[a4mula]

Nature is a cruel lover. Darwin told us that in nature the strong survive. This thinning process culminates in a focused gene pool that allows dominate traits and survival skills to be passed from one generation to the next. Examples of this are plenty in the animal kingdom. When an animal becomes injured it's left for dead. If animals are born that cannot fend for itself they are killed. When a lion becomes too old to manage it's pride it's overthrown by a younger and stronger lion. There is very little nurturing in nature. If you cannot survive, you die. Period.

Mankind on the other hand is 'above' animals. We have compassion, we have sympathy. We nuture our weak. We take people that cannot survive and we assist them. We reward an individual that cannot fend for oneself by fending for him. This is the humane thing to do of course.

By allowing the weak to survive we are of course bucking the nature of evolution. We pollute our gene pool by allowing these non-survivors the opportunity to breed this trait. Humankind is reaching a peak of evolution. As non-survival (weaker) traits become more and more dominant our culture, our society, our species will begin a progressively faster descent in deevolution.

Of course at some point we will deevolve to the point where compassion and sympathy are no longer an issue, more basic and animal instincts of survival will once again become the predominent selector in whom lives and dies. The trend will reverse itself and our gene pool will once again begin to evolve. What a cycle this would be.


First let me state that by no means am I an expert or even knowledgable in any of the things I'm tossing out there. This is by no means a call to weed out our society of the weak and malformed. This was just something that came across my thought process and I found it to be an interesting theory. Pick it apart, criticize it. Enhance it, change it. What you choose to do with the line of thought is of course yours to make. If anyone finds this of interest, I have enough thoughts on the matter to fill many more pages on the subject however I didn't want to create a novel of a post.

[Roj47]

I read your posting and understand that it is a potential observation from yourself, rather than a call to arms.

Yes. I do agree that at some point sympathy will be lost as survival kicks in, but at what point?
Some large disasters where you would expect sympathy to be lost are the Asian tsunami and hurricane Katrina, yet even in these disasters where materialistic items are of little value, not only the world, but at ground level people still aided each other where possible.

An event to bring this idea would have to be a global event. At an extreme take an asteroid impact. Straight away the population will reduce (irrespective of ethnic origin, sex, age etc....), but then amount of food will dictate a stable population and weak or those with little drive and idea will die.

Humans have a difference in animals whereby someone considered weak in illness, injury etc.... can have knowledge or ability to offer whereby they are required.

Stephen Hawkins would argueably not have lived had he been born in the 18th centuary, yet today he is one of the most important people in his field.

Without technology and modern civilisation you will read that tribes always respect their elder and will do all that is possible to prolong the life.

Yes I agree with your thoughts, but can not find a situation that would bring down society globally or rapidly.

regards

[a4mula]

An extremely valid point. We as humans do bring more to the table than just our ability to survive. Hawkins is a great example, however he's a rare one as well. The exception to the rule you might say. It's not just the physical traits I refer to when I think of our society in terms of weakness. We have encouraged dependency and neediness. Our welfare systems and our catering to those that are not strong enough to provide for themselves.

I do not see this theory as something that would be played out anytime soon. Just as evolution is a process that takes hundreds of thousands of years to slowly push us in the right direction, deevolution as well would be an extremely slow process. We are at or near the pinnacle of evolution today. You see all around us our compassion weakening our society (in strict terms of the passing of genes!). If we continue to cater to the weakest link of the chain then the chain itself will become increasingly weaker!

[glenndo4000]

where did you get this info from?

This post has been edited by glenndo4000: 25 July 2006 - 10:56 AM

[a4mula]

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where did you get this info from?

What info do you refer to? This is just a theory that I've given some thought to. With the exception of the reference to Darwin, everything I wrote came from my thoughts on the subject.

[glenndo4000]

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What info do you refer to? This is just a theory that I've given some thought to. With the exception of the reference to Darwin, everything I wrote came from my thoughts on the subject.

oh sorry, it just sounded very profeesional.

[Roj47]

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You see all around us our compassion weakening our society (in strict terms of the passing of genes!). If we continue to cater to the weakest link of the chain then the chain itself will become increasingly weaker!

Taking genes, then I would argue the new science in the world of medicine is genetics. I do not read up on daily news and only catch the major discoveries, but more and more errors are being found in single genes and the ability to correct is on the horizon.

Should a point in time arise where the very nature of humans are at risk, then money will very quickly move in the direction of genetics.

Is it true genes can be amended at single cell/ stem cell stage or is this experimental still?

The day that genes become a growing issue will be the same day ethics are taken from medicine...., and then that will be one interesting time.

[Roj47]

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You see all around us our compassion weakening our society (in strict terms of the passing of genes!). If we continue to cater to the weakest link of the chain then the chain itself will become increasingly weaker!

Is a weakening of genes actually a strength?

For reasons I have not looked into, elephants are always characterised by their tusks (bar Dumbo).
There must have been some natural reason for the tusks and string genes would produce larger tusks.

These large tusks were/ are a target for poachers.

Suddenly the balance changes...... A weak pool of genes for tusk generation create an elephant not interesting the poacher, but continuing the species -

http://www.asa3.org/...99809/0534.html

[a4mula]

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Is a weakening of genes actually a strength?

For reasons I have not looked into, elephants are always characterised by their tusks (bar Dumbo).
There must have been some natural reason for the tusks and string genes would produce larger tusks.

These large tusks were/ are a target for poachers.

Suddenly the balance changes...... A weak pool of genes for tusk generation create an elephant not interesting the poacher, but continuing the species -

http://www.asa3.org/...99809/0534.html

Great point! Perhaps we are 'deevolving' to further our species. Becoming much more intellectual, more spiritual, more dependant upon things other than our brute force to survive. Give me some time to absorb the thought and I'll post again tommorow morning. Great thinking by the way.

[frogfish]

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For reasons I have not looked into, elephants are always characterised by their tusks (bar Dumbo).
There must have been some natural reason for the tusks and string genes would produce larger tusks.

These large tusks were/ are a target for poachers.

Suddenly the balance changes...... A weak pool of genes for tusk generation create an elephant not interesting the poacher, but continuing the species -

You got it all wrong...the only reason large tusks are being hard to find is because those elephants are poached...If you go out into the wilderness in Africa, you'll see several large tusks. Large tusks is still the favorable trait.

Deevolution is not possible, but evolving a ancestral trait or something as a coicedence is possible...but very rare.

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Taking genes, then I would argue the new science in the world of medicine is genetics. I do not read up on daily news and only catch the major discoveries, but more and more errors are being found in single genes and the ability to correct is on the horizon.

Should a point in time arise where the very nature of humans are at risk, then money will very quickly move in the direction of genetics.

Is it true genes can be amended at single cell/ stem cell stage or is this experimental still?

The day that genes become a growing issue will be the same day ethics are taken from medicine...., and then that will be one interesting time.

In research, genetics and neuroscience has always been the hottest topics...The lab I work at works in cancer research, mainly prostate cancer. We find many chromosomal abberations in cancers, and then pinpoint the gene by FISH mapping and cDNA microarrays.

*my sig*

This post has been edited by frogfish: 25 July 2006 - 12:50 PM

[Roj47]

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You got it all wrong...the only reason large tusks are being hard to find is because those elephants are poached...If you go out into the wilderness in Africa, you'll see several large tusks. Large tusks is still the favorable trait.

Agreed..... These elephants are desirable, and say 10,000 years ago were totally dominant in beating competition and carrying their genes on to a new generation.

What I suggest is that these strong gene producing tusks create a new enemy to the elephant in man.
You still have the `weak` elephant, but instead of being beaten into submission it finds there is less competition in the field.

I am not talking about the next 5 years, and probably not the next 500, but I would suggest if events continue that large tusks would be the exception rather than the current trait.

The article mentions 70% are large tusked, which is obviously the majority, but not the majority it once was.

This idea will become obsolete should poaching be wiped to a level where it does not affect elephant population as once again the dominant large tusk would spread the gene pool once more.

While I think on it...... I am guessing there is not an actual definative answer. This is more an opinion perhaps, so in time we could both be right, or myself wrong and you right.....


Peace

[Bella-Angelique]

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Becoming much more intellectual, more spiritual, more dependant upon things other than our brute force to survive.

To me this is positive evolution.
It is the only way to go forward into a future age of tech where a single person with a single thought can destroy an entire world that is unprotected.

[Roj47]

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Becoming much more intellectual, more spiritual, more dependant upon things other than our brute force to survive. Give me some time to absorb the thought and I'll post again tommorow morning. Great thinking by the way.

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To me this is positive evolution.
It is the only way to go forward into a future age of tech where a single person with a single thought can destroy an entire world that is unprotected.

This is beginning to sound like the media perception of what an alien should or is expected to be.

Brought me thinking this link, so thankyou a4mula. This is the pre-requisit to many discussions on the ET forum.

For the record I would like to believe in ET, but don't. I hope to be proven wrong one day.

[Uversa]

Good post. This thought has been on my mind for the past few years.

I really don't agree with the following quote by someone in here

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"Becoming much more intellectual - more dependant upon things other than our brute force to survive"

This is taking the idea of a4mula's negative "Human Deevolution" and turning it into something positive, which is unforutanetly not correct.

I think its the complete opposite infact, I think we are absolutely not becoming more intellectual - while we are certainly becoming more advanced technologically - this technolgy is almost a substitute for the average persons intelligence. Not only are we catering for mentally and physically disabled people, we are simply catering for stupid people and even promoting people to use technology instead of thier brain.

But the main point is a4mula's, where in the wild mentally ill, physically ill and plain stupid people would not last 5 minutes, they are actually helped survive and are even allowed to breed in society.

And while there are for sure rare examples, like hawkings, where the result of nurturing a disabled body becomes a positive contriubution to a civilisation, unfortunately it is just that - a very, very rare example.

The average human is becoming more stupid and less self reliant by the day

I think the scariest thing is two complete and utter sensless morons can bring new life into the world. Scary

This post has been edited by Uversa: 25 July 2006 - 03:36 PM

[frogfish]

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I think the scariest thing is two complete and utter sensless morons can bring new life into the world

It happens