Modern Human Evolution and the Gene Pool...

For all of history, only the strongest and fittest members of each species has survived...It's evolution's way of ensuring that each species remains as strong as possible from generation to generation...only the strongest and fittest survive. All well and good.

But modern humans, with their big brains, have discovered ways to sidestep evolution's age-old way of ensuring "survival of the fittest", and strength of the gene pool. Specifically, modern humans have discovered ways (through medical "advancements") to allow people to survive who would have not survived in years past. Diabetes sufferers, people with terrible eyesight, kids with leukemia, people with congenital heart disease, people with suicidal tendencies, people with tendencies to develop cancers, etc.

Thus, these heretofore early "diers" are now living long enough to pass their genes on to the gene pool.

Is this a good thing?

Please understand, this post is not meant to incite angry responses. Rather, it's meant to elicit mature (albeit possibly emotional) responses.

All rational opinions welcome.

Through technology, it seems we have reached a point where we can provide better for our own survival than nature ever would. Natural selection isn't the dominating force for humans as it is for other animals anymore: if we find our climate getting colder, we don't wait thousands of years for hairier humans to evolve, we make more space heaters and thermal gear. I would say this is a mostly a good thing if you base your values on human life. Darwinian selection in the natural world is a cold, bitter, brutish system, and we should all be glad that we do not have to survive that way anymore. The weak, the mentally ill, and the elderly are groups that natural selection does not favor for survival, and I'd like to thank science and technology for making caring for them easier. After all, I like having my mom and my autistic ex-stepson around...

tyler.durden said:

Through technology, it seems we have reached a point where we can provide better for our own survival than nature ever would. Natural selection isn't the dominating force for humans as it is for other animals anymore: if we find our climate getting colder, we don't wait thousands of years for hairier humans to evolve, we make more space heaters and thermal gear. I would say this is a mostly a good thing if you base your values on human life. Darwinian selection in the natural world is a cold, bitter, brutish system, and we should all be glad that we do not have to survive that way anymore. The weak, the mentally ill, and the elderly are groups that natural selection does not favor for survival, and I'd like to thank science and technology for making caring for them easier. After all, I like having my mom and my autistic ex-stepson around...

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Good response...I understand your feelings...

Don't mean to hijack, but I thought this CK Louis bit was HILARIOUS on how to beef up our gene pool:

[video=youtube;F-CvigrOuqE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-CvigrOuqE[/video]

I think its good. IF there is a mass extinction only the best characteristics will be left because our genetic diversity is so large

Oh wtf.. I was just thinking about all of op's statements. Cool.

This is what I posted in another thread..

Is depression needed for survival or are depressed people supposed to die out and not reproduce? Isn't it hereditary? I guess humans kinda cheat natural selection with our emotions eh? I mean, some people can look past looks and physical atributes (which I don't think happens with other animals) and have offspring with somebody only because they like "whats on the inside" (emotions) of the opposite sex.

I should have read this thread first. You explained it much better than me billybonnie.. +rep

many other species strive to keep their weaker members alive. any species where there is a bond between parent and offspring holds this potential. the biggest difference between us and those other species is that many of our societies actually force their stronger, faster and wiser members to care for the weaker. we have invented an imaginary bond between all humans that demands the better adapted care for the lesser, regardless of whether there is any blood or societal relation between them. in itself this does not stand to weaken the general gene pool, as those defects already existed and the effect it has on carrying them forward is minimal. the danger arises when we expand the pool of what we consider "those who must be taken care of", when we declare those who will not take care of themselves must be considered along with those who cannot. we reach a point at which the able are so far outnumbered by the disabled that they can no longer stand the strain of their duties. what happens when we reach the point at which the strong simply refuse to take care of the weak any longer?

Another thought occurred to me: since we've mapped the human genome, perhaps one day we will be able to manipulate a fetus' development to such an extent as to eliminate human weaknesses and to accent our strengths. This way, a couple would be able to combine their genetic material, but to order what they wanted in their child (Male, tall, strong, intelligent, longevity, good head of hair, etc..) We would then have another example of technology trumping nature's processes for the betterment of our species...

I don't know why tyler, but that would definitely make me feel "uneasy".. I honestly don't know why though.

Hepheastus420 said:

I don't know why tyler, but that would definitely make me feel "uneasy".. I honestly don't know why though.

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I've heard similar sentiment to this idea, it would be interesting to examine why this is so. If it's the, 'We Shouldn't Play God' card, we have always done this, and with similar opposition. Anesthesia, transplants, blood transfusions, vaccines, antibiotics, etc., all of these advancements met with opposition (usually religious) while being developed. This is currently the case with stem cell research. I sure am glad that we didn't let the fact that these technologies made many people uncomfortable stop us from developing them and advancing human health...

tyler.durden said:

I've heard similar sentiment to this idea, it would be interesting to examine why this is so. If it's the, 'We Shouldn't Play God' card, we have always done this, and with similar opposition. Anesthesia, transplants, blood transfusions, vaccines, antibiotics, etc., all of these advancements met with opposition (usually religious) while being developed. This is currently the case with stem cell research. I sure am glad that we didn't let the fact that these technologies made many people uncomfortable stop us from developing them and advancing human health...

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I would never stand in the way of making perfect people. I don't care for the god card.. WTH is it? Like seriously I don't get it. If we got it advanced enough, I'm sure we could cancel out depression in new borns too right? Well that would be a damn good thing.

undertheice said:

many other species strive to keep their weaker members alive. any species where there is a bond between parent and offspring holds this potential. the biggest difference between us and those other species is that many of our societies actually force their stronger, faster and wiser members to care for the weaker. we have invented an imaginary bond between all humans that demands the better adapted care for the lesser, regardless of whether there is any blood or societal relation between them. in itself this does not stand to weaken the general gene pool, as those defects already existed and the effect it has on carrying them forward is minimal. the danger arises when we expand the pool of what we consider "those who must be taken care of", when we declare those who will not take care of themselves must be considered along with those who cannot. we reach a point at which the able are so far outnumbered by the disabled that they can no longer stand the strain of their duties. what happens when we reach the point at which the strong simply refuse to take care of the weak any longer?

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They then head over to Galt's Gulch to join me and the rest of the gang

I think that it is detrimental to the gene pool and detrimental to the society that has to adjust to accomodate those that "should not be".

A simple example is peanut allergies - once upon a time they died and there were not many with such allergies, now the fuckers are everywhere and kids can't take peanut butter sandwiches to school because some defective kids could die. ... and if that happens then someone will try to sue the peanut butter carrying kid.

Let them die and stop making the human species weaker.

tyler.durden said:

They then head over to Galt's Gulch to join me and the rest of the gang

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Ah, but who is John Galt? Great book. Read "Anthem" when I was 14, Ayn Rand has been one of my favorite writers ever since. Part 1 of Atlas Shrugged isn't too bad, as far as movie covers of books go.

@Heph: I think it's the fact that the mystery of some things is better left untouched. I'd like to be able to engineer out my future children's genetic issues (Multiple Schlerosis runs rampant in my family line.), however, not at the cost of them being their own person. A good chunk of what makes great people is their ability to overcome diversity. Engineering a genetically perfect future would run the risk of destroying that very thing. If you never have to try for anything, what's the point of doing? Plus, being able to customize your child like a car is dangerous in a world where I have met people that can't be troubled to give their kids proper names. As long as there are people naming their children things like "Parpika", "Spike", "Bunny", or "Bear", I just don't think society is ready to pick their kids' physical attributes.

kpmarine said:

Ah, but who is John Galt? Great book. Read "Anthem" when I was 14, Ayn Rand has been one of my favorite writers ever since. Part 1 of Atlas Shrugged isn't too bad, as far as movie covers of books go.

@Heph: I think it's the fact that the mystery of some things is better left untouched. I'd like to be able to engineer out my future children's genetic issues (Multiple Schlerosis runs rampant in my family line.), however, not at the cost of them being their own person. A good chunk of what makes great people is their ability to overcome diversity. Engineering a genetically perfect future would run the risk of destroying that very thing. If you never have to try for anything, what's the point of doing? Plus, being able to customize your child like a car is dangerous in a world where I have met people that can't be troubled to give their kids proper names. As long as there are people naming their children things like "Parpika", "Spike", "Bunny", or "Bear", I just don't think society is ready to pick their kids' physical attributes.

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LOL! I didn't consider celebs and the non-rational abusing genetic customization. Maybe some folks may be minimal with the technology, only choosing to decrease the chances of genetically undesirable traits (no obesity, MS, clinical depression, mental illness), and let the positive attributes take care of themselves. I feel it's important to note that just because one may have great genetic attributes in no way means they will not face adversity (I assume you meant adversity as you don't come across as racist ). Everyone's lives introduce problems and challenges, it's only a matter of degree or severity: i.e. I want my son to face the challenges of finding who he really is and how best to improve the world, but I don't want him facing the challenges of where to find clean drinking water or wondering where his next meal is coming from.

I loved Rand, too, and have read everything she's ever written. Thanks for the movie review! It looked like crap and I didn't want to view it in fear of sullying the story, but I may have to check it out...

I've rep'd you too many times tyler .

tyler.durden said:

LOL! I didn't consider celebs and the non-rational abusing genetic customization. Maybe some folks may be minimal with the technology, only choosing to decrease the chances of genetically undesirable traits (no obesity, MS, clinical depression, mental illness), and let the positive attributes take care of themselves. I feel it's important to note that just because one may have great genetic attributes in no way means they will not face adversity (I assume you meant adversity as you don't come across as racist ). Everyone's lives introduce problems and challenges, it's only a matter of degree or severity: i.e. I want my son to face the challenges of finding who he really is and how best to improve the world, but I don't want him facing the challenges of where to find clean drinking water or wondering where his next meal is coming from.

I loved Rand, too, and have read everything she's ever written. Thanks for the movie review! It looked like crap and I didn't want to view it in fear of sullying the story, but I may have to check it out...

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Good catch with the "diversity" bit, definitely meant "adversity" there. Though race does introduce an interesting new line of thought; if we got to the point of being able to essentially customize our offspring, how many people would change their child's race because they feel it would give them a better chance at success? Though I would hope by then we would have advanced beyond such petty crap as racism. Being able to engineer out some things we consider to be "problems" could bring up some interesting philisophical questions too. How do we really know that someone's life would be truly better just by preventing what we consider to be a handicap? For example, one needs only to google "succesful people with autism" to see that what one considers to be a handicap, does not hold another back. The creator of pokemon had Asperger syndrome, and managed to directly affect my childhood. What if his parents had removed that? Would we still have pokemon?

I generally abhor cinematic remakes of books I truly enjoy. I think I appreciate this one more because it might inspire people to pick up a book of real literary value, as opposed to it being great. In all fairness, for something that probably didn't have much of a budget, they did well. I like that the movie retains the railroad theme, but happens in the future. It actually makes sense to me, but that may be due to my ignorance regarding train fuel economy.

As far as the OP's question goes. It's a bit of both; it's good because now we have the ability to live longer and render issues that were previously deadly, trivial. However it has it's downsides: overpopulation and financial issues, mostly. I have answers to neither of those, except to tell people to stop having irresponsible amounts of children.

I'd like to offer a dissenting opinion or two.
Evolution as presented by Darwim does indeed posit the fittest surviving ... but here the word "fitness" needs to be elaborated a bit.
The machinery of human evolution (genes mutating and being cut&shuffled) is as active as ever. Also the environmental drivers for evolutionary selection is also as active as ever.
But imo that is only half the argument, because it neglects a very powerful force shaping the bank of genes and heritable traits that underlied the human phenotypes.
The missing half is sexual selection, which until very recently (and most of the time still) was the prerogative of females to exercise. In simplest terms, "which of you lucky fuckers do I choose as a likely partner and parent to my children?" Now after reading some of what passes for romance and flirtation on RIU, I could add the cynical observation that many many females of the current generation are neglecting this right-and-duty ...asleep on the job, as it were.
So I think that we have not stopped natural selection in its tracks.

On a related topic, Tyler mused about an event, which - if it can be developed and exercised with some generality of access - I consider to be the next great evolutionary step ... the conscious feedback of mind and intellect into the substrate of its expression - the human gene pool.

However (forgivably considering recent history of technology) we have a tendency to view the genetic DNA as a simple digital storage and reproduction format for the hard info of the genotype. Nature has had no compunction about employing human engineers' concept of beauty and design in making the hardware or software. The genetic info is packaged very tightly, very contingently (?word) on those few billion basepairs, and having a molecular-level transcript of one or several human genomes hasn't led to the sort of breakthroughs we can reasonably expect of the packaging of information were simpler, more modular. Look at how few genes and their (protein) products are directly involved in the embryonic pageant of the "unpacking" of a zygote into a human fetus. Almost all of that dance is managed using things like hormone concentration gradients. Bottom line: the molecular machinery of inheriting, expressing, changing genetic info is compact but very far from simple. I believe it will be achievable, but we'll need some more advancement in the both the theory and practice of molecular genetics.

But when we do, hang onto your hat, because I believe that once the tech is released, it will lead to a complete redefinition of what it means to be human. Devastating wars have been fought for lesser stakes, and these will be the biggest of them all: Whose children get the stars? Jmo. cn

BillyBonnie said:

For all of history, only the strongest and fittest members of each species has survived...It's evolution's way of ensuring that each species remains as strong as possible from generation to generation...only the strongest and fittest survive. All well and good.

But modern humans, with their big brains, have discovered ways to sidestep evolution's age-old way of ensuring "survival of the fittest", and strength of the gene pool. Specifically, modern humans have discovered ways (through medical "advancements") to allow people to survive who would have not survived in years past. Diabetes sufferers, people with terrible eyesight, kids with leukemia, people with congenital heart disease, people with suicidal tendencies, people with tendencies to develop cancers, etc.

Thus, these heretofore early "diers" are now living long enough to pass their genes on to the gene pool.

Is this a good thing?

Please understand, this post is not meant to incite angry responses. Rather, it's meant to elicit mature (albeit possibly emotional) responses.

All rational opinions welcome.

Click to expand...

This statement is only true when focusing on individuals, if you take into account communal animals you can see that bacterial colonies are the natural evolutionary step from individual, next understand how multi cellular life forms. the strongest are not necessarily the most adaptable, what we have in our society is a movement towards the community from the individual this means that differentiation is occuring within the species, what we see is that specificity increases as certain individuals are allowed to reproduce, in other words we are facing a movement which will ultimately result in some people being neurons, while others are toe nails.

Just hope that your bloodline doesnt get stuck being a foot.