Modern reflief for evolutionary pressures.

[The_Hammer]

I recently had an interesting discussion with a philosophy professor at my school. He was talking about some wierd idea of "human cyborgs". Human beings, who are addicted to internet sex have allowed their machines to become apart of them. It got me to thinking, what other types of behaviors that normally would have been repressed or an alternative would have been forced on a person in the past presently exsists outlets for what might have been an evolutionary pressure that under older conditions would usually reduce fecundity.

For example, my friends mother is allergic to wheat gluten. Now there are many substitutes for wheat based food. However, 100 or 200 years ago, unless she was very rich and her family knew what was wrong with her, she probably would have died soon after weaning since she couldn't consume bread and other wheat staples, at the very minimum she would have been ill most of her life and had difficulty buying food since her selection would have been limited.

In the reverse a trait that might have in the past,not mattered when it came to fecundity, now because of relief which now allows a trait to be expressed instead reduces fecundity. For example, if an individual has difficulty forming relationships with other people and relishes in fantasy relationships from literature or pornagraphy, might have 100 or 200 years ago had been forced to form relationships because there was no alternative or an alternative was not available to them (being unable to read escapist literature due to illiteracy). Or someone who was homosexual might have in the past, in order to make up for their inablity (due to societal pressure) in the past to enjoy a mate of their sexual preference, might have married someone of the opposite sex anyway since social pressure would have made an open homosexual relationship impossible. Today some of that pressure is largely not present and someone who might have reproduced naturally may not (note this does not account for artifical inseminations).

Any thoughts on this?

 

[Angel Heart]

Well... I know for myself, if it wasn't for modern day medical science I wouldn't of made it out of childhood. I had strep throat more than once. Only way to get rid of it is to give antibiotics.

That's not even looking at the things in the modern world that would of killed me had my mom choose them. Thankfully my mom breastfed me. I'm still allergic to cows milk. When I was born formula didn't come in soy. Even then it still has cow products in it. When my mom weaned me it was to goats milk.

BTW I have 5 kids.

 

[BrianH]

I recently had an interesting discussion with a philosophy professor at my school. He was talking about some wierd idea of "human cyborgs". Human beings, who are addicted to internet sex have allowed their machines to become apart of them. It got me to thinking, what other types of behaviors that normally would have been repressed or an alternative would have been forced on a person in the past presently exsists outlets for what might have been an evolutionary pressure that under older conditions would usually reduce fecundity.

For example, my friends mother is allergic to wheat gluten. Now there are many substitutes for wheat based food. However, 100 or 200 years ago, unless she was very rich and her family knew what was wrong with her, she probably would have died soon after weaning since she couldn't consume bread and other wheat staples, at the very minimum she would have been ill most of her life and had difficulty buying food since her selection would have been limited.

In the reverse a trait that might have in the past,not mattered when it came to fecundity, now because of relief which now allows a trait to be expressed instead reduces fecundity. For example, if an individual has difficulty forming relationships with other people and relishes in fantasy relationships from literature or pornagraphy, might have 100 or 200 years ago had been forced to form relationships because there was no alternative or an alternative was not available to them (being unable to read escapist literature due to illiteracy). Or someone who was homosexual might have in the past, in order to make up for their inablity (due to societal pressure) in the past to enjoy a mate of their sexual preference, might have married someone of the opposite sex anyway since social pressure would have made an open homosexual relationship impossible. Today some of that pressure is largely not present and someone who might have reproduced naturally may not (note this does not account for artifical inseminations).

Any thoughts on this?

That's a great thought...

Many of us would be dead today if it wasn't for modern technology in the medical field, etc...

As far as homosexuality goes...it depends how far back we're talking. During the Roman days, homosexuality was practiced somewhat openly even though the man may have a family at home. I believe that, and I see that in some kids, that they have become detatched from reality because of the use of the internet. I see kids that cannot hold a conversation in person with someone because they're so used to doing it on the internet. This is most definately not the case in all kids, but true in some.

I think we have progressed to the point where we are almost in control of the birth and death rate...whereas a couple hundred years ago, you had a collapsed lung, you added to the death-rate most likely...You get shot in the chest and you're dead. Giving birth was more dangerous also. I think techonolgy has alot to do with the evolutionary path.

If this was on topic then great...if it wasn't what you're looking for, I'm sorry, my mind wanders.

 

[Angel Heart]

On the childbirth end of things it wasn't really a medical break through that lowered the rates of death. It was simple hand washing. It was one of the biggest improvements in survival of mothers.

 

[BrianH]

On the childbirth end of things it wasn't really a medical break through that lowered the rates of death. It was simple hand washing. It was one of the biggest improvements in survival of mothers.

WOW..didn't know that. Makes sense....I'm a man of course.

 

[Angel Heart]

It's sad that so many died beacuse of something so simple as hand washing.

Handwashing
Christine L. Case, Ed.D.,
Microbiology Professor at Skyline College


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

photograph by C.L Case Ed.D

During the 19th century, women in childbirth were dying at alarming rates in Europe and the United States. Up to 25% of women who delivered their babies in hospitals died from childbed fever (puerperal sepsis), later found to be caused by Streptococcus pyogenes bacteria.

As early as 1843, Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes advocated handwashing to prevent childbed fever. Holmes was horrified by the prevalence in American hospitals of the fever, which he believed to be an infectious disease passed to pregnant women by the hands of doctors. He recommended that a physician finding two cases of the disease in his practice within a short time should remove himself from obstetrical duty for a month. Holmes's ideas were greeted with disdain by many physicians of his time.

In the late 1840's, Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis was an assistant in the maternity wards of a Vienna hospital. There he observed that the mortality rate in a delivery room staffed by medical students was up to three times higher than in a second delivery room staffed by midwives. In fact, women were terrified of the room staffed by the medical students. Semmelweis observed that the students were coming straight from their lessons in the autopsy room to the delivery room. He postulated that the students might be carrying the infection from their dissections to birthing mothers. He ordered doctors and medical students to wash their hands with a chlorinated solution before examining women in labor. The mortality rate in his maternity wards eventually dropped to less than one percent.

Despite the remarkable results, Semmelweis's colleagues greeted his findings with hostility. He eventually resigned his position. Later, he had similar dramatic results with handwashing in another maternity clinic, but to no avail. Ironically Semmelweis died in 1865 of Streptococcus pyogenes, with his views still largely ridiculed.

More...

 

[BrianH]

That's crazy...I've heard washing hands is important.


I saw a guy on the Colbert Report (Imagine that) who has invented a water purification machine that does not work off of filters or membranes. You put one tube in any kind of liquid and it sucks it through the machine and extracts all of the clean (drinkable) water out of whatever. He said that %50 of disease in the world are water-born pathogens. He wants to place these "filters" in developing and third-world nations in an attempt to "wipe out %50 of the world's disease." It's a really cool invention.

 

[Angel Heart]

WOW... That would improve life everywhere. If you find a link let me know.

 

[BrianH]

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eqg1Hu0PMG0[/ame]

I think this is a good video. It's pretty neat.

 

[Angel Heart]

http://www.rexresearch.com/kamen/kamen.htm

TY so much. I did some Googling and found this. His invention will change the world if it lives up to the hype.

 

[AllieBaba]

I recently had an interesting discussion with a philosophy professor at my school. He was talking about some wierd idea of "human cyborgs". Human beings, who are addicted to internet sex have allowed their machines to become apart of them. It got me to thinking, what other types of behaviors that normally would have been repressed or an alternative would have been forced on a person in the past presently exsists outlets for what might have been an evolutionary pressure that under older conditions would usually reduce fecundity.

For example, my friends mother is allergic to wheat gluten. Now there are many substitutes for wheat based food. However, 100 or 200 years ago, unless she was very rich and her family knew what was wrong with her, she probably would have died soon after weaning since she couldn't consume bread and other wheat staples, at the very minimum she would have been ill most of her life and had difficulty buying food since her selection would have been limited.

In the reverse a trait that might have in the past,not mattered when it came to fecundity, now because of relief which now allows a trait to be expressed instead reduces fecundity. For example, if an individual has difficulty forming relationships with other people and relishes in fantasy relationships from literature or pornagraphy, might have 100 or 200 years ago had been forced to form relationships because there was no alternative or an alternative was not available to them (being unable to read escapist literature due to illiteracy). Or someone who was homosexual might have in the past, in order to make up for their inablity (due to societal pressure) in the past to enjoy a mate of their sexual preference, might have married someone of the opposite sex anyway since social pressure would have made an open homosexual relationship impossible. Today some of that pressure is largely not present and someone who might have reproduced naturally may not (note this does not account for artifical inseminations).

Any thoughts on this?

Only one. My best friend's husband has been allergic to wheat gluten all of his life. He has battled skin issues but was only diagnosed about a year ago.

In other words, he didn't die shortly after weaning. And he has a fairly severe form.

 

[Angel Heart]

Wheat allergies are more common in the western world and rice allergies are more common in the eastern. We introduce grains differently to our children too. Here we start them off on rice and work them toward wheat. In the east they start with wheat and build toward rice. It comes down to what's the staple in the society as a whole uses. More you use it the more common the allergy.

 

[Diuretic]

I hadn't ever seen it that way, that's really interesting.