- Oct 30, 2010
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The very first mass extinction was as a result of a living organism changing its atmosphere and climate.
sorry, you'll need to elaborate.
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The very first mass extinction was as a result of a living organism changing its atmosphere and climate.
Look up the Great Oxygenation Event. Almost wiped out life on earth completely before it even reached multicellular stage. Some theorise that it could be the Great Filter.sorry, you'll need to elaborate.
Look up the Great Oxygenation Event. Almost wiped out life on earth completely before it even reached multicellular stage. Some theorise that it could be the Great Filter.
None of this matters. Nor is it evidence for your position.There is flawed, there is weak or weaker. Human leg bones have become weaker since farming was invented, it might seem like a trivial issue but is evidence that we can become worse based on society/lifestyle and breeding habits, when we didn't farm the probability someone weak would survive long enough to breed was slim.
"An earlier study by Cambridge University found that mankind is shrinking in size significantly.
Experts say humans are past their peak and that modern-day people are 10 per cent smaller and shorter than their hunter-gatherer ancestors.
And if that’s not depressing enough, our brains are also smaller."
Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencet...ears-ago-declining-rapidly.html#ixzz3UjSRReMa
This evidence is also supporting a theory amongst some geneticists that mankind is undergoing genetic entropy, that our peak was a long time ago and generation by generation we are now getting weaker, tests between older genetic specimens and modern ones suggest the number of genetic mutations are growing rapidly and the vast majority are dangerous to us.
Most other species have to still contend with the food cycle, almost every other species other than us and our pets come into the world screaming and exit the same way. This weeds out the weakest of their species. The strongest of their species within a given pool tend to dominate the breeding. We do not have any cleansing process and really haven't since we stopped being hunters and became farmers who made large societies. We have had poor genetic specimens live longer and reproduce more as the dominance of the species has passed from the strongest to the smartest.
Another article of interest, "Most mutations in the human genome are recent and probably harmful"
Source: http://discovermagazine.com/2013/ju...-human-genome-are-recent-and-probably-harmful
"Fast population growth has littered our genomes with five times as many rare gene variants as would be expected."
"On average, every duplication of the human genome includes 100 new errors, so all that reproducing gave our DNA many opportunities to accumulate mutations. But evolution hasn’t had enough time to weed out the dangerous ones: gene variants that might make us prone to illness, or simply less likely to survive."
"Joshua Akey of the University of Washington recently explored the average age of our species’s gene variants, finding that most are very young. About three-quarters of single nucleotide variants — a mutation that substitutes just one nucleotide (an A, C, T or G) in the long string of DNA — occurred within the past 5,000 years, surprising considering that our species may be 200,000 years old. Using several techniques to gauge the effects of these mutations, which are the most common type of variant in the human genome, Akey estimated that more than 80 percent are probably harmful to us."
Lifestyle, environment, rapid population growth, medicine, lack of natural selection are factors which are leading us down this genetic downward spiral.
Look up the Great Oxygenation Event. Almost wiped out life on earth completely before it even reached multicellular stage. Some theorise that it could be the Great Filter.
No, you have interpreted the science incorrectly.So all these scientists and researches are wrong, what has the person you are going with peer review published?
What has that got to do with anything I wrote?
The point is, life has shaped this planet to be liveable for humans, sometimes even at its own cost. Humans aren't separate from the biosphere. Even the materials we extract for industry were once laid down by life. The obvious organic commodities like oil and coal are a given, but limestone, iron ore, and even gold (in its most accessible form) were all laid down by bacteria and other living things over billions of years. Without free oxygen and weathering, you don't get enriched mineral deposits.thanks for that, interesting. i think that's more an 'exception that proves the rule' type situation, though? especially if we're comparing the time-frames involved?
No, you have interpreted the science incorrectly.
It does not mean what you think it means.
None of this matters. Nor is it evidence for your position.
Physically weaker does not mean the gene pool is weaker. The closest thing you could claim to a weak gene pool is a small isolated population, where interbreeding is common.
There is no such thing as a genetic downward spiral, unless you count over specialisation.
Success is not measured in physical strength, but population size and stability. Humans are more prolific and longer living than ever before.
Lets take the example of peanuts. Peanut allergy does not weaken the gene pool. I am yet to see evidence that it impacts an individuals success. Likewise if it became common, that would a) show it does not competitively disadvantage an individual and b) may indicate some other trait in those individuals was genetically advantageous, thus they were more successful in evolutionary terms.
If it became common across all populations, it would become like any other food we cannot eat, and given our various other adaptions would not really matter. Unless we were invaded by giant peanut aliens or all other crops on the earth became unavailable. Still these would just be in keeping with the idea that selection pressures change often at random.
Another example might be sickle cell anemia. Carriers might be genetically weaker in your eyes, but it has confered an advantage to populations in parts of Africa, leading to greater resistance to malaria.
Basically, people transpose their values of what constitutes strong, weak etc. into evolutionary biology, but thats not how nature works..
Sorry, but I think I'll go with the guy who actually works in genetics on this, rather than someone who has curated links to support his point of view.
Human brains are smaller because we created out-brains - books, internet, etc. We know how to synthesise knowledge from knowledge we have previously stored away, instead of relying on a large brain to store everything we need to know.
There is only one culture that traveled the world with weapons (some biological) to destroy civilizations so they can mine and farm the land, ship those goods back to their homeland, so they can build more weapons. That culture created global warming, and those most responsible are the ones most in denial. Like you, they turn to abuse and aggression, when confronted with the reality of their culture. If you can call it a culture.
actually the homo sapien sapien brain is smaller because of environmental factors, nominal limited nutrition within the very hunter gather societies, tas incorrectly referenced as having larger brains. In fact in developed countries brain sizes have increased over the last 100 years. further more if study's that suggest brain development is positively affected by absorption of information then things such as books and the internet should aid in brain growth.
and there's a lot of evidence that shows brain size and intellect are not at all linked, in fact there's many studies that suggest a point will emerge where brains start to get smaller but have far more neural connections than previous generations effectively becoming more efficient.
And yet they are one of the most destructive forces on the Australian continent when it comes to the decimation of the native animal population.
Can you link said research? I didn't incorrectly reference anything, I linked to an article which discusses research that we are getting smaller, weaker and our brains are getting smaller. This is generally not perceived as a positive, if you can link some research that says it is then that would be great.
Once your done with that this goes into a bit more detail about brain evolution:
Particularly relative brain mass and of briefly touches on the fact that cognitive function and brain size is not linked.
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/275670/human-evolution/250601/Increasing-brain-size
and here's an in-depth study of brain evolution, for the section on smaller brains scroll down to the biological limits of processing information.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3973910/
the problems is your misunderstanding of brain what it is how it works, What matters is for brain power is the size of the brain RELATIVE to body mass.
and this is why people in developed countries generally have larger brains. in the undeveloped world a lack of nutrition lead to smaller and smaller people. you see as your brain gets larger it requires more energy to function. as such growing up in societies with s**t house nutrition will lead to smaller body mass and in turn smaller brains because they require less food.
what you also erroneously draw is the comparison to the first homo sapians with us. your skipping over the fact that the human population went through a very long period of time in which the environmental conditions generally lent itself to where being smaller was an advantage.
Records in all developed country's have shown an upward trend in body mass and brain size.
This is because those conditions that lead to smaller people, namely malnutrition no longer exist.
right now humans are getting larger, this leads to bigger brains (although not necessarily better ones) over time the brain will get smaller as it efficiency becomes key.
we already interfere, we do inbreeding and monarchyI love cats, especially big cats and it makes me sad that they are facing extinction and it is likely by the end of my lifetime that the only big cats left will be ones born and raised in captivity. I have donated a lot of money over the years to help save species from extinction but there is always this nagging doubt in my mind that should we intervene?
On one hand, we are the culprit that is causing the extinction of so many species but at a whim nature flushes numerous species down the genetic toilet, we are fortunate either a giant rock hasn't come crashing down on our head, a solar flare torched us like a roasted marshmallow or any other of the numerous forms that life can end. We adapt to the changing world, can we string along species that can't adapt?
If this is how 'god' intended it or 'science' intended it, nature is meant to test species and if they are found wanting to unceremoniously end their genetic contribution, no matter how majestic the creature may have been previously.
Is it humane to condemn a species from a proud predator into a side-show freak for the rest of their existence? They will never know what it means to be king of the jungle again. They have been tested and failed to adapt, or perhaps are adapting to over-sized house cats.
Thinking about the Amazonian Tiger Ant, it has had it's habitat destroyed by man, it used to be a giant winged ant that lived on the tops of giant rainforest trees but has in a short space of time evolved into a wingless smaller ant (smaller to avoid human detection) and wingless because flight is now obsolete, and it now lives in tree stumps since that is the only thing we have left for them, has changed from forest hunting to hunting in their new-found terrain.
We have shat all over these ants habitat and tested them genetically and they have adapted and can live in the shitful world we have created from the old natural world. They have passed the latest natural selection test.
Can we string along all the other species that can't live in the world we are creating?
Define intelligent.There's no doubt in my mind that the average human in Western society today is more intelligent than the average human at any other time in history; mainly due to standard of living maximising development through childhood and adolescence.
Define intelligent.
Just about everyone outside of the west believes global warming is our most pressing issue, just about everyone inside the west have been doing their best to stop them doing something about it.
There is flawed, there is weak or weaker. Human leg bones have become weaker since farming was invented, it might seem like a trivial issue but is evidence that we can become worse based on society/lifestyle and breeding habits, when we didn't farm the probability someone weak would survive long enough to breed was slim.
"An earlier study by Cambridge University found that mankind is shrinking in size significantly.
Experts say humans are past their peak and that modern-day people are 10 per cent smaller and shorter than their hunter-gatherer ancestors.
And if that’s not depressing enough, our brains are also smaller."
Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencet...ears-ago-declining-rapidly.html#ixzz3UjSRReMa
This evidence is also supporting a theory amongst some geneticists that mankind is undergoing genetic entropy, that our peak was a long time ago and generation by generation we are now getting weaker, tests between older genetic specimens and modern ones suggest the number of genetic mutations are growing rapidly and the vast majority are dangerous to us.
Most other species have to still contend with the food cycle, almost every other species other than us and our pets come into the world screaming and exit the same way. This weeds out the weakest of their species. The strongest of their species within a given pool tend to dominate the breeding. We do not have any cleansing process and really haven't since we stopped being hunters and became farmers who made large societies. We have had poor genetic specimens live longer and reproduce more as the dominance of the species has passed from the strongest to the smartest.
Another article of interest, "Most mutations in the human genome are recent and probably harmful"
Source: http://discovermagazine.com/2013/ju...-human-genome-are-recent-and-probably-harmful
"Fast population growth has littered our genomes with five times as many rare gene variants as would be expected."
"On average, every duplication of the human genome includes 100 new errors, so all that reproducing gave our DNA many opportunities to accumulate mutations. But evolution hasn’t had enough time to weed out the dangerous ones: gene variants that might make us prone to illness, or simply less likely to survive."
"Joshua Akey of the University of Washington recently explored the average age of our species’s gene variants, finding that most are very young. About three-quarters of single nucleotide variants — a mutation that substitutes just one nucleotide (an A, C, T or G) in the long string of DNA — occurred within the past 5,000 years, surprising considering that our species may be 200,000 years old. Using several techniques to gauge the effects of these mutations, which are the most common type of variant in the human genome, Akey estimated that more than 80 percent are probably harmful to us."
Lifestyle, environment, rapid population growth, medicine, lack of natural selection are factors which are leading us down this genetic downward spiral.