I think this is the beginnings of an economy based on perpetual growth and fossil fuel energy running headlong into geological energy constraints. Basically I see an undulatory downward path for the rest of my life. From here out, I think any rallies in our economic condition are going to be met with spiking commodity prices that knock us right back down.
Posted: Fri Oct 10, 2008 7:28 am Post subject: Re: Just an observation
VMarcHart wrote:
Devin wrote:
Bah. That assertion is just plain ignorant, vmarchart.
Wikipedia wrote:
Natural selection is the process by which favorable heritable traits become more common in successive generations of a population of reproducing organisms, and unfavorable heritable traits become less common, due to differential reproduction of genotypes.
I might add that what is favorable and unfavorable is dependent entirely on circumstance. At any rate, if reproduction is occurring, natural selection is as well. If you're trying to make some kind of point about human exceptionalism, imagined or otherwise, you need to find another basis with which to do so.
Which of these --lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, and pride-- "unfavorable heritable traits became less common" in the last 200-300 years?
That question is a red herring. You're talking about a precisely defined process which includes all species that reproduce and saying it doesn't apply, because... I don't know, you don't even seem to be clear on that yourself. What is and what isn't a favorable heritable trait is dependent completely on circumstance -- in general, there is no way to determine what is and isn't favorable since the success of reproduction is completely unpredictable -- and the traits you've listed are hardly characterizable in general as to be unfavorable traits. It's point-blank absurd to say that natural selection has stopped, and it's just as absurd to say that humans are not being selected upon because whatever you've defined as unfavorable is supposedly not perceptibly diminishing.
Give me a break. Whatever your point is, you need to find another way to make it.
Joined: May 26, 2008 Posts: 1157 Location: Chicago, IL
Posted: Fri Oct 10, 2008 8:09 am Post subject: Re: Just an observation
Devin wrote:
VMarcHart wrote:
Devin wrote:
Bah. That assertion is just plain ignorant, vmarchart.
Wikipedia wrote:
Natural selection is the process by which favorable heritable traits become more common in successive generations of a population of reproducing organisms, and unfavorable heritable traits become less common, due to differential reproduction of genotypes.
I might add that what is favorable and unfavorable is dependent entirely on circumstance. At any rate, if reproduction is occurring, natural selection is as well. If you're trying to make some kind of point about human exceptionalism, imagined or otherwise, you need to find another basis with which to do so.
Which of these --lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, and pride-- "unfavorable heritable traits became less common" in the last 200-300 years?
That question is a red herring. You're talking about a precisely defined process which includes all species that reproduce and saying it doesn't apply, because... I don't know, you don't even seem to be clear on that yourself. What is and what isn't a favorable heritable trait is dependent completely on circumstance -- in general, there is no way to determine what is and isn't favorable since the success of reproduction is completely unpredictable -- and the traits you've listed are hardly characterizable in general as to be unfavorable traits. It's point-blank absurd to say that natural selection has stopped, and it's just as absurd to say that humans are not being selected upon because whatever you've defined as unfavorable is supposedly not perceptibly diminishing.
Give me a break. Whatever your point is, you need to find another way to make it.
Please provide, in the last 300 years, one trait has become empirically favorable and prevailed, and one that has become less favorable and extincted from human beings, and I shall give you the break you asked. All I see is, with the advent of cheap energy --coal, oil, etc--, we reproduced from ~800K to ~6.7B and, despite the modern comforts I enjoy, we are on the brink of a massive die-off. I hardly call that natural selection. What was selected? That's my point.
(Say, could you please turn down the tone?) _________________ 9/29/08, cube, The Dow will drop to 4,000 within 2 years
Posted: Fri Oct 10, 2008 9:21 am Post subject: Re: Just an observation
The "question" you're asking is totally bankrupt. You're using the concept of natural selection so incorrectly it's gone well beyond the absurd and into the ridiculous. This combined with your apparent insistence on asking questions with utterly flawed premises accounts for my exasperated tone.
I state that there is no way to determine what is and isn't favorable and you ask me to provide empirical evidence of a trait becoming favorable. Can I have that break now?!
Joined: May 26, 2008 Posts: 1157 Location: Chicago, IL
Posted: Fri Oct 10, 2008 9:55 am Post subject: Re: Just an observation
Devin wrote:
I state there is no way to determine what is and isn't favorable and you ask me to provide empirical evidence of a trait becoming favorable. Can I have that break now?!
So there's no way to say we're experiencing natural selection. Chances are we aren't, but for sure we are experiencing a population explosion.
As for the break, sure thing, and FYI, all you need to do is stop writing. _________________ 9/29/08, cube, The Dow will drop to 4,000 within 2 years
Posted: Fri Oct 10, 2008 10:07 am Post subject: Re: Just an observation
The process of natural selection is observed, but unpredictable and without inherent direction. Reproduction of any sort is natural selection, and not-reproduction through any cause is natural selection. Quantity of population is a non-factor as to whether natural selection is occurring or not. Saying "chances are we aren't" experiencing natural selection is laughable at best and mind-blowingly stupid at worst, and it's really not me who should be considering not talking. Srsly.
Joined: May 26, 2008 Posts: 1157 Location: Chicago, IL
Posted: Fri Oct 10, 2008 10:28 am Post subject: Re: Just an observation
Devin wrote:
The process of natural selection is observed, but unpredictable and without inherent direction.
Please share with us your observations. All we have heard so far is your hubris, and a lot of I can't demonstrate this or the lack of that. (And by the way, please take a pill.) _________________ 9/29/08, cube, The Dow will drop to 4,000 within 2 years
Joined: Dec 03, 2004 Posts: 1173 Location: Seattle, Wa.
Posted: Fri Oct 10, 2008 10:43 am Post subject: Re: Just an observation
VMarcHart wrote:
[Please provide, in the last 300 years, one trait has become empirically favorable and prevailed, and one that has become less favorable and extincted from human beings, and I shall give you the break you asked. All I see is, with the advent of cheap energy --coal, oil, etc--, we reproduced from ~800K to ~6.7B and, despite the modern comforts I enjoy, we are on the brink of a massive die-off. I hardly call that natural selection. What was selected? That's my point.
(Say, could you please turn down the tone?)
300 years is only 5-7 generations in the human species. We are not fruit flies. Natural selection is a constant regardless of the external environment. In fact it accelerates when there is a disruption to equilibrium like we are experiencing today.
Think about mordern diseases like diabetes, obesity, heart disease, stress related disorders. These are brought about by novel environmental conditions modern humans are living under. Excess sugars and fats in our diet for example. If this would be extended out for millenium you would see rapid changes. Remember, millenium for a species that lives as long as humans is a heartbeat. _________________ Our resiliency resembles an invasive weed. We are the Kudzu Ape
Posted: Fri Oct 10, 2008 10:49 am Post subject: Re: Just an observation
When you use a term in a way that means something completely different than what a consensus of people use that term to mean, and I point it out that you're using that term incorrectly, that doesn't make me hubristic.
By "is observed" I clearly wasn't talking about MY observations, so your request is familiarly irrelevant. I don't know even know what you think you're talking about with regard to natural selection because you still haven't even acknowledged that you're using the term differently than how everyone else uses it.
When you use language in a way such that you want other people to understand, it's helpful to use concepts in similar ways to how other people use them, instead of using a pre-existing term or phrase and making up your own definition for it without sharing with anyone else what you've arbitrarily changed the definition to.
Joined: May 26, 2008 Posts: 1157 Location: Chicago, IL
Posted: Fri Oct 10, 2008 11:27 am Post subject: Re: Just an observation
Ibon wrote:
Think about modern diseases like diabetes, obesity, heart disease, stress related disorders. These are brought about by novel environmental conditions modern humans are living under. Excess sugars and fats in our diet for example.
Thanks, Ibon. Exactly what I wanted for somebody to bring up.
If natural selection is "the process by which favorable heritable traits become more common in successive generations of a population of reproducing organisms, and unfavorable heritable traits become less common, due to differential reproduction of genotypes", wouldn't it be possible that these modern diseases are due to a dificient natural selection? It seems we have lots of unfavorable heritable traits being unnaturally passed around. _________________ 9/29/08, cube, The Dow will drop to 4,000 within 2 years
Posted: Fri Oct 10, 2008 12:13 pm Post subject: Re: Just an observation
I could write an Onion article about this conversation:
Quote:
In a bizarre turn of events today in natural history, natural selection stopped for two to three hundred years. Reproduction did not stop, the passage of genes did not stop, but mysteriously natural selection did stop. Scientists are working hard to shed some light on this mystery, recently discovered by VMarcHart, a participant in an obscure forum, whose brilliance had not yet been acknowledged in the scientific community.
We here at The Onion had the opportunity to talk with V. Marc Hart today, to get a feel for the genius behind this seemingly simple man. "Well, I don't really know what natural selection is, at least how everyone else talks about it," he admitted when asked directly. "But I've found that persistent ignorance leads to the most remarkable conclusions, regardless of their accuracy or salience."
It became clear to us persistent ignorance was his primary methodology, and that the absence of natural selection for this time period was achieved by merely changing the definition of the term. Remarkable, indeed.
----
Stay tuned for the next issue of The Onion -- your source for the cutting edge.
Joined: May 26, 2008 Posts: 1157 Location: Chicago, IL
Posted: Fri Oct 10, 2008 12:41 pm Post subject: Re: Just an observation
Devin wrote:
I could write an Onion article about this conversation:
Quote:
In a bizarre turn of events today in natural history, natural selection stopped for two to three hundred years. Reproduction did not stop, the passage of genes did not stop, but mysteriously natural selection did stop. Scientists are working hard to shed some light on this mystery, recently discovered by VMarcHart, a participant in an obscure forum, whose brilliance had not yet been acknowledged in the scientific community.
We here at The Onion had the opportunity to talk with V. Marc Hart today, to get a feel for the genius behind this seemingly simple man. "Well, I don't really know what natural selection is, at least how everyone else talks about it," he admitted when asked directly. "But I've found that persistent ignorance leads to the most remarkable conclusions, regardless of their accuracy or salience."
It became clear to us persistent ignorance was his primary methodology, and that the absence of natural selection for this time period was achieved by merely changing the definition of the term. Remarkable, indeed.
----
Stay tuned for the next issue of The Onion -- your source for the cutting edge.
Joined: Nov 15, 2007 Posts: 339 Location: US East Coast
Posted: Fri Oct 10, 2008 12:46 pm Post subject: Re: Just an observation
Devin wrote:
I could write an Onion article about this conversation:
Quote:
In a bizarre turn of events today in natural history, natural selection stopped for two to three hundred years. Reproduction did not stop, the passage of genes did not stop, but mysteriously natural selection did stop. Scientists are working hard to shed some light on this mystery, recently discovered by VMarcHart, a participant in an obscure forum, whose brilliance had not yet been acknowledged in the scientific community.
We here at The Onion had the opportunity to talk with V. Marc Hart today, to get a feel for the genius behind this seemingly simple man. "Well, I don't really know what natural selection is, at least how everyone else talks about it," he admitted when asked directly. "But I've found that persistent ignorance leads to the most remarkable conclusions, regardless of their accuracy or salience."
It became clear to us persistent ignorance was his primary methodology, and that the absence of natural selection for this time period was achieved by merely changing the definition of the term. Remarkable, indeed.
----
Stay tuned for the next issue of The Onion -- your source for the cutting edge.
Ouch! That was a deep cut indeed from your edge. Well deserved but deep none the less.
Perhaps some need to experience natural selection to understand it. Then again, he proclaims to not procreate, so maybe he does understand more than we comprehend.
By the way, doesn't he now qualify for a Darwin Award? _________________ When going through hell, keep going! Churchill
Nothing is ever lost by courtesy. It is the the cheapest of pleasures, costs nothing, and conveys much. E Wiman
I know there’s no solution, so I just enjoy what’s here and I enjoy the journey G Carlin
Joined: May 26, 2008 Posts: 1157 Location: Chicago, IL
Posted: Fri Oct 10, 2008 1:23 pm Post subject: Re: Just an observation
Newfie wrote:
By the way, doesn't he now qualify for a Darwin Award?
Ad Hominen again?
Here's the jist of the conversation:
Devin wrote:
VMarcHart wrote:
Newfie wrote:
VMarcHart wrote:
Newfie wrote:
VMarcHart wrote:
Newfie wrote:
VMarcHart wrote:
Newfie wrote:
If we don't reproduce we are removing ourselves from the gene pool.
There's the option of reproducing less and later in life.
Yes, but that is just a modified form of removing ourselves. Others will reproduce more and earlier and that is an advantage.
What others?
Other humans! The more you spread your genes around the better chance of their survival. And the more off spring the better chance one of them will be a real genetic improvement.
I'm 100% convinced there are much better genes than mine in the other 6.7 billion people. The idea of reproducing like rabbits to ensure real genetic improvement is for the X Files.
So, by natural selection, it is hard to see the advantage to genetic longevity to have a single kid late in life when "others" can out produce you to such a degree... The central point of my argument is that natural selection tends to favor higher reproduction of a genetic line. This works against voluntary population controls.
But we haven't had natural selection for 200-300 years at least. We're having high reproduction rates and no natural selection to speak of.
Bah. That assertion is just plain ignorant, vmarchart.
Wikipedia wrote:
Natural selection is the process by which favorable heritable traits become more common in successive generations of a population of reproducing organisms, and unfavorable heritable traits become less common, due to differential reproduction of genotypes.
I might add that what is favorable and unfavorable is dependent entirely on circumstance. At any rate, if reproduction is occurring, natural selection is as well. If you're trying to make some kind of point about human exceptionalism, imagined or otherwise, you need to find another basis with which to do so.
Sure, saying "we haven't had natural selection for 200-300 years" is taking way too many liberties with the wording, but again, please, gentlemen, please do show ONE favorable trait, whether observed, believed, hinted or otherwise, that has come out of reproducing like rabbits and overshooting the carrying capacity of the planet. Just one, please. That's not rhetorical. I really don't know. (Ibon mentioned 5-6 unfavorable traits.) _________________ 9/29/08, cube, The Dow will drop to 4,000 within 2 years
Posted: Fri Oct 10, 2008 1:29 pm Post subject: Re: Just an observation
VMarcHart wrote:
Sure, saying "we haven't had natural selection for 200-300 years" is taking way too many liberties with the wording, but again, please, gentlemen, please do show ONE favorable trait, whether observed, believed, hinted or otherwise, that has come out of reproducing like rabbits and overshooting the carrying capacity of the planet. Just one, please. That's not rhetorical. I really don't know. (Ibon mentioned 5-6 unfavorable traits.)
I read somewhere that people from countries which have been exposed to alcohol for thousands of years (e.g. mediterranean) have a lower tendency to alcoholism, because over the years individuals who were prone to alcoholism were stigmatised socially and tended to reproduce less. Over many years this has an effect of the gene pool. _________________ All that we are is the result of what we have thought. The mind is everything. What we think we become. - Buddha
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