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The_Absolute
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Is the homo-sapien the final stage of human evolution? I've heard of a hypothetical "homo-superior," but I'm not sure if that is actual science or pseudoscience.
No.The_Absolute said:Is the homo-sapien the final stage of human evolution?
The term is a bit pseudoscience, you would presumably be able to mate with it - so it's not really a new species.I've heard of a hypothetical "homo-superior," but I'm not sure if that is actual science or pseudoscience.
No. That doesn't eliminate competition for mates, nor does it address the impact of other impediments to mating, such as health issues.hamster143 said:Once the demographic transition is complete, evolution stops. It stops because children no longer die and there are enough mates for anyone who's willing to mate.
In some sense, what we have now is de-evolution of sorts - because intelligent and successful people voluntarily have fewer children than welfare moms.
There is no such thing. Evolution is change. It doesn't state the change has to be good.
That doesn't eliminate competition for mates, nor does it address the impact of other impediments to mating, such as health issues.
hamster143 said:Normally, evolution implies adaptation for the environment. What we have is a process that makes humans as a whole less adapted to function in the modern environment, because those least adapted have children and those most adapted do not.
Of course, if you wish to define evolution as any kind of change, that is evolution.
"In the broadest sense, evolution is merely change, and so is all-pervasive; galaxies, languages, and political systems all evolve. Biological evolution ... is change in the properties of populations of organisms that transcend the lifetime of a single individual. The ontogeny of an individual is not considered evolution; individual organisms do not evolve. The changes in populations that are considered evolutionary are those that are inheritable via the genetic material from one generation to the next. Biological evolution may be slight or substantial; it embraces everything from slight changes in the proportion of different alleles within a population (such as those determining blood types) to the successive alterations that led from the earliest protoorganism to snails, bees, giraffes, and dandelions."
- Douglas J. Futuyma in Evolutionary Biology, Sinauer Associates 1986
"In fact, evolution can be precisely defined as any change in the frequency of alleles within a gene pool from one generation to the next."
- Helena Curtis and N. Sue Barnes, Biology, 5th ed. 1989 Worth Publishers, p.974
xxChrisxx said:Evolution does not progress to criteria YOU select as desirable, or what YOU consider to be 'most adapted'.
And what I said isn't my definiton, it's the scientific definiton.
"In biology, evolution is change in the genetic material of a population of organisms from one generation to the next."
Take for instance: The gene CCR5-32, this offers resistance to HIV-1.
A better question in my opinion is if we well ever face more speciation. Absent large external pressure I highly doubt we will see any further speciation... but things can't stay perfect forever .
No! Competition for mates is everything, even with humans. Just because there are equal numbers of males and females, that doesn't mean everyone gets the mate they want or even necessarily mate at all! That's absurd.hamster143 said:You can say that it slows significantly. Competition for mates is not eliminated, but we're at the point where it no longer plays any selective role.
So then not all mate...so then evolution still matters...In a wolf pack, an alpha male wolf would mate with all the females of the pack and an omega male would not get to mate at all. There's strong advantage to be an alpha male. In a modern human society, 95 out of 100 end up married and having children (or not, depending on their preferences), and their children have close to 100% chance of surviving to adulthood.
We've just switched-out one set of factors for another.Impediments to mating are few and far between, and, thanks to our modern medicine, things that would've been major impediments to mating, and sometimes even life, such as Down's syndrome or haemophilia, are no longer such.
Competition for mates is everything, even with humans. Just because there are equal numbers of males and females, that doesn't mean everyone gets the mate they want or even necessarily mate at all! That's absurd.
So then not all mate...so then evolution still matters...
The_Absolute said:... Thus, creating more poverty, starvation, disease, and crime.
The_Absolute said:Poor, and uneducated people have many more children than wealthy, and educated people. Such as is often the case in third-world countries, especially in rural Africa. Thus, creating more poverty, starvation, disease, and crime.
Ironic that a tenancy toward religion and having large families could be an evolutionary trait !Eddbio said:The effects of religion and culture on human mate choices.
Rasalhague said:Here are a couple of articles I came across recently, one of which suggests that rather than halting, human evolution may actually be accelerating!
mgb_phys said:Ironic that a tenancy toward religion and having large families could be an evolutionary trait !
mgb_phys said:Ironic that a tenancy toward religion and having large families could be an evolutionary trait !
'Is human culture currently the driving force of human evolution?'
END CHILD POVERTY
The Effects- Poverty and Life Chances
•Poverty shortens lives. A boy in Manchester can expect to live seven years less than a boy in Barnet. A girl in Manchester can expect to live six years less than a girl in Kensington Chelsea and Westminster.
•Poor children are born too small; birth weight is on average 130 grams lower in children from social classes IV and V. Low birth weight is closely associated with infant death and chronic diseases in later life.
•Poverty shapes children's development. Before reaching his or her second birthday, a child from a poorer family is already more likely to show a lower level of attainment than a child from a better-off family. By the age of six a less able child from a rich family is likely to have overtaken an able child born into a poor family.
•Children aged up to 14 from unskilled families are 5 times more likely to die in an accident than children from professional families, and 15 times more likely to die in a fire at home.
•Children growing up in poverty are more likely to leave school at 16 with fewer qualifications.
•2% of couples and 8% of lone parents cannot afford two pairs of shoes for each child.
•12% of lone parents cannot afford celebrations with presents at special occasions. Mark Family and Children Study, 2004, www.dwp.gov.uk/asad/asd5/rrs2006.asp#facs2004[/URL].
[PLAIN]http://www.endchildpoverty.org.uk/why-end-child-poverty/the-effects
ViewsofMars said:As a global community, how do we end poverty?
It crushes me to think that many children are dying or without adequate resources that sustain a healthy life.
mugaliens said:As for "poor work ethic," the world is full of rags to riches stories, whereby one or more people in an impoverished group said, "I've had enough!" and instead of relying on handouts, began scrambling up the levels.
hamster143 said:Impediments to mating are few and far between
edpell said:It is said that high education levels for women leads to lower completed family size for women. This seem like an unfortunate evolutionary pressure. Smart women having few children and dumb women having many children. Does not evolution filter for smart women that have lots of children? It seems that education is a impediment to reproductive success that will need to be over comes by future mutations that will allow smart women to reproduce at a competitive (or higher) rate.