always somehow BREAKS them. It's scary when you think of how our weapons are powerful enough to destroy large parts of the world and think of how a lot of humans are rather primitive in their nature. I do think with genetic engineering we could speed evolution up and perhaps even customize ourselves to the extent we really want, so no one has genetic diseases or born with a debilitated body. Only issue I have with that is so called "misfits" are often pioneers in making some breakthroughs, such as Nikola Tesla who I say is better than Edison, sure he's a mad scientist a bit but we NEED people like that who are driven by their compassion in their work to make technological breakthroughs. Thats the downside to using genetic engineering to speed up evolution or cure otherwise incurable diseases in people.
Lord Dane:
Man evolves in the biological sense, progresses in the technological sense but always seems to resort to our beginnings that make us the very threat to our own existence. Our base emotional conditions bring out the worst in us when when we are faced with our lust, hate, jealousy, etc. and other negative emotions. It seems we never really progress in our own nature no matter how far we advance our society. The worst in man always comes out at some point making us mistreat each other in the worst possible ways.
Sir Wolf:
but if we evolve why are there still apes and monkeys? lol
surely an evolved species would not be so frail as that of a human body.
Sir Brian:
--- Quote from: Ian on 2013-07-26, 10:12:48 ---If you look at it from a hard scientific point of view, human beings are the only species on the planet that actively work to stop evolution from occurring. Bare with me... Through our advances in medical science, we are able to treat diseases, disorders, and various other maladies that had nature taken its course, the people afflicted by them would have never reached an age to reproduce or never been given the opportunity to reproduce. So we're allowing problems that shouldn't be passed on through reproduction to continue. I'm in know way saying that we should stop curing diseases or start preventing people with certain problems from reproducing, but the truth of the matter is we're reversing some aspects of natural selection! :)
--- End quote ---
If I may offer a counterpoint to your premise Sir Ian, but isn’t the intelligence of humanity that enables it to overcome the restrictive processes of natural selection actually operating within the very confines of natural selection? – If caveman-A was able to figure out how to make a tool that would enable him to harvest the fruit at the top of the tree he would survive whereas caveman-B being less intelligent starves after consuming all the fruit within his physical reach. Yet if some descendants of caveman-B survived and eventually evolved into taller and longer humans that enabled them to reach the higher grown fruit wouldn’t that essentially be the same result as caveman-A? Ergo mankind’s intelligence would be the deciding factor for humanity’s success within the evolutionary scheme of things.
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