Is natural selection dead?

[WendyDarling]

If its occurring, where has it gotten the human race beyond simple survival? The whole concept of DnA confuses me especially when recessive traits can spoil the stew. Looking around...how has the health of humanity improved through natural selection without all the medical interventions?

What constitutes a superior human specimen?

[Mr Reasonable]

There's no good argument that withstands philosophical scrutiny about why one person is superior to another. That's why people who insist that that is the case are so marginalized among intellectual circles.

[Mr Reasonable]

And I'm pretty sure that humanity is doing a lot more than simply surviving. Certainly so relative to a few hundred years ago.

[WendyDarling]

There's no good argument that withstands philosophical scrutiny about why one person is superior to another. That's why people who insist that that is the case are so marginalized among intellectual circles.

Give me an example with intelligence being scrutinized as the superior attribute. How do you argue for poor health against good health?

And I'm pretty sure that humanity is doing a lot more than simply surviving. Certainly so relative to a few hundred years ago.

We're becoming more than simply surviving evolution? What physical or psychological improvements have we gained from all the procreative couplings? Less body hair for some?

[Pandora]

The effects of natural selection have been greatly diminished for modern humans (maybe more than by 90%+ ) but it’s still there.

If its occurring, where has it gotten the human race beyond simple survival?

..how has the health of humanity improved through natural selection without all the medical interventions?

Well, within a natural selection a man keeps his natural place within the ecological system. His lifespan, his capacities, his health, illnesses and diseases are determined by his natural environment, which also imposes limitations to his prosperity. The only humans that can be said to still live within their ecological place to some degree are aboriginal tribes, but those are very few. The balance between man-made and natural selection is very delicate, and the two are often at odds. Remember what happened to American natives (hunter gatherers) when they came in contact with Old World Smallpox (farmers/traders)?

What constitutes a superior human specimen?

I’m not sure how to answer that question, Wendy. I suppose it depends on who sets the standards for superior/inferior. We can say that an engineered modern super human could fit the profile, but it’s somewhat of a short-sighted view. Most modern humans today are like zoo animals, and if released into the wild, will not survive, so we just keep expanding our cage, where we live primarily by self-made rules. If nature itself can be seen as one large organism (living ecosystem) can we not say that the humans are like cancer to it? And if a human being is like a cancer then a superior human being will be the one who destroys his host, because he already does not see himself as a part of the organism, and acts like it.

[Pneumatic-Coma]

GoOdness help the person!
Look DNA RNA it's all the same. We all have to investigate. Understand and inform even ourselves of certain knowledge. It's all in the computers these days though. Look things up, that which interest you. Never give up on learning cause eventually there are answers to be solved and all around equations to understand. We'll all have benched-marked the days when we learn something new. It takes just a little bit of studying and teaching ya know. I mean I'm no scientists but i'm sure books help alot! lol

[Pneumatic-Coma]

Besides Natural Selection can never die. It's an everlasting existence. Continually evolving throughout the cosmos. Discontinuity was a myth to help procure this entire ecosystem. But it really is inevitable, ya know, the ultimate downfall of humanity.

[Pneumatic-Coma]

There's no good argument that withstands philosophical scrutiny about why one person is superior to another. That's why people who insist that that is the case are so marginalized among intellectual circles.

Give me an example with intelligence being scrutinized as the superior attribute. How do you argue for poor health against good health?

And I'm pretty sure that humanity is doing a lot more than simply surviving. Certainly so relative to a few hundred years ago.

We're becoming more than simply surviving evolution? What physical or psychological improvements have we gained from all the procreative couplings? Less body hair for some?

You were really scrutinized here. But hey that's how the best of us start out. Stick in there and learn things it'll all pan out.

[gib]

If its occurring, where has it gotten the human race beyond simple survival? The whole concept of DnA confuses me especially when recessive traits can spoil the stew. Looking around...how has the health of humanity improved through natural selection without all the medical interventions?

What constitutes a superior human specimen?

You talk about natural selection like it's a political policy that we've chosen to follow. What is the alternative? No matter what we do as a species, natural selection will always reign. It simply means: those who have what it takes to survive in a given environment, will survive in that environment. You throw a human being into an environment, he/she will have what it takes to survive in that environment or he/she will not. Sometimes the environment readily gives the individual what he/she needs to survive (like free health care, or berries growing abundantly on bushes all around), other times the individual has to toil and sweat to get it (like hunting, or competing for a job). There are a few cases when the species itself creates the environment it needs in order to survive (for example, creating free health care) but that's just a glorified case of the species having what it takes to survive (i.e. being innovative enough to mold the environment). But there's no way to actually circumvent the process. We're stuck in it, and we're not getting out any time soon.

Superiority and inferiority is all relative. Many people talk about the ability to survive as a superior trait, but that's only because we tend to be viviocentric (valuing life). But who is to say what counts as superior? Surviving or dying? A hardcore Buddhist might say death is superior to life since it represents the ultimate state of rest. Christians might say the same since death, so long as one plays his cards right in life, represents salvation.

And I agree with smears... while many human beings only survive, many other do more than survive. Great works of art were produced by great people, people who could not have produced them if they didn't survive.

Also, recessive genes aren't necessarily poorly surviving genes. Recessive is a relative term. It just means less capable of manifesting as a phenotype relative to some other gene in the same chromosome. It's like pairing two people together... since we're not all equal in terms of strength, intelligence, beauty, or any other characteristic you can measure, then when you put two arbitrary people together, you're bound to get one person who is somewhat stronger than the other (or more intelligent, or more beautiful, etc.). Same with genes: when you mix the father's gene with the mother's gene, one is bound to be the dominant one and one is bound to be the recessive one. It doesn't mean the recessive one is poor at survival, just that it's chances of coming through as a phenotype in the individual is less than that of the dominant gene. Mix that recessive gene with someone else, and it may turn out to be the dominant one. And it could be the case that the individual with the recessive gene grows up in an environment in which he needs the recessive gene, in which case, if it happens to come through, he's in a better position to survive in that environment.

[WendyDarling]

You talk about natural selection like it's a political policy that we've chosen to follow. What is the alternative? No matter what we do as a species, natural selection will always reign

Hardly, many babies/children survive due to medical interventions. The alternative would be an engineered combination of male and female genes, handpicked results. The people who are window shopping for their procreation partners are missing their marks without guarantees of what genes are dominant and recessive, so it's naive to believe that what you see in a partner is what you are going to get in your combination child.

Superiority and inferiority is all relative.

But then you said...

It's like pairing two people together... since we're not all equal in terms of strength, intelligence, beauty, or any other characteristic you can measure, then when you put two arbitrary people together, you're bound to get one person who is somewhat stronger than the other (or more intelligent, or more beautiful, etc.).

So strength, intelligence, and beauty are superior qualities worth mentioning?

Other than survival, generations of reproduction haven't accomplished a better, more superior, individual. The weak still exist in great numbers. All humanity is doing is perpetuating the species, not improving it one bit.

[iambiguous]

Natural selection starts to get tricky [for me] when the evolution of life on earth arrives at the point of human consciousness.

Before that things seemed to evolve in a wholly material or mechanical manner. Unless there is a God conducting it, nature produces random mutations that either facilitate or retard the continuing existence of any particular individual or any particular species. And then from time to time on this planet the immutable laws of nature introduce one or another "extinction event" that sends life tumbling back to a new beginning.

Think about it: The human species is said to have evolved only because a fucking asteroid plowed into the waters off the yucatan peninsula and killed off the dinosaurs.

You tell me: How do we even begin to wrap our heads around the implications of that?

And yet we can.

The evolution of life on earth has produced matter able to actually contemplate the extent to which there may or may not be a "dual" understanding of "I".

"I", for example, with or without God.

"I", for example, with or without autonomy.

"I", for example, with or without a teleological foundation.

And that's before the part where "I" dies. Then what's evolution got in store for us?

[Silhouette]

Natural selection when you're at the top of the food chain and so utterly dominating of threats (such as humans are) is mostly just sexual selection.

Is sexual selection dead? Absolutely not.

[WendyDarling]

The human species is said to have evolved only because a fucking asteroid plowed into the waters off the yucatan peninsula and killed off the dinosaurs.

And here I thought crocodiles and alligators were from the times of the dinosaurs. Have I been misinformed?

Natural selection when you're at the top of the food chain and so utterly dominating of threats (such as humans are) is mostly just sexual selection.

Is sexual selection dead? Absolutely not.

The selection to have sex is not dead, but the selection to increase the probability that your offspring are a greatly improved version of you is dead. People are procreating in all manner of poor choices, poor mate selections, so isn't humanity simply limping along teeming with inferior beings (the short, weak, diseased, uncoordinated, dimwitted, introverted, homely, talentless)? Humanity hasn't improved upon itself in any way.

[iambiguous]

The human species is said to have evolved only because a fucking asteroid plowed into the waters off the yucatan peninsula and killed off the dinosaurs.

And here I thought crocodiles and alligators were from the times of the dinosaurs. Have I been misinformed?

Nope. After an extinction event, there's no telling how the evolution of life will reset. What's important for us though is that this one allowed the mammals to evolve in a way that was not likely at all had the asteroid missed. On the other hand, what if it had hit 50 million years before that? How much more evolved would the human species be? Or would we have already wiped ourselves out by now?

That still leaves this part though:

The evolution of life on earth has produced matter able to actually contemplate the extent to which there may or may not be a "dual" understanding of "I".

"I", for example, with or without God.

"I", for example, with or without autonomy.

"I", for example, with or without a teleological foundation.

And that's before the part where "I" dies. Then what's evolution got in store for us?

How about your own "I" here? Has it evolved to the point you've got that all figured out? Not only biologically, but morally and politically too?

All those fucking genes and memes in an endless tug of war for your very soul?

[WendyDarling]

How about your own "I" here? Has it evolved to the point you've got that all figured out? Not only biologically, but morally and politically too?

All those fucking genes and memes in an endless tug of war for your very soul?

Well, I'm familiar with my own biology, morals, and politics, but that's not what I am trying to figure out. Biggie, tell me about this soul you are referring to?

[Silhouette]

The selection to have sex is not dead, but the selection to increase the probability that your offspring are a greatly improved version of you is dead. People are procreating in all manner of poor choices, poor mate selections, so isn't humanity simply limping along teeming with inferior beings (the short, weak, diseased, uncoordinated, dimwitted, introverted, homely, talentless)? Humanity hasn't improved upon itself in any way.

Your definition of "improved" isn't in line with what nature is valuing, fair enough.

What if nature is making the best choices, the best mate selections and advancing the most superior beings, and you are simply unappreciative of what these things actually constitute?

Shoulds and oughts are after all only worth mentioning if they counter what would otherwise be done. There is no point moralising about how one should adhere to gravity, because that is going to happen anyway, and there is likewise no point moralising about how one should defy gravity because that is not possible. Morals are made in line with that which is possible, but they are suggested to skew that which would otherwise happen anyway. Your moral expectations of what are the best choices, mate selections are are going to be possible, but they are going to be skewed versions of what is otherwise going to happen whether you like it or not. The skewing may have some effect, but the default is amoral. If all your appreciation is for the moral, and the moral is only a twist on the default, then you are lacking appreciation for the default valuation on what are the best choices and mate selections.

It takes some humility, but it's possible to see all these seemingly immoral choices in what nature selects for the truly moral. Sexual selection is going one way or another, whether or not you think it's going in the "right" direction. Maybe its direction is better after all, and you/we don't see how yet?

[Serendipper]

Think about it: The human species is said to have evolved only because a fucking asteroid plowed into the waters off the yucatan peninsula and killed off the dinosaurs.

The dinosaurs were already dead when that happened.

Start at 24:30



My opinion is that the climate changed which didn't select for big animals (lower O2, lower heat). Climate change was probably caused by the drifting of the solar system within the galaxy or possibly is part of a general cooling of the solar system overall (ie the sun is cooling).

[iambiguous]

How about your own "I" here? Has it evolved to the point you've got that all figured out? Not only biologically, but morally and politically too?

All those fucking genes and memes in an endless tug of war for your very soul?

Well, I'm familiar with my own biology, morals, and politics, but that's not what I am trying to figure out. Biggie, tell me about this soul you are referring to?

My point however is this: that what we are familiar with is somehow embedded in a complex intertwining of genes and memes awash in a sea of variables that may well be all but impossible to really pin down -- to either know or to control.

But that some have evolved a frame of mind able to imagine this as something that they have pinned down. And that others are obligated to share this frame of mind [about evolution and many other things] if they wish to be thought of as rational...or as virtuous.

That, in a Hegelian, sense the "synthesis" stops with them.

"I" then sinks down into this frame of mind and is able to nestle psychologically in the comfort and the consolation of imagining that, whether you call it a soul or the "real me", there is a part of them that is in touch with one or another teleological component of existence. Something that ascribes "meaning" to their life; and thus enabling them further to make that crucial distinction between those of us who do and those of us who don't.

It's just that the mystery becomes all that much more problematic when you factor in such things as God and religion and moral obligation and autonomy on this side, and the prospect of oblivion on the other side of it.

So to speak of natural selection as being dead here just begs the question: How on earth could someone possibly know that?

What does "I" entail here?

And, in particular, from my vantage point, how do we go about discussing it beyond merely exchanging "general descriptions".

[iambiguous]

Think about it: The human species is said to have evolved only because a fucking asteroid plowed into the waters off the yucatan peninsula and killed off the dinosaurs.

The dinosaurs were already dead when that happened.

Start at 24:30



My opinion is that the climate changed which didn't select for big animals (lower O2, lower heat). Climate change was probably caused by the drifting of the solar system within the galaxy or possibly is part of a general cooling of the solar system overall (ie the sun is cooling).

Well, let's just say that there are conflicting theories: https://www.google.com/search?q=dinosau ... ls&ie=&oe=

Or is your own [or their own] the only one that counts?

But that's the tricky thing about evolution when it becomes embedded in "minds". Unlike any other matter before us, we can actually express these conflicted points of view.

What then does it say about matter of this sort? And how, using the tools of philosophy, can minds figure out which point of view is the one that all rational men and women are obligated to respect as true necessarily?

[Serendipper]

Think about it: The human species is said to have evolved only because a fucking asteroid plowed into the waters off the yucatan peninsula and killed off the dinosaurs.

The dinosaurs were already dead when that happened.

My opinion is that the climate changed which didn't select for big animals (lower O2, lower heat). Climate change was probably caused by the drifting of the solar system within the galaxy or possibly is part of a general cooling of the solar system overall (ie the sun is cooling).

Well, let's just say that there are conflicting theories: https://www.google.com/search?q=dinosau ... ls&ie=&oe=

Or is your own [or their own] the only one that counts?

I'm not married to any idea of what happened, but the guy in the video seemed confident and had a good argument that zero fossils were found in the impact debris layer. How do we reconcile that?

I do like my theory that cooling produced an unfavorable environment as well.





It looks like they were gradually selected against as big creatures take advantage of abundant resources. Insects were also big back then, but not now. And it's hard for me to believe that a single event would eradicate all the one species while leaving the others. If nothing else, the damaged species should re-evolve instead of going extinct forever if it weren't the climate that dictated who had the advantages.

I've also not been able to process how the sun remains a constant stable temperature for so long instead of a steady cooling over time. Any fire I've ever seen gets hotter and then cooler until it extinguishes.

And I've no idea what drifting around in the spiral arms does to the climate, but it can't be insignificant.

[Serendipper]

But that's the tricky thing about evolution when it becomes embedded in "minds". Unlike any other matter before us, we can actually express these conflicted points of view.

What then does it say about matter of this sort? And how, using the tools of philosophy, can minds figure out which point of view is the one that all rational men and women are obligated to respect as true necessarily?

Well, I guess we can't abandon all logic simply because there is no truth. We have to stand for something or we'll fall for anything. Once we admit there is no absolute, then we can't say anything, so if we desire to claim any solid ground, we have to make some postulates.

There may be an absolute, but the only way to be assured that we've found it is by exhaustive random searching. If there are any presuppositions made, then any apparent absolute truth found cannot be claimed to be known for certain, but merely contingent upon the presupposition. That is the absolute truth underpinning nonteleological evolution because randomness could never be more random-er. So maybe absolutes do exist, but I maintain we cannot presume to know them and to do so would be arrogant.

[gib]

Hardly, many babies/children survive due to medical interventions. <-- That's just us customizing our environment. The alternative would be an engineered combination of male and female genes, handpicked results. Are you thinking if it's human intervention, it's not "natural" selection? The people who are window shopping for their procreation partners are missing their marks without guarantees of what genes are dominant and recessive, <-- That's true. Might need 4 babies! so it's naive to believe that what you see in a partner is what you are going to get in your combination child.

This may be true, but do you really think people choose their partners out of consideration for their genes? Theirs or their partner's?

Superiority and inferiority is all relative.

But then you said...

It's like pairing two people together... since we're not all equal in terms of strength, intelligence, beauty, or any other characteristic you can measure, then when you put two arbitrary people together, you're bound to get one person who is somewhat stronger than the other (or more intelligent, or more beautiful, etc.).

So strength, intelligence, and beauty are superior qualities worth mentioning?

While I never mentioned anything about their being "superior", yes, you could say they are superior qualities worth mentioning? (relativistically speaking).

Other than survival, generations of reproduction haven't accomplished a better, more superior, individual. The weak still exist in great numbers. All humanity is doing is perpetuating the species, not improving it one bit.

And that's kinda the point. Evolution isn't supposed to be about improvement, just perpetuation. Maybe your beef with this is what man ought to do with himself--you know, the moral dimension--not simply the fact of natural selection. But then what counts as an "improved" mankind if not survival and fitness for the environment? This gets us into tricky waters because now we have to debate what passes as improvement and what doesn't, a very subjective matter. This becomes more a discussion for political philosophy than natural/science philosophy.

[WendyDarling]

The selection to have sex is not dead, but the selection to increase the probability that your offspring are a greatly improved version of you is dead. People are procreating in all manner of poor choices, poor mate selections, so isn't humanity simply limping along teeming with inferior beings (the short, weak, diseased, uncoordinated, dimwitted, introverted, homely, talentless)? Humanity hasn't improved upon itself in any way.

Your definition of "improved" isn't in line with what nature is valuing, fair enough.

What if nature is making the best choices, the best mate selections and advancing the most superior beings, and you are simply unappreciative of what these things actually constitute?

Shoulds and oughts are after all only worth mentioning if they counter what would otherwise be done. There is no point moralising about how one should adhere to gravity, because that is going to happen anyway, and there is likewise no point moralising about how one should defy gravity because that is not possible. Morals are made in line with that which is possible, but they are suggested to skew that which would otherwise happen anyway. Your moral expectations of what are the best choices, mate selections are are going to be possible, but they are going to be skewed versions of what is otherwise going to happen whether you like it or not. The skewing may have some effect, but the default is amoral. If all your appreciation is for the moral, and the moral is only a twist on the default, then you are lacking appreciation for the default valuation on what are the best choices and mate selections.

It takes some humility, but it's possible to see all these seemingly immoral choices in what nature selects for the truly moral. Sexual selection is going one way or another, whether or not you think it's going in the "right" direction. Maybe its direction is better after all, and you/we don't see how yet?

Why are you deeming my dismay as a moral dilemma rather than procreators having a lack of common sense? Maybe I'm trying to wake people up to their undermining ways, the ways they undercut and perpetuate the very society they complain about (with all the dummies and retards that is). Yes, this "right" direction is so great that the technotards want to replace biology with technology rather than upgrading humanity naturally by making improved mate choices.

[WendyDarling]

Biggie, explain the soul please.

[WendyDarling]

Evolution isn't supposed to be about improvement, just perpetuation. Maybe your beef with this is what man ought to do with himself--you know, the moral dimension--not simply the fact of natural selection. But then what counts as an "improved" mankind if not survival and fitness for the environment? This gets us into tricky waters because now we have to debate what passes as improvement and what doesn't, a very subjective matter. This becomes more a discussion for political philosophy than natural/science philosophy.

Okay...let's. Why this is moral is lost on me? Why not rather common sense?