How We Are Evolving

[Baruch Menachem]

Aligators don't change because the pressure is on them not to change. You make a change, you don't survive.

Humans are in all kinds of weird environments. And we make our own. Human populations are spread all over the place. there are huge pressures that make for huge differentiations.

Alligators can't do much about the fact that they need hot temperatures and fresh water.

Humans are everywhere, and we are infinitely adaptable. But our environments all put different pressures on us which can cause large cosmetic changes in very few generations.

But my understanding is that random mutation don't care if you need to change or not, that's what they're called "Random"

That is true. But if the mutations are a bad thing, then the critter is selected out of the gene pool. this happens in most cases. In the very rare case where the mutation is beneficial, then that mutation takes takes the pool. In the case of alligators, any changes are deleterious. They are selected out.

for some reason Pink skin does real well in northern climes. It is a positive mutation, but it is a recessive gene. The pressures for it to take over a certain geographic region like it did means there is a huge advantage to pink skin in that particular region. those that lack this feature seem to have been selected out very harshly.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Well Frank, try thinking with your larger head.

Most mutations are not beneficial. However, given a large population, there will be a few that are. Sometimes, not even noticably beneficial, because the environement in which they increase the organisms survival chances is not the present one.

The mutatations can come about from many factors other than radiation. And lose the SciFi Movie mentality. Most mutations are very subtle, involving the way proteans work. Over long lengths of time, they do produce a differant specie, one that looks differant, and cannot breed with the parent specie.

If you really want to learn how evolution works, read Earnst Mayr and Stephen Jay Gould.

Alligators haven't evolved in over 300 million years, but man evolved in less than 3,000 years? You sure you have a solid grasp on this mutation business?

He doesn't, but you don't either.

Every species on Earth is constantly evolving. These evolutionary changes are usually slow, but sometimes happen rather quickly. I have not read the article referenced here because most of it is behind a subscription wall, but my guess is that most of it is speculative. The selection for an ability to breathe less oxygen would occur relatively quickly, as anyone with asthma would either die off, or move down the mountains. This would be a combination of natural and artificial selection.

Going back to your question earlier about gamma rays, that might be evolution on a cellular level, but not on the level of a multicellular organism. The damage caused to a nucleus would most likely not be passed on to an offspring. The only way it would be if the damage actually occurred to a germ cell.

Alligators have evolved over the last 300 million years, even if I do not know how much, or in what ways, I do know that. Just because the evolution is not dramatic does not mean it is not there.

Adapting to a higher altitude is not that dramatic on the evolutionary scale.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

But this doesn't in any way prove "evolution" the way most people understand evolution to be. Evolution is typically understood to be one species turning into a totally different species over time.

By people who know nothing about evolution, maybe.

Actually, he is right, this does not prove macro evolution. If you understood what you read you would know that. What this demonstrates, and still does not prove, is selective adaptation to environment. This is only a small part of the larger picture that contributes to our understand of evolution, which, taken together, demonstrates evolution.

 

[code1211]

Aligators don't change because the pressure is on them not to change. You make a change, you don't survive.

Humans are in all kinds of weird environments. And we make our own. Human populations are spread all over the place. there are huge pressures that make for huge differentiations.

Alligators can't do much about the fact that they need hot temperatures and fresh water.

Humans are everywhere, and we are infinitely adaptable. But our environments all put different pressures on us which can cause large cosmetic changes in very few generations.

But my understanding is that random mutation don't care if you need to change or not, that's what they're called "Random"

Random mutations are random. If it is coincidentally advatageous for the individual, it may spread. If not, it may not. Both the mutation and the generational effects are random to some extent. If you are struck by a random mutation, but then are isolated, no possiblity of spreading that mutation.

Maybe it's blond hair or light skin or bowed legs or big eyes. Maybe it's the opposite of those things. Random is just that and it's a crap shoot.

 

[code1211]

Mankind started dramatically changing the genome when we went from migratory hunter gatherers to a more collective system of farming.

First the genome changed because our diets changed, secondly since we lived closer together those with better immunity systems thrived.

The next major impact on the human genome began (and is probably still impacting it) because of industrialization. Since that system rewards those with superior mechanical skills, and those rewards insure a biofeedback system whereby those with those skills tend to do better, hence breed better than those without those talents.

Now we're rapidly approaching a technology where machines are doing out thinking for us.

Ironically, this might have the effect of dumbing down the average human genome.

Man is a social animal.

So as society changes, the genome of mankind is likewise effected over time.

It's a socio-bio-feedback effect.

Consider that the natives of the most primative place in the world (New Guini) actually have statistically significant higher IQs than people in industrialized world.

Why?

Because they NEED higher IQs to survive in that primative (and very violent) world of theirs.

I SUSPECT that their higher range and the rest of industrialized mankinds were once on a par, but the effect of civilized life (since we started farming and living in more dense demographics) makes people with superior auto-immune systems more likely to breed successfully than those with superior IQs.

Ironic, isn't it?

A primative man has to have superior intelligence and mastery over his society's every technology to make it.

We living in highly evolved societies mostly have NO mastery over our technologies and yet we can breed like rabbits.

Without having seen the test or the data, it's possible that the test was scewed toward functions that are used by the primitive natives discussed above.

I recall a question from some placement type test that showed a flat diagram with lines on it that made it look like a gerrymandered Congressional District showing counties and the question was asking what it would look like if folded up into a 3-dimensional shape. Seriously? Who cares?

How might these natives make out if they were given the choice to submit answers in writing or with a "QWERTY" key board? How did they record their answers in the actual testing? No. 2 burnt stick?

If the questions favor their experience over the experience of the "civilized", of course they would do better and the reverse is true as well.

 

[code1211]

Well Frank, try thinking with your larger head.

Most mutations are not beneficial. However, given a large population, there will be a few that are. Sometimes, not even noticably beneficial, because the environement in which they increase the organisms survival chances is not the present one.

The mutatations can come about from many factors other than radiation. And lose the SciFi Movie mentality. Most mutations are very subtle, involving the way proteans work. Over long lengths of time, they do produce a differant specie, one that looks differant, and cannot breed with the parent specie.

If you really want to learn how evolution works, read Earnst Mayr and Stephen Jay Gould.

Alligators haven't evolved in over 300 million years, but man evolved in less than 3,000 years? You sure you have a solid grasp on this mutation business?

He doesn't, but you don't either.

Every species on Earth is constantly evolving. These evolutionary changes are usually slow, but sometimes happen rather quickly. I have not read the article referenced here because most of it is behind a subscription wall, but my guess is that most of it is speculative. The selection for an ability to breathe less oxygen would occur relatively quickly, as anyone with asthma would either die off, or move down the mountains. This would be a combination of natural and artificial selection.

Going back to your question earlier about gamma rays, that might be evolution on a cellular level, but not on the level of a multicellular organism. The damage caused to a nucleus would most likely not be passed on to an offspring. The only way it would be if the damage actually occurred to a germ cell.

Alligators have evolved over the last 300 million years, even if I do not know how much, or in what ways, I do know that. Just because the evolution is not dramatic does not mean it is not there.

Adapting to a higher altitude is not that dramatic on the evolutionary scale.

From an evolutionary point of view, the ability to adapt was probably the evolved trait. The actual adaptation to the higher altitude was merely the evidence that it was posessed by those that adapted.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Well Frank, try thinking with your larger head.

Most mutations are not beneficial. However, given a large population, there will be a few that are. Sometimes, not even noticably beneficial, because the environement in which they increase the organisms survival chances is not the present one.

The mutatations can come about from many factors other than radiation. And lose the SciFi Movie mentality. Most mutations are very subtle, involving the way proteans work. Over long lengths of time, they do produce a differant specie, one that looks differant, and cannot breed with the parent specie.

If you really want to learn how evolution works, read Earnst Mayr and Stephen Jay Gould.

Alligators haven't evolved in over 300 million years, but man evolved in less than 3,000 years? You sure you have a solid grasp on this mutation business?

Well for sure you do not. Our species, Homo Sapiens, is about 200,000 years old. The Homo group, Erectus, Habilus, Neanderthal, about 2 million years old. Man in no way evolved in only 3000 years.

Did you bother to read the OP?

"One study estimated that the beneficial variant spread to high frequency within the past 3,000 years—a mere instant in evolutionary terms."

Do we have consensus that you did not? Is it settled science that you posted before reading the OP?

 

[asterism]

Mankind started dramatically changing the genome when we went from migratory hunter gatherers to a more collective system of farming.

First the genome changed because our diets changed, secondly since we lived closer together those with better immunity systems thrived.

The next major impact on the human genome began (and is probably still impacting it) because of industrialization. Since that system rewards those with superior mechanical skills, and those rewards insure a biofeedback system whereby those with those skills tend to do better, hence breed better than those without those talents.

Now we're rapidly approaching a technology where machines are doing out thinking for us.

Ironically, this might have the effect of dumbing down the average human genome.

Man is a social animal.

So as society changes, the genome of mankind is likewise effected over time.

It's a socio-bio-feedback effect.

Consider that the natives of the most primative place in the world (New Guini) actually have statistically significant higher IQs than people in industrialized world.

Why?

Because they NEED higher IQs to survive in that primative (and very violent) world of theirs.

I SUSPECT that their higher range and the rest of industrialized mankinds were once on a par, but the effect of civilized life (since we started farming and living in more dense demographics) makes people with superior auto-immune systems more likely to breed successfully than those with superior IQs.

Ironic, isn't it?

A primative man has to have superior intelligence and mastery over his society's every technology to make it.

We living in highly evolved societies mostly have NO mastery over our technologies and yet we can breed like rabbits.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSROlfR7WTo]YouTube - "Idiocracy" introduction - the future of human evolution[/ame]

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Aligators don't change because the pressure is on them not to change. You make a change, you don't survive.

Humans are in all kinds of weird environments. And we make our own. Human populations are spread all over the place. there are huge pressures that make for huge differentiations.

Alligators can't do much about the fact that they need hot temperatures and fresh water.

Humans are everywhere, and we are infinitely adaptable. But our environments all put different pressures on us which can cause large cosmetic changes in very few generations.

But my understanding is that random mutation don't care if you need to change or not, that's what they're called "Random"

You're an idiot. There is more to evolution than mutation- you know, like natural selection and genetic drift...

Let's use the OP as an example. I'm going out on a limb here assuming you read it, but the OP claims that humans evolved a new capability in 3,000 years. It does not say if it was due to a random mutation, natural selection or genetic drift.

I guess the males who could not breathe so well at altitude were not able to breed, that might explain it. "No, honey, I'm winded from taking my shorts off, there's no chance of my procreating, go see the Sherpa Tenzig in the next tent"

Genetic drift? Hmmm, I'm not sure what that would mean in the context of the OP

Or our old buddy random mutations.

If humans evolve in 3,000 years, shouldn't we see massive, total, complete changes in every species on the planet over a similar time frame?

With so many millions of species surely there must be several who have evolved power and abilities far beyond those of their ancestors in a brief time-frame.

Yet with 5 full orders of magnitude more time that the 3,000 years these human evolved, alligators and countless other species seen to remain unfazed by this force of evolution.

 

[JBeukema]

Mutations, like anything else, are subject to probability. Unless you can point to some actual reason for evolution to be the only exception to this, mutations are going to split roughly evenly between being harmful and being helpful.

What about those that have no impact on fitness (that is, they make the organism neither more nor less successful at reproduction)?

 

[JBeukema]

for some reason Pink skin does real well in northern climes. It is a positive mutation, but it is a recessive gene

Skin colour is a polygenic trait.

 

[JBeukema]

Mankind started dramatically changing the genome when we went from migratory hunter gatherers to a more collective system of farming.

First the genome changed because our diets changed, secondly since we lived closer together those with better immunity systems thrived.

The next major impact on the human genome began (and is probably still impacting it) because of industrialization. Since that system rewards those with superior mechanical skills, and those rewards insure a biofeedback system whereby those with those skills tend to do better, hence breed better than those without those talents.

Now we're rapidly approaching a technology where machines are doing out thinking for us.

Ironically, this might have the effect of dumbing down the average human genome.

Man is a social animal.

So as society changes, the genome of mankind is likewise effected over time.

It's a socio-bio-feedback effect.

Consider that the natives of the most primative place in the world (New Guini) actually have statistically significant higher IQs than people in industrialized world.

Why?

Because they NEED higher IQs to survive in that primative (and very violent) world of theirs.

I SUSPECT that their higher range and the rest of industrialized mankinds were once on a par, but the effect of civilized life (since we started farming and living in more dense demographics) makes people with superior auto-immune systems more likely to breed successfully than those with superior IQs.

Ironic, isn't it?

A primative man has to have superior intelligence and mastery over his society's every technology to make it.

We living in highly evolved societies mostly have NO mastery over our technologies and yet we can breed like rabbits.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSROlfR7WTo"]YouTube - "Idiocracy" introduction - the future of human evolution[/ame]

Amazing how few people realize that the point made in that scene is one of the most common arguments historically made by.... eugenicists!

 

[editec]

Well Frank, try thinking with your larger head.

Most mutations are not beneficial. However, given a large population, there will be a few that are. Sometimes, not even noticably beneficial, because the environement in which they increase the organisms survival chances is not the present one.

The mutatations can come about from many factors other than radiation. And lose the SciFi Movie mentality. Most mutations are very subtle, involving the way proteans work. Over long lengths of time, they do produce a differant specie, one that looks differant, and cannot breed with the parent specie.

If you really want to learn how evolution works, read Earnst Mayr and Stephen Jay Gould.

Alligators haven't evolved in over 300 million years, but man evolved in less than 3,000 years? You sure you have a solid grasp on this mutation business?

Well for sure you do not. Our species, Homo Sapiens, is about 200,000 years old. The Homo group, Erectus, Habilus, Neanderthal, about 2 million years old. Man in no way evolved in only 3000 years.

I suspect the human genome HAS changed statistically, OR.

We're still the same species, but the aggregate human genome IS changing.

This too is a KIND of evolutionary change of the species.

And this kind of genome evolutionary change doesn't take random mutations to happen, either.

Mostly its a question of which humans breed most successfully and that is mostly a question of how society evolves to reward those of us with genetic skill sets which society can use.

Human evolution isn't like evolution of most other species. Those species find their environmental niche and thrive in it until they don't.

Humans can and do CHANGE their environment.

And since humans are so reliant on society to thrive, and our society (unlike that say of termites or ants) changes SO rapidly thanks to our ability to pass information on from one generation to the next, we end up changing our combine genome far more than random selection EVER can.

 

[Baruch Menachem]

A harsh environment is by its nature intensively selective. If you don't have what it takes to survive an environment, you are selected out. You leave no decedents. Only those who have the genetic wherewithal to survive can survive.

I would also imagine that at 14,000' there is a lot more gamma radiation anyway. You would get a larger variety in the pool, and a harsher weeding out at those altitudes.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Alligators haven't evolved in over 300 million years, but man evolved in less than 3,000 years? You sure you have a solid grasp on this mutation business?

He doesn't, but you don't either.

Every species on Earth is constantly evolving. These evolutionary changes are usually slow, but sometimes happen rather quickly. I have not read the article referenced here because most of it is behind a subscription wall, but my guess is that most of it is speculative. The selection for an ability to breathe less oxygen would occur relatively quickly, as anyone with asthma would either die off, or move down the mountains. This would be a combination of natural and artificial selection.

Going back to your question earlier about gamma rays, that might be evolution on a cellular level, but not on the level of a multicellular organism. The damage caused to a nucleus would most likely not be passed on to an offspring. The only way it would be if the damage actually occurred to a germ cell.

Alligators have evolved over the last 300 million years, even if I do not know how much, or in what ways, I do know that. Just because the evolution is not dramatic does not mean it is not there.

Adapting to a higher altitude is not that dramatic on the evolutionary scale.

From an evolutionary point of view, the ability to adapt was probably the evolved trait. The actual adaptation to the higher altitude was merely the evidence that it was posessed by those that adapted.

You might have something there.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Mutations, like anything else, are subject to probability. Unless you can point to some actual reason for evolution to be the only exception to this, mutations are going to split roughly evenly between being harmful and being helpful.

What about those that have no impact on fitness (that is, they make the organism neither more nor less successful at reproduction)?

What about them? How do they change the fact that beneficial and adverse mutations will be split roughly equal?

 

[SmarterThanHick]

But my understanding is that random mutation don't care if you need to change or not, that's what they're called "Random"

That's absolutely amazing. It's like you can't keep TWO concepts in your head at the same time. This process needs both mutation, a random process, and some isolation of that mutation, such as natural selection, which is a NON-RANDOM process. It needs both. I don't quite understand how you can focus on one while forgetting the other, and then flip.

Random mutations don't "care". The non-random isolation of those random mutations do.

If humans evolve in 3,000 years, shouldn't we see massive, total, complete changes in every species on the planet over a similar time frame?

No, because once again you need BOTH aspects to this dumbed down version of evolution. Even IF mutations happened at the same rate across every species, which they don't, the environmental pressures are not the same. You give a dog the option between sleeping in a warm house or sleeping outside, it'll choose the warm house every time. You give humans the same option, and eventually one person will get pissed at another, be stubborn, and head out into the cold. We are notorious for ignoring environmental stressors.

You like going back to alligators for some reason. How many times have you seen an alligator forgo its native waters to just stroll onto land and take up hunting small game? Yet humans have no problem boarding a ship, sailing half-way across the world, and assuming they'll figure out how to survive regardless of the environment once they get there.

 

[dilloduck]

Aligators don't change because the pressure is on them not to change. You make a change, you don't survive.

Humans are in all kinds of weird environments. And we make our own. Human populations are spread all over the place. there are huge pressures that make for huge differentiations.

Alligators can't do much about the fact that they need hot temperatures and fresh water.

Humans are everywhere, and we are infinitely adaptable. But our environments all put different pressures on us which can cause large cosmetic changes in very few generations.

Humans are infinitely adaptable ? Really?

 

[CrusaderFrank]

But my understanding is that random mutation don't care if you need to change or not, that's what they're called "Random"

That's absolutely amazing. It's like you can't keep TWO concepts in your head at the same time. This process needs both mutation, a random process, and some isolation of that mutation, such as natural selection, which is a NON-RANDOM process. It needs both. I don't quite understand how you can focus on one while forgetting the other, and then flip.

Random mutations don't "care". The non-random isolation of those random mutations do.

If humans evolve in 3,000 years, shouldn't we see massive, total, complete changes in every species on the planet over a similar time frame?

No, because once again you need BOTH aspects to this dumbed down version of evolution. Even IF mutations happened at the same rate across every species, which they don't, the environmental pressures are not the same. You give a dog the option between sleeping in a warm house or sleeping outside, it'll choose the warm house every time. You give humans the same option, and eventually one person will get pissed at another, be stubborn, and head out into the cold. We are notorious for ignoring environmental stressors.

You like going back to alligators for some reason. How many times have you seen an alligator forgo its native waters to just stroll onto land and take up hunting small game? Yet humans have no problem boarding a ship, sailing half-way across the world, and assuming they'll figure out how to survive regardless of the environment once they get there.

Why don't mutations happen at the same rate across all species? Then they cannot be random, right?

 

[CrusaderFrank]

I keep getting confused over this "mutation" business. You mean a gamma ray hit a cell and magically altered the DNA?

Don't worry, someone made a book just for you.

[ame=http://www.amazon.com/Evolution-Dummies-Greg-Krukonis-PhD/dp/0470117737]Amazon.com: Evolution For Dummies (9780470117736): Greg Krukonis PhD, Tracy Barr: Books[/ame]

Keep it on the shelf next to this one

[ame=http://www.amazon.com/Global-Warming-Dummies-Elizabeth-May/dp/0470840986]Amazon.com: Global Warming For Dummies (9780470840986): Elizabeth May, Zoe Caron: Books[/ame]