The idea that we only changed selection parameters is a misconception. We have fundamentally altered the way evolution affects our species.
It is interesting to note that with our level of knowledge it has been shown that you can some-what evolve yourself (aka growth mindset), as in train traits and characteristics you may not have been genetically pre-disposed to have. It has also been shown that IQ of the general population actually increases as generations move forward ( IQ tests need to be adjusted etc..) This might suggest that we have over-come simple evolution of simple body functions and simply only evolve in-terms of brain functionality and power, allowing us to invent methods to evolve ourselves physically or create tools that deal with problems we face as a species.
Yep, we haven't even really touched on things like IVF, sperm banks, CRISPR, etc. People who LITERALLY cannot procreate and pass on their genes can do so now. If that's not spitting in the face of evolution as it has operated for millennia, I don't know what it is.
This brings a new question, what does the increasing IQ level mean for the future of human sanity/happiness. It is a well-known factor that higher IQ generally leads to higher unhappiness for multiple reasons, so here we are solving all our physical problems, but how will we deal with the psychological/emotional side of the equation. Even if we solve all our problems but disregard such things it would lead to a bell-shaped curve in efficiency, we become to efficient and smart, but too depressed to really fully capitalize on it.
no that is wrong, by using medicine and technology you have alleviated selective pressur against certain characteristics and because of the size of our population traits spread less slowly over the entire population, however fundamentally evolution is still the same. what you are saying is simply wrong.
1. What does "less slowly" mean? 2. My point is that evolution affects humans drastically differently than it used to. Not slower, or weaker but FUNDAMENTALLY differently. You can argue that it's "still a form of evolution" and that might be true, but it's nowhere near the same as how it impacted the development of humans 5000 years ago. 3. I anticipate that as our capacity to control/influence our environment and breeding continues to grow, that this will trend will continue, particularly when it comes to genetic manipulation. 4. A great example of this is what's happened to many of our crops, which, even before modern GMO technically, has been selectively bred by humans for specific characteristics, bypassing natural evolution. Dogs would never have evolved the way they did without human interference. Human intervention has huge impacts on the evolutionary process, and in many areas, I believe it even supercedes it. 5. Having access to fire changes the selection process. Having access to CRIPSR is a whole different beast altogether. To conflate the two and categorize them similarily is simply wrong.
that too is a common misconception. imo, higher IQ leads to a more subtle level of both happiness and unhappiness. The unhappiness part is usually accentualized because a person is on the intermediate stage of self-growth, where his ego is usually not strong enough to let him to be able to remain nonchalant when encountering the vast scope of human stupidity (which really is usually the main reason why such people are unhappy) whilst already having enough cultural and scientific knowledge to identify it and react to it deeply. But once he's passed that stage and made his ego stronger and essentially became a neurotic (J. Bergeret), he usually becomes stable and doesn't exhibit any unhappiness or depression that may be considered extreme.
that's just humans playing with the phenotypes that are already layed in the fundamental parts of evolution. I really don't see how that changes the core structure of it -- it's simply a way of playing around it.
But that argument says everything is evolution. If you begin with that premise then there isn't much to discuss. It's like saying everything is sandwich. Pizza is just an open faced sandwich. Soup is just watery sandwich. It makes the concept of sandwich meaningless.
it means i lost my train of thought halfway through writing "less quickly" and finished "more slowly"
Eh, there is. You just have to be very precise in your use of words to maintain a sound discussion. No, it's not like saying everything is sandwich, it's like saying everything is food when talking about food.
I think it's perfectly reasonable to say that at a time when we have procedures that allow for gene alteration/manipulation, allowing those who would otherwise be unable to reproduce to do so, etc. the game has fundamentally changed.
Sure, let's say it's food. For me, the argument is that we live in a post scarcity world where we have fundamentally altered the definition of food and how humans interact with food. We can create pills or drinks that contain all the necessary nutrients. We can even inject it directly into our bloodstreams. We can also "replicate" these materials directly from energy, without the need to grow the food in the "traditional" way. This, to my mind, is no longer "food" in the traditional sense and is a fundamentally different sort of thing.
Or let's use a gaming example. Let's say that we have a character that excels at Life Stealing based on damage. We then change the character so that instead of Life Stealing he now heals passively as long as he is out of combat range. In both cases, you can argue that he is technically "healing" but you cannot disagree that it is a fundamentally different kind of thing, such as it is with our interaction with evolution today.
do species really evolve to fit their environment or do they seek out the environments that fit their evolution?
You refuse to explain yourself, instead just stating "facts." Not sure people's listening is the issue.
