Evolution and Eugenist Extremist

Evolution is a description of a process which is inchoate for intellectual purposes. This sounds like some kind of looney tunes combination of religion and science. Evolution is not a entient, self-conscious entity making decisions--it is a description of a circumstantial process.

Although the very concept of morality is repugnant to me, i do agree that such a position is contradictory to common sense, or pragmatism. I do not trust others to decide what is genetically desirable any more than i would accept anyone telling me what is politically correct, or what constitutes a superior ideological or religious belief. There is too little known about genetic process and function for anyone to claim to know what is best. I suggest that although genetic markers may suggest to a couple expecting a baby that such a child would suffer serious debilities, and the consideration of which may lead them to a private decision to abort the fetus--this is none of the business of anyone else.

Eugenics is at the heart of the most vile social models of which i know. It is a concept which disgusts me. Humans are not creatures to be selectively bred like livestock. Had the parents of Stephen Hawking known how disabled he would have been, he might never have been born. That would certainly have been a net loss for the human race.

From the void comes knowledge
Setanta.
Had the parents of Stephen Hawking known how disabled he would have been, he might never have been born.
So ignorance is bliss and we should all practice it.

i said nothing of the kind . . . but you rock on . . .

Great point about Hawking, Setanta. It seems to me that the essence of eugenics is control over human evolution. But it seems that the "control" has been negative or reactionary--not that I disvalue that. People who are disadvantaged physically may not be disadvantaged mentally (Hawking is the great example). But it does seem that because we no longer live so much at the mercy of the physical environment we are no longer "evolving." Ironically, it may be that chimps and other higher primates may continue to evolve while humans cease to, because of our technological ability to create functional equivalents of "naturally selected advances." And whatever we may call the process of "selective human breeding", it is not evolution, as Darwin described it.

Based on our own "evolving" criteria of engineering individuals, that is, one based on IQ, appearance and job description, many of the world's greatest creators would have been forever unknown because their parents would have been considered exceptionally unfit or ungifted for producing such a one. Neither Beethoven, Newton or Shakespeare would have been invented neither St. Paul or Jesus Christ Himself based on our tests for evolving exceptional individuals. As advanced as we are in genetic engineering it seems to be beyond the comprehension of the educated elite that it is the history of the gene itself and not merely that of its carrier which becomes dominant. There is too much of an urge for affluent ambitious mediocrities to "advance" themselves through their children and now supposedly it's possible but it will be a long time before the brain outsmarts the gene.

If we "design" offspring based upon genetic selection weve violated two of the rules of natural selection.
It will no longer be adaptive

It will no longer be random

So--JL, you think we have control of the physical environment eh? MWAH HA HA HA HA.

Last month we were missed by a garage sized bolide by leass than 500Km and we are just waiting for another Miocene sized asteroid that hit in the Chesapeake Bay and another near Baffin.-did a lot of
post adaptive reshuffling of some gene pools.
We will never be in charge of the environment. Weve only managed to take the edge off the small events. The really big ones are where evolutions engine gets stoked.

When a bolide as big as Yankee Stadium hits (USGS estimates of 15 million yr return) we will have populational shifts and genetic pools change so that a micro evolutional event would occur ( for examples, people with eye folds will be selected for because the acidity oif the air will be extreme-or people with larger lung capacities will be selected for)

With an asteroid as big as the Permian or K/T boundary (return frequency of 1: 60M yr) we have complete losses of species and adaptive radiation of entire new ones

You cannot say that wqeve stopped evolving because the condition that induces evolution (for humans) hasnt occured in recorded history YET.

The last biggy was the Tamaroa eruption that , according to cladistics analyses, probably wiped out 90% of the human lines only 75000 years ago.

Good stuff for a coffee conversation.

now, Ive gotta go out halibut fishing. Gonna select some for supper

not too swift-we are still learning about the genic complement and the effect that genetics has over the phenotype. We know that genes are economic, in that one gene can control many functions, some ride together. So, you always have to add the word "YET" when we discuss what we understand or dont understand. This is an extremely dynamic science, that, in the last 5 years , alone, has totally revised our understanding of evolutionary linkages,cladistics, and "what evolved from what".
So, I guess we have to stay tuned rather than apply yesterdays understandings

So then, in essence, FM, you're saying, in response to the question of why you go fishin' . . . just for the halibut?

As a devout fisherman, farmer, I assume you strictly observe the doctrine of separation of perch and skate?

I explain the difference this way. Nothing is selected for - it is selected against.

When you have a trait that does not fare as well - you die sooner. The sooner you die, the less offspring, the less offspring the sooner the triat dies out.

However, natural selection has odd side effects.

Take Sickle Cell Desease. Biologists and Hemotologists believe that Sickle Cell protects the person against Yellow Fever. It does just that - and allows the end user to live past his breeding years in a Yellow Fever infestated demographic.

However, this 'fix' is also the problem and causes the end user to die prematurely. This is a perfect example of why evolution is not a selection for - it is a selection against. A designer would not protect its end user against yellow fever by choosing Sickle Cell.

TTF

What you refer to, ttf, is the immunity of the West African negroe to malaria. The quatenary stage of malaria involves the colonization of red blood cells. The disease is less able to establish itself in those with sickle cells, and therefore, the West African negroe became "the slave of choice" in the West Indies, and, by extension, in the American colonies.

well described 'thinkF';

eugenics is inherently a form of mirror racism, blended with fear of the 'other'.

The way for a neurotic being to justify itself, is to invoke racial narcissism; to declare that it alone is the paragon, and the only 'model' to be emulated.

Any 'other' (feared internally by the subject, and its adherents) is to be vilified, and even destroyed if the social environment will permit it; not to 'cleanse' the genetic lines, but to eliminate any (potentially deadly) competition, upon which evolution has always depended.

[evolution is a 'gene pool'; eugenics, is an 'acid bath'!]

oh, and by the way, 'evolution' is over!

the huge timeframe required for the process to work has been usurped by technology; (warning!!!) only genetic manipulation remains.

"oh, and by the way, 'evolution' is over! "

I beg to differ. Evolution continues, though we have largely frustrated its direct effect on our own species. Our technology gives us some control over our environment, but it is a limited control as Mother Nature so often reminds us. Our grasp of medical science and biology has given us longer lives and mitigated many of the illnesses that beset us. But, again our grasp and control is neither perfect, nor universal.

At this very moment, in Southeast Asia viruses are evolving. Viruses, like all life, are genetically-wired to survive. Some evolutionary changes are unsuccessful and they die. We kill them as fast as we can. Each year a new strain of flu attacks us. Sometimes, like the Spanish Lady in the second decade of the 20th century, the flu will kill more humans than machine-guns and modern artillery.

At this very moment viruses are evolving in Africa. Once our survival in the war with germs and viruses depended upon our body's development of defenses. Now we use vaccines and a variety of drugs in our war for survival against a very lethal enemy. We kill one variety, but another will evolve defenses against our medicine.

New diseases are being born this very moment in the rain forests of the world. Killers cross-over from the world of birds and animals to find new hosts. Insects and filth carry disease, first to the ignorant and then onto tourist aircraft.

At this very moment TB and other infectious diseases are evolving to attack us in Siberia, in the slums of Calcutta, and in the streets of New York. Lack of sanitation, crowded conditions, poor nutrition and the dwindling effectiveness of our anti-biotics and other magic bullets might in the next moment give rise to a world-wide epidemic that could conceivably kill up to one third of our species in a matter of months.


In the meantime, our natural immunities fade, and become ineffective. Europeans developed immunity from a whole host of diseases like measles. The aboriginal population of the New World had never faced those diseases as a threat, and therefore never developed any immunity to them. Disease, not bullets or any conscious policy of genocide, drove American Indians to the brink of extinction. Today, many people have either lost their immunity to those old diseases, or the diseases themselves have evolved into new strains that are not effected by our body's natural defenses.

Sometimes we ourselves create the diseases that may kill us tomorrow. We manufacture biological weapons engineered to incapacitate and kill. We are tempted to engineer our own genetic code, and that might have devastating effects on our survival.

Evolution hasn't ceased, its just that we fool ourselves into believing that we are more powerful than nature.

Well said, Mr. Asherman. I couldn't agree more.

I caught me a 57 pound halibut. Think-dOORMAT FROM HELL WITH TEETH LIKE A PIRANHA.

TTF- Im sorry but your use of "selecting against" describes conditions that preceed extinction. Evolution is the consequence of being "selected for"
Your example of sickling is, as set stated, a genic structure in which a new amino acid is exchanged for glutamic acid in the globin chain. A heterozygous carrier is protected from malaria. but, when 2 heteros produce a homozygous offspring, the sickle cell character causes early death from a number of oxygen deprivation conditions9heart failure, liver , kidney, brain damage etc) The kid never makes it to sexual maturity. the sickling gene is now gradually being reduced from the population of blacks who arent in malaria zones, and therefore, there is no additional benefit deroven.Evolution is adaptive, so an individual is selected for its adaptation TO an environment. Sometimes , by just dum luck, some organisms are "pre-adapted", they have a trait that doesnt work for or against them, until the environment changes and this feature accrues a noted benefit so the guy lives and doesnt go extinct(which would be selection against)

as far as "evolution is over", just cause you dont see the hands of the clock move you know that time moves on. Ashermans use of diseases and co-evolution is a perfect example . im a big fan of external cataclysmic forces wherein the "selected for" are the lucky ones who missed getting in the way of the mega-volcano or a cosmic smackdown.
Whenever one of the major extinction events occur, evolution follows because new niches open up. If a mega volcano hits the best adapted may be sherpas , and everyone else slowly disappears because our technology may not be up to snuff.

When the poles shift, we may be set for about 1-3000 years of high radiation. I wonder whether pre-adapted populations that have melanomas almost non existaent will be the lucky ones and the founder population of new speciation.
Of course we may have a cure for cancer but who knows?

We are evolving as we speak, because we can see imparted on specific populations , a genetic pattern that shows up in in specific DNA sections. These sections, called STR or short tandem repeats, are unique to populations that have clan or familial cohesiveness(at least 20 generations and more STRs show on the DNA after successive multi generations)
Now that we have tools like protease "xeroxing" we can smoosh up MtDNA , xerox the amino acids and proteins, and then run them in a specific type of chromatography where all the proteins and amino acid sections separate themselves according to codon size and frequency.this DNA mapping can show the trends between Amerind fossils of 8000 yBP as compared to modern NAtive Amricans , and the differences are not insignificant. Same thing with Europeans and Asians.
so evolution is still going on . I can discuss till you go to sleep, the many examples but Ill clip it here. I gotta go wash the halibut crap off the back deck of the boat

Errrr, FM...wanna talk about Buddhism?

BTW, watch out for halibut infused with PCBs and mercury, another environmental challenge.

Farmerman,

I am not sure I see how the premature death of the homozygous is any sort of 'selecting for'. I see that at point he has been selected against and thus will not reproduce.

Selecting for - to me - implies design? I don't think that is what you are trying to say - so, um... what are you trying to say.

(I also don't think this is your fault of explanation - I am just not following you).

TTF

evolution only happens to those organisms that survive, therefore selection is a culling "for" a particular trait.
selection against results in extinction, hardly resulting in a candidate for evolution.

you are assuming, in your discussion about sickling , that death of a homozygous strain is the only outcome. Its not, the transfre of the valine for glutamic acid, imparts a protection from malaria(In the heterozygous state only).This occurs in 75% of the population with that trait, and after the population moves to an area of the world without malaria, the trait confers no benefit at all, so in a period of tim e, it is removed from the genome because, statistically, the non sickling population (not protected against a disease that doesnt exist in the local environment) has a chance to increase in proportion to those carrying the trait..



Selection "for' hardly implies design, in fact its a mindless response to a changing environment, and unless you say that the environmental changes are preplanned, then adaptation to a change is what evolution is all about.

JL, PCBs impart a special flavor. im n ot a big believer that PCBs present a danger to the health of our species, since its been raining out of the atmosphere at about 15 nanograms per square yard per year