With "civilization," do you believe humanity is evolving faster or slower than it had been before?

[Guaranteed]

Conventional wisdom says that evolution has been severely slowed or even stopped within the human genome because of our society's protection of those who typically are seen as "weaker" or "stupider" people, but I don't believe this to be true.

I theorize that this protection of all people is increasing the genetic variance within our species and allowing for greater phenotypical expression of traits that previously were not as likely to produce subsequent generations. These phenotypes do not encompass merely "stupider" or "weaker" people, but instead, more simply, phenotypes that did not thrive in a less compassionate, more individualistic society. However, in this new society, which is clearly evolving itself, these new phenotypes are becoming quite successful.

I believe the increased prevalence of autism tends to back up this theory. The evidence I have seen tends to show that autism primarily is caused by genetics, not by environmental forces, and I believe that the increased prevalence is due to increased reproduction by those carrying genes that were not evolutionarily advantageous when society was more individualistic. And it is not that diagnosable autism is some kind of evolutionary jump, as its most common and severe behaviors clearly reduce social functionality and communication skills in people (although with the hard work of a behaviorist many of these detrimental effects of autism can be lessened). But what the increased prevalence shows is that more of these genes are surviving in the gene pool- the variance of the gene pool is increasing. The genes are surviving in the parents of those children with autism, those parents who have found a place and do function well in today's society, and in the children of those parents who do not exhibit the severe behavior problems that their brother or sister does.

And those people carrying these genes- here is where speculation and my personal experience comes into the theory, and if my belief here offends, I am sorry- are offering things to society that other people would never have offered: different, badly needed (perhaps more egalitarian?) perspectives on stagnant technologies and societal norms. These people get called "nerdy" or "geeky," but they are the ones pushing our world forward. They are the ones with the new ideas that make things better for everyone. Those ideas and innovations are the manifestation of our species' accelerating evolution, and they are the result of increased genetic variance.

In my opinion, evolution is stronger than ever, thanks to the fact that we take care of our neighbors, friends and families. That care gives us the opportunity to realize bigger and better things.

[valerief]

1. 3 or 4 of the Repub candidates don't believe in evolution. They believe

in magic beans.

[HereSince1628]

2. Who's conventional wisdom? Surely not biologists'

And this is one of those circumstances where conventional wisdom of the vulgate has much to offer.

The human genome is still subject to all the microevolutionary events that yeild changes in the frequencies of alleles in a population. Which is to say, there is no reason to believe that the conditions necessary for Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium (=no evolution)are being met.

[Guaranteed]

3. Yeah, I didn't think that biologists would believe that...

It mostly comes up when people talk about how those they deem to be stupid are left in society instead of being killed off, as they expect under the survival of the fittest theory.

But do you think the variance of alleles, in general, is increasing?

[HereSince1628]

6. I can't say I don't even know what a "stupid" allele is or how

one could measure "stupidity." Consequently I can't say whether the range of "stupidity" in the population is increasing or not.

To me "stupid" seems rather more a cultural construction that is applied to certain events. It seems to me a person with a high IQ can do really stupid things...like kill themselves via alcohol poisoning, or running into the back of a tow truck while driving drunk, or getting in an argument with a person who carries a knife, etc. etc. etc. which would alter their individual fitness.

Speaking strictly hypothetically, it seems to me that under the stress of our current cowboy capitalism heritable traits that contribute to increased financial status such as "tallness" or "looks" could result in non-random access to health care. That might actually introduce a mechanism of selection working inside western populations as an opposing force to any relaxed selection on stupidity.

[Guaranteed]

7. No, not a "stupid" allele. Alleles in general.

Genes.

Do you think we're getting a wider variety of genes and phenotypes since our society became more inclusive?

Again, my theory is that we are seeing a wider genetic variety now, and that wider variety is leading to more innovative people.

[madeline_con]

8. I can attest to an increase in stupidity...

in the general population. Look around next time you leave your home, and you're sure to spot an abundance!

[HereSince1628]

9. I joined DU as the 20,000th something member, since then

DU has gotten markedly "stupider." But it has nothing to do with genes.

[Guaranteed]

12. Seriously. Lots of people aren't

even really reading and understanding posts before replying to them.

[BlooInBloo]

4. Oh jeez.

[Guaranteed]

5. What? It's just my armchair "science."

Just a theory.

[spoony]

10. Conventional wisdom thinks evolution means "getting better"

so yes they wouldn't get that it's still happening as change. It reminds me of that Night at the Museum movie where Robin Williams scolds Ben Stiller for fighting with a monkey, he says to him, "Who's evolved?" As in, shouldn't you be better than the unevolved monkey? It was a silly but telling show into how evolution is viewed in pop culture.

[Guaranteed]

11. What's it called when a species is evolving and getting better,

but is doing so by its attempts to phase out the "survival of the fittest" mechanism that had previously determined the species' evolutionary direction?

[spoony]

17. I have to say I don't know, mostly because

only humans, as per your OP, are capable of willfully doing so. :)

[mondo joe]

18. That makes zero sense. What do you think "fittest" means?

Survival of the fittest is descriptive, not prescriptive.

Those who survive to produce viable offspring are by definition the most fit.

[Guaranteed]

22. I knew that was coming...

But the idea is that we are trying to get nobody to die, ever. That seems like our goal.

And, I suppose we're getting closer to it. At the very least, we're getting people to die much later than they previously did- perhaps they're living long enough to procreate, now, where they previously did not.

[muriel_volestrangler]

13. The chances of speciation are reduced, because there's less isolation

With the possible exception of a few peoples deep in the Amazon or New Guinea, the human population mixes a lot these days, so the isolation that is thought to be important for producing separate species isn't here. And a large aspect of what we think of as evolution is "The Origin of Species", to coin a phrase :D.

[HereSince1628]

14. Macroevolution is measured by changes in the array of types

of organisms. Consequently the emergence of new types and the loss of types both change that array.
The fossil record is replete with examples of extinction changing the array of types.

The "rebound" in diversity following major global extinction events seems to actually be facilitated by the elimination of the dominant antecedent types. This notion is perhaps best expressed in the commonly heard phrase the extinction of the dinosaurs made possible the emergence of diversity among the mammals.

Loss of "types" can come from extinction due to demographic failure, or in the case of sexually reproducing species (typically considered by Mayr's models of genetic isolating mechanisms), the re-integration of lineages of incipient "new" types into lineages of "old types." Evidence suggests that such a thing has taken place rather recently in whitefish populations in the Great Lakes of North America.

From this perspective reintegration of subpopulations and the "washing out" of distinctive lineages results in a loss of "types." The loss changes the array of "types," and, it is thereby as much an active macroevolutionary event as Mayr's long standing notion of allopatric speciation of subpopulations during isolation.

From this viewpoint macroevolution is an active tug of war between processes adding "types" on the one hand and those processes reducing "types" on the other. It allows that the underlying microevolutionary machinery are always running, i.e. "evolution is always turned on," yet apparently mostly getting nowhere. It's not necessary to invoke the mechanisms of microevolution as collectively slowing down or speeding up as the forces of influence on the array of types. Rather it is the shifts in macroevolutionary equilibrium which have mostly been noticed.

[The2ndWheel]

15. "but they are the ones pushing our world forward"

To what?

"evolution is stronger than ever"

What? When has it been weak?

If anything, I'd say we actually hate evolution and would love to stop it if we could. "Civilization" doesn't like diversity, and the more identical, predictable, and efficient we can make something, we do exactly that. Not just with us, but all life, at the smallest level.

The idea that evolution is the same thing as progress always gets me too. Evolution doesn't move anything forward. That's too tied up into the concept of time, which is something we came up with as an additional layer of control over all of life. Not to mention that we can never seem to catch up to progress, we can never seem to get to that perfect state. As soon as we got to that perfect state, we could not rest, we could never stop, because as soon as we did entropy would take over and things would start falling apart.

It's just funny to think about being so pro-evolution that we have to do it now, and we have to do it quickly, so that we can move forward to a destination that isn't there. All we end up doing is creating bigger and more complex problems. Of course the "problems" we have center around death, and until that is cured, we're just pushing the problem into the future. The more we do that, and if we don't find a lot of cheap energy, it'll get ugly real quick. We're far beyond any natural limit by now, and we have to defeat our environment before it defeats us. If we have to take it out completely for us move forward, we'll do it.

[Odin2005]

16. Technology is advancing at an exponential rate.

[donsu]

19. evolution is not a constant - it has surges and stops

in each and every specie of life on earth: plants, animals, birds, fishes, insects, etc.

SURVIVAL of that specie is the one constant. the specie changes and survives or not, depending on circumstances.

[mondo joe]

20. Evolution is neither "stronger" nor "weaker". It simply is.

Conventional wisdom is frequently inaccurate.

[blues90]

21. I feel humanity has not evolved for the better

Humanity hsa become a machine to serve interests beyond what a basic human was designed to do . we move too fast and move toward the wrong reasons . I don;t feel this is sustainable without the destruction of mankind , i feel people used to be move in tune and more involved years ago , now we fight eachother on insane issues and it has become isolated and the me generation which is to use and walk over eachother for personal gain .