The Evolutionary Hotseat

[pikachamp]

page 2 has evolved to page 3!

[jessica gilbert]

i would like to know: if evolution is true, why does heather thompson still look like a mouse?

[Vinny]

Hey Dawg, I got one for you. Something that has confounded me for a while, maybe you know the answer to this.

How the heck did we end up having the pisser and reproductive organ being the same tool? I know internally it's different, but the external (point of contact) is the same. I mean, what was Evolution thinking?

[Coyote]

Evolution doesn't think, it just goes with whatever happens to work without too many adverse side effects.

The fact that it comes up with such goofball contraptions as the combined pisser/poker is probably the best argument against ID, IMO

[Borodog]

Internet Strangler: If we take every human, male and female 6'6" and taller and let them colonize mars; then we take every person 5'6" and smaller and have them colonize Venus.
In time, will the average martian end up being over 7' tall?

No. Or more precisely, not necessarily. First off, let me say that I'm not too keen on these speculative "what if" scenarios. If you can say one thing about evolution, it is that you cannot usually tell where a species is "going" ahead of time; you can only use the benefit of hindsight to understand why a species evolved the way that it did. Not universally true, but generally true. All you can say is that your initial population of martions will have an average height over 6 feet 6 inches, and your venusians would have an average height under 5'6". Period. Again, I emphasize that natural selection is unlikely to operate in such as environment; human beings make heroic efforts to prevent ANYONE from dying, throwing natural selection out the window as a method of evolutionary change.

Will the Venutians end up being under 5' tall? -- See above.

What would happen to the leftovers on earth? -- See above.

Will the different gravitational levels have a factor in this? -- See above.

Buzzsaw: Why have humans increased in size over the past centuries, esp this last one? Better food availability? To aid in battle? (Coyote could have made me become extinct)

Better nutrition. With the introduction of many dairy products in the far east since world war two, average height among japanese youth has soared. Japanese kids are now every bit as tall as their western counterparts. To be sure, height has a genetic component, but it can be small compared to nutrition. And I don't think there is much selection pressure particularly favoring tall people. There may be sexual selection that is favoring tall people mating with tall people, and shorter people mating with shorter people, but I've seen no studies. It just seems reasonable that tall chicks would go for tall guys.

Do you think we might be gradually evolving to eventually be lacking an appendix?
No. Not any more. Human beings prevent anyone with an appendix from dying prematurely from having it, so where is the selection pressure against it?

Do you think that the Coelecanth is a transitional animal - meaning one that was becoming a land animal? (that fish is fascinating to me, from what little I've read about it)

No. The coelecanth has retained its current physiology virtually unchanged for of order a hundred million years. Whatever it's doing is working well for it. It doesn't seem to be "transitioning" anywhere. Now, that is not to say that it does not retain many primitive traits that its ancestors may have had in common with lineages that eventually did transition to life on the land. It very well might.

Amed: What's the difference between genetic "drift" and "shift"?

Genetic drift is a term used to describe changes in the frequencies of genes within a population that are selectively neutral, i.e. these genes feel no selection pressure. This allows populations to drift, usually towards expanded genetic variability in "gene space." At some later date this drift could well become selectively important, and some evolutionary biologists think genetic drift plays as important, or in extreme cases more important, a role as natural selection. I don't think "genetic shift" is a particularly technical term. It just means that the frequencies of different genes in the population has changed (i.e., evolution, by definition).

pikachamp: What's a Coelecanth? -- The Coelacanth is a fish that was discovered to still be extant recently. It was thought to have gone extinct at the same time as the dinosaurs, 65 million years ago. It is virtually unchanged from fossils dated at over 400 million years old. Hence many people refer to it as a "living fossil." I prefer to think of it as an evolutionary lesson: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." Whatever the Coelacanth has been doing for the past 400 million years, it apparently works well for it. Although one should remember, that due to the aforementioned genetic drift, there is NO WAY that modern Coelacanths could interbreed with their 400 million year old ancestors, could you go back in time and catch them. Thus although they look virtually identical, they are actually different species.

Coyote: What extro said.

BraveHat: Is it possible for both God and evolution to exist? -- Of course. He doesn't seem to be required, but that doesn't mean he doesn't, or can't, exist.

Will: Well Boro if this is the case How come. We can't find the Bacteria on Mars? Where did bacteria come from in the first place? -- Have you been to Mars? Have you looked? Bacteria came from abiogenesis. See the earlier response. The exact mechanism is unknown. The exact mechanism of gravity was unknown until the early 20th century. Luckily, we all didn't float away.

How come all of a sudden life can be here but you say God can't be here? -- And where did I say that, numnut? Oh, that's right, I didn't! You just ASSumed. You were wrong. What an utter and complete shock! Who could have predicted this? Will wrong? Foot in his mouth? Call Connie Fucking Chung.

Death Mage: Why are humans content to wait for the next evolutionary step rathar than stepping foward and create it on their own via genetic manuplation etc.? -- We already are. Did you notice they cured the Bubble Boy? How do you think they did that? They repaired his genome with a modified retrovirus (IIRC).

Jessica Gilbert: i would like to know: if evolution is true, why does heather thompson still look like a mouse? -- I'm not sure. My wife looks like a fox, but that's neither here nor there.

Vinny: How the heck did we end up having the pisser and reproductive organ being the same tool? I know internally it's different, but the external (point of contact) is the same. I mean, what was Evolution thinking?

Good question. Evolution, unlike hypothetical designers, has to work with what is already there. Thus you transport your precious genetic material down the same tube you remove waste with. Thus that same critically important waste removal tube runs right through one of the most prone-to-infection organs in the body (in case you need a picture, infection leads to swelling which leads to not being able to piss which leads to VERY BAD THINGS). Hence the light sensitive portions of your retina are actually under the nerves that carry the signal to your brain, requiring a "blind spot" where your optic nerve has to plunge through the retina. Etc, etc, etc. Nature is filled with jerry-rigged poor designs. You work with what you got.

Also, what Coyote said.


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[This message has been edited by Borodog (edited 07-10-2002 10:46 PM).]

[Will]

Boro how can life just show up but God can't show up?

[Zarriar]

In response to Will:

I think what you are saying is logically impossible.

Life didn't just appear it was made from a combination of simpler non-living molecules (according to theory). To say god arrived in the same way is to say that god can be broken down into simpler pieces, which is logically impossible since god is supposed to be perfect. God is supposed to be omniscient (know everything there is to know) and omnipotent (be able to do anything). For these to be true god must have always existed. To say otherwise is to say that god is bound by time which is inconsistent with saying that he is also omnipotent.

Does that make sense?

[Ameb]

Maybe his god is not omnipotent? Maybe it just... popped into existence at some point, and gave birth to the universe, somehow. Then it could be bound by time, and the question could be answered.

[Zarriar]

You may be right Ameb, although I think Will follows one of the standard religions.

[Borodog]

Will: Boro how can life just show up but God can't show up?

Funny. I don't recall saying that he couldn't. Must be another one of those ASSumption thingies.

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[Zarriar]

Originally posted by Borodog:

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As I mentioned before, humans have already evolved the perfect adaptation. We change the environment to suit ourselves. For evolution to work, natural selection has to work. The human race is very near (within 30 years I think) from effectively ending natural selection within its population.

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I apologise in advance if I have taken this out of context.

Borodog would you say that this is true to an extent of all species and that evolution is really a balancing act between the environment and the species involved? For instance early plants changed the atmosphere to a more breathable mixture, ants build anthills, birds build nests, wombats dig burrows etc.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that I think human beings will always be subject to evolutionary pressures regardless of how effectively we alter the environment. I think we can redefine what factors affect the fitness of a species but we can't negate them.

[Will]

Um Boro please repeat with smaller words.

And evultion began with the universe. Well where did the universe come from?

[Fried Egg]

Will

[extropalopakettle]

[Fried Egg]

[Mr Nigma]

Answer: 42

(but we need to work on the question)

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I'm a figment of my imagination.
Cognito, ergo sum.



[This message has been edited by Mr Nigma (edited 07-11-2002 09:45 AM).]

[extropalopakettle]

[Fried Egg]

[Borodog]

Zarrier: Borodog would you say that this is true to an extent of all species and that evolution is really a balancing act between the environment and the species involved? For instance early plants changed the atmosphere to a more breathable mixture, ants build anthills, birds build nests, wombats dig burrows etc.

You miss my point. Leaving aside the "early plants changed the atmosphere to a more breathable mixture" (I'll come back to that, because you have several misconceptions all bundled up together on that one), while ants do build anthills, birds to build nests, and wombats dig burrows, all of them die. They do these things to die less frequently, or later in life, but they still die. And while yes, human beings still die as well, every year now we are more effectively preventing people from dying who otherwise would, leaving them around to reproduce. What happens to natural selection then?

When everyone lives, "survival of the fittest" is meaningless.

Also: I guess the point I'm trying to make is that I think human beings will always be subject to evolutionary pressures regardless of how effectively we alter the environment. I think we can redefine what factors affect the fitness of a species but we can't negate them.

Why not? Individuals, be they human or otherwise, are simply machines. You are an apparatus. So am I. We're pretty well built, but not too terribly great, we tend to fall apart on the order of a few decades. What happens when maintenance can "fix" all kinds of errors? When repairs can fix the damage from any kind of accident? What happens when the machinery can be kept humming along indefinately? Where is the selection pressure then?


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[Evil Empire]

I know this is slighty off topic but since you do a good job of explaining things I'm going to ask anyway.

I'll put it under Evolution of a star or galaxy.

Do black holes have volume? I've heard their volume described as everything from a point to unlimited. I can't wrap my brain around all that mass being pulled into a single point.

[Borodog]

Classical black hole theory says that when the escape velocity from a chunk of matter exceeds the speed of light, a black hole is formed. The escape velocity changes as a function of distance from the black hole. So there is some distance away from the black hole that light can escape from, and then a closer distance where it cannot. This cusp is called the "event horizon". Events below the horizon cannot be known about, while events above the horizon can. The classical volume of the event horison is finite and easily calculable. What happens to mass that falls through the horizon is more difficult to understand. It falls toward a single point of zero volume, the singularity. But because time slows as it accelerates inward, from that chunk of matter's point of view, it will take an infinite amount of time to fall in. Therefor it never has to "worry" about actually reaching a point of infinite density. Of course, from our point of view, it should enter the singularity very rapidly, but we need not concern ourselves with all of this untidyness and infinitely dense points, because it is all hidden from us by the event horizion (unless the black hole's angular momentum exceeds its mass, in apprpriate units, and the event horizon disappears - this would allow time travel and all sorts of fun stuff; unfortunately for us, it becomes infititely hard to find the proper trajectory with which in inject matter such that the hole spins more than it weighs, so to speak).

Of course, all of this talk of "infinitely dense points of zero volume" is utter nonsense, since it ignores completely that space is quantized -- space comes in very small but still finite chunks. Recently a rather brilliant (it remains to be seen if it's correct) theory was advanced that classical black holes do not exist; rather when the energy density becomes sufficiently high for the escape velocity to exceed the speed of light, a spacetime phase change occurs, and local spacetime becomes a single quantum "bubble," something like a Bose-Einstein Condensate. All of the mass occupies a thin shell, or "rhind" as I like to think of it, just outside the bubble of spacetime. This object would be the same size as a classical black hole's event horizon, and like a BEC, would be at absolute zero, so it would not radiate; it would still be black. It does in fact have some observationation signatures, and they do tentatively agree with some results that were previously not in agreement with classical black hole theory, but the jury is not in. By the way, their inventor calls them "gravastars".

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[This message has been edited by Borodog (edited 07-11-2002 02:04 PM).]

[pikachamp]

why can't species interbreed?

[Borodog]

Pika: Why can't species interbreed?

The simple, and obnoxious answer, is that species are defined as being populations of animals who can interbreed amongst themselves, but not with other populations.

The real question is why can't Hy breed with a German Shepherd? Lord knows he tries. The answer is that their genetic (not to mention physiological) machinery is different. Humans have 23 pairs of chromosomes. Other animals have more, or less. Humans have around 30,000 genes. Other animals have many more or many less. Quite simply, the genetic material from the mother and the father would not "match up". Animals that are somewhat closely related like horses and donkeys can sometimes breed, but usually the problems in the resulting offspring (the mule) make it sterile. It is very interesting to note that the genetic difference between humans and chimpanzees is actually smaller than other pairs of related species that can still interbreed (albeit with sterile offspring)! For instance the evolutionary distance between the dolphin and killer whale parents of the aforementioned wolphin is much greater than the distance between humans and chimps (about 4 times). If I recall correctly the last common ancestor of dolphins and killer whales lived some 10 million years ago!

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[This message has been edited by Borodog (edited 07-11-2002 02:41 PM).]

[pikachamp]

so, does that mean Hy can breed with a chimp?

[Ghost Post]

don't give him ideas

[Borodog]

Possibly, but he'd have to get her drunk first.

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[Borodog]

Believe me, if it involves having sex with something, Hy's already thought of it.

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[This message has been edited by Borodog (edited 07-11-2002 03:01 PM).]

[Evil Empire]

This quote is from this article

[Logain]

Borodog, I feel that in evolution, it is easy to imagine the process how a species evolves due to natural selection or survival of the fittest. For example, a certain four legged animal may not have been fair competition with other four legged species with regards to hunting for food on the ground or killing other animals. Eventually this species began to reach for the trees for food. Soon all the ones with shorter necks died out from hunger, and longer and longer necks became the norm since they survived with the most food. And finally, the modern day giraffe was born.

It may be tougher to imagine the process, but not understand the logic behind, why a species evolves through a greater mutation to gives it something physically it did not have before, such as the development of lungs, which can be brought about by a need to adapt to an environment or improve in order to benefit its survival.

But, what are your thoughts on evolution that involves "losing" a feature that is no longer needed, such as a tail, claws, etc. It has nothing to do with natural selection or survival of the fittest. And there is no driving force by the environment to genetically change in such a manner. Do you think there's any better way to describe this other than if you don't use it, you'll lose it type of phenomenon?

[Borodog]

Logain: But, what are your thoughts on evolution that involves "losing" a feature that is no longer needed, such as a tail, claws, etc. It has nothing to do with natural selection or survival of the fittest. And there is no driving force by the environment to genetically change in such a manner. Do you think there's any better way to describe this other than if you don't use it, you'll lose it type of phenomenon?

But you see there is a selection pressure against building structures that you don't need for survival. It takes resources and energy to build and maintain these structures that could better be used elsewhere. Extraneous structures are just one more target for injury and infection that could lead to death. So mutations that favor the reduction of this sort of waste have a direct advantage over the competition.


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[Evil Empire]

Is the circumstance that we can look around and find we’re the brainiest boffins on the planet merely a trivial result of being the first species able to notice? Or is there some reason to think that intelligence is actually a rare and unlikely evolutionary development, and Homo sapiens has lucked out?

[Neo]

Boro: Your thoughts on the article from chat?

[Borodog]

Evil Empire: Is the circumstance that we can look around and find we’re the brainiest boffins on the planet merely a trivial result of being the first species able to notice?

Yes.

Also: Or is there some reason to think that intelligence is actually a rare and unlikely evolutionary development, and Homo sapiens has lucked out?

Impossible to say, but I don't think our species' specialty (intelligent generality, as I like to call it) is likely to be anymore unlikely than any other, if that makes any sense. Think about bats and whales for instance. They "see" with sound, and you can be sure that their subjective experience of echolocation is more more like our vision than our hearing. All complex adaptations would seem to be unlikely and unpredictable beforehand, and all 100% certain after the fact. Furthermore, we have no statistics to work with. It's like asking, how unlikely is life? Lots of people like to pretend that the so-called "improbability" of life happening by itself is somehow proof that it didn't. Arguments like these are unconvincing. If we go strictly by how long it took different things to show up, then life is more likely than multi-cellular life, but multi-cellular life might be more unlikely to evolve from single-celled life than intelligence is to evolve from multi-cellular life (it took less than 100 million years after the earth cooled off for single-celled life to show up, but perhaps another 3 billion years for multi-cellular organism to show up, while we came along less than a billion years after that).


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[Borodog]

Neo: Thoughts on the 7 MYA potential Hominid skull found in Africa.

Interesting. Nothing earth-shattering. If other specimens can be found, and it's status as an ancestor can be confirmed, it would push the required date back for the last human/ape common ancestor back a couple of megayears, but that's neither here nor there.



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[extropalopakettle]

They did determine that the skull was that of a female. The jaws were still clacking.

[Borodog]

Keep that up and your shirts won't get ironed.


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[Zarriar]

In response to Borodog:

Just to clarify. What I think you are saying is this: medical technology will become so advanced in the near future that human beings will cease to age, diseases will become ancient history and even fatal accident's will be treatable (wow that was a weird sentence!).

Assuming the above I have a few questions.

1) How to you think this amazing feat will be achieved?. I'm imagining some kind of retrovirus or nanotechnology will be used to tinker with us at the cellular level.
2) Medical technology is expensive, won't survival then depend upon wealth? Otherwise if it was cheap and nobody died, wouldn't we quickly run out of resources on Earth and then be subject to evolutionary pressure once again.
3) If people started living for an extraordinarily long time what changes should, in your opinion, be made to society. For instance, should people who receive the fountain of youth undergo mandatory and permanent sterilisation? Or perhaps the technology should be set aside until space travel and colonisation of other planets is more practical.

[Borodog]

Zarriar:
1) How to you think this amazing feat will be achieved?. I'm imagining some kind of retrovirus or nanotechnology will be used to tinker with us at the cellular level.

Yes. Nanotechnology and genetic engineering will, IMHO "cure death" in under 30 years at the latest. I would not be surprised at 20.

2) Medical technology is expensive, won't survival then depend upon wealth? Otherwise if it was cheap and nobody died, wouldn't we quickly run out of resources on Earth and then be subject to evolutionary pressure once again.

No. Before the Government started meddling in the health care industry, it worked just like any other industry. New inventions and inovations come along periodically. At first, because of R&D and high production costs, these innovations are expensive. Only the wealthy can afford them (and don't act like there's anything wrong with this; they worked hard to accumulate the wealth to buy the latest toys and medical treatments, or their fathers did so that they could, or their grandmother, or somebody). BUT, as is ALWAYS the case, production efficiency increases, costs come down, and the invention or innovation make it to the general public. Witness radio. TV. Cars. Air travel. Ocean liners. Vacationing in Hawaii. Computers. Books. Dentistry. Laser eye surgery. Heart surgery. In other words, unless you're a complete IDIOT, it is fairly obvious that the wealthy FUND the development of the technologies that make EVERYONE'S life easier and longer. Letting rich people pay a lot for something new allows non-rich people to later acquire the same things for far less. This is patently obvious from the continual plunge in price of anything, until the Government steps in to force industries to provide these things to people who can not YET afford them, undercutting the incentive for any business to sink more money into developing cheaper production costs. Why should they? They are forced to distribute they product to people who can't afford it, keeping the price high for EVERYONE. Witness health care, witness low-income housing (becoming a landlord used to be the surest and quickest way out of the ghetto; now HUD makes it impossible for a low-income person to become a low-income landlord for low-income rentors, because they can't compete with HUD and YOUR TAX DOLLARS, so they either stay poor, flip burgers, or sell crack). Note, this is what has been happening and will escalate with this new prescription drug benefit fiasco that Bush and the Democrats are stumbling all over themselves over, rushing who can get the credit for buying the old-codger vote first. Anyway, the point is that all medical innovations eventually make it to all levels of society. They always have, and they always will (if we can keep Government from FUCKING the entire system up any worse).

3) If people started living for an extraordinarily long time what changes should, in your opinion, be made to society. For instance, should people who receive the fountain of youth undergo mandatory and permanent sterilisation? Or perhaps the technology should be set aside until space travel and colonisation of other planets is more practical.

Ugh. Why does everyone think that this sort of thing has to be strictly controlled? You know what will happen, in my opinion? We will expand off planet. This one star system alone contains near-infinite resources. When it's time to go, the required technology will be developed. Period. That is the nature of America and technology. When we need it, it gets built. Period. If we can keep the socialist left from strangling the economic ability to do that, and destroying the country in the process.

Things will change, however. I have spoken before on what makes wealth: resources, energy, amd labor (I include ingenuity in labor; it's just brain labor). Applying energy and labor to resources creates wealth. Within the next 30 years will come unlimited quantities of all of these ingrediants. Fusion or space-based solar collectors will provide unlimited free energy. Nanotechnology will provide the ability to build anything on demand. Mining of the asteroids will provide infinite free resources. At this point, the "wealth" of the human race effectively becomes infinite. The standard of living of the entire planet will shoot through the roof, and human society will experience a phase change to something that you and I cannot understand. We'll never uinderstand it until it's here. As I've said often, I'm just trying to hang on until it REALLY gets cool.



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[mathgrant]

I evolved from Poliwhirl!!

[Zarriar]

Originally posted by Borodog:

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Yes. Nanotechnology and genetic engineering will, IMHO "cure death" in under 30 years at the latest. I would not be surprised at 20.

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Are you basing this answer on any current research? I've seen a similar claim made by Arthur C. Clarke, he said that our generation would either be the last to die or the first to live forever.