|
Post by The Giant-Size Man Thing on Nov 16, 2004 15:25:17 GMT -5
Have a very nice day. (PWN3D added by myself.)
|
|
|
Post by NeoEllis on Nov 16, 2004 15:52:00 GMT -5
Hehehe.
|
|
|
Post by Infested Manae on Nov 16, 2004 16:12:02 GMT -5
Uhhhh... what's your point? There's been plenty of evidence, like the Galapagos Finches. Those bastards've evolved twice or more times in the past hundred years alone. Changes in beak build, mainly.
|
|
|
Post by The Giant-Size Man Thing on Nov 16, 2004 16:21:46 GMT -5
You missed the point. It's the greatest fake-out National Geographic ever pulled.
|
|
|
Post by Triyun on Nov 16, 2004 16:37:34 GMT -5
*wonders in and gives Bill Clinton esque thumbs up*
An interesting side note:
The Soapes Monkey Trial prosecutor and two time democratic presidential candidate William Jennings Bryant, was not opposed to the idea of evolution in the scientific sense as much as he feared that would validate social darwinism, who's effects are awful for society.
Its interesting that now, the forces that favor social darwinism tend to oppose scientific darwinism, and the ones that favor scientific darwinsm tend to oppose social. Interesting side note I thought I'd mention.
*wonders off*
|
|
|
Post by Infested Manae on Nov 16, 2004 16:51:52 GMT -5
Slaps self in the face, smiles, and suddenly begins rolling around on the floor laughing.
Well, shit. I won't not admit that went right over my head. Heh.
|
|
|
Post by Triyun on Nov 16, 2004 17:18:42 GMT -5
Basically its, Darwinism when your talking about it has to branches. Both are based on survival of the fittest.
One is the scientific branch, thats called evolutionary darwinism. It states, the fittest animal survives.
The sociological branch advocated originally by I believe Spencer is social darwinism, which is survival of the fittest in society makes it healthy.
Religons creationist branch should theoritically advocates in addition to the seven days crap, we have a responsibility in society to look after eachother and not put down one another because were all God's creatures.
In the late 19th century, these theories generally were unified, social liberals as we now call them tended to be more religous and many rejected Darwinism because they saw that gave further validity to the survival of the fittest that industrial barons used to justify encroaching all over labor rights, these barons were the conservatives the religous people were the progressives. Now these two social theories successors are New Deal Liberalism and Reagan Conservatism, the latter to its credit did moderate somewhat but considering how far out there it was thats not it.
How it got there is a long explanation, but its ironic, these two conflicting theories of existence in this country are now views held by the other side.
|
|
|
Post by Infested Manae on Nov 16, 2004 22:11:55 GMT -5
... I was talking about the joke. I know about Social Darwinism and all. Cripes, man, I'm some uninformed twit who never picked up a history book.
|
|
|
Post by NeoEllis on Nov 17, 2004 13:53:38 GMT -5
Also as another sidenote, Darwin was acctually apposed to using the term "Evolution" to describe his theory because the word was, even at that point in time, used to describe what we now call "Social Darwinism".
|
|
|
Post by Juan on Nov 18, 2004 16:56:05 GMT -5
Eh, sometimes I wonder if mankind's evolution is being damaged by our humanity towards lesser individuals. Its no longer where the good genetics are what only is passed while those with bad genetics die off and end the line. I mean, AIDs in a wild population of animals wouldn't last long since hte carriers would eventually die and it wouldn't spread nearly like it is now.
... sorry, been reading too much Dune stuff.
And yeah, National Geographic did pull a good one.
|
|
|
Post by NeoEllis on Nov 18, 2004 17:01:06 GMT -5
So what's your point? Everything from the written word to a hot bath to vaccinations -everything that separates us from less evolved species shields us from selection factors to some degree. By and large, human beings have stopped biologically evolving.
|
|
|
Post by The Giant-Size Man Thing on Nov 18, 2004 17:11:51 GMT -5
There's no such thing as stopping evolution. It keeps going whether we know it or not. It's hard to tell major change as it takes hundreds or thousands of generations to notice significant change.
|
|
|
Post by NeoEllis on Nov 18, 2004 17:21:56 GMT -5
Well, yes -but also no. Genetic drift is going to occur and force evolution no matter what. However, despite the huge periods of time it takes for evolution to manifest note worthy changes, theses changes don't just happen on their own. As we know by examining the fossil record, there were periods of accelerated evolution, but there are also periods when there was almost no evolution at all.
As I stated above, mankind has all but removed itself from the forces of evolution, therefore all but removing evolution from itself. Don't just take it from me, though. This postulation is commonly accepted among most Biologists.
Perhaps I should have phrased is as "Evolution has slowed down asymptotically".
|
|
|
Post by The Giant-Size Man Thing on Nov 18, 2004 17:31:04 GMT -5
Okay, I conceed. Modern humans have found a way to bypass Natural Selection. After thinking about it for the past few minutes, I can see this.
|
|
|
Post by Juan on Nov 18, 2004 17:36:52 GMT -5
Well, it could just be that genetically we're evolving in new ways. We're not evolving physically, we're evolving mentally. Dune is true to form in many ways. But physically, we are evolving. We are steadily getting larger built and taller, we're going to some day possibly end up having three toes unless something intervenes in that line.
And even though we are starting to somewhat slow down evolving, such debillitations do hold back the race evolutionary wise, seeing as how they contribute problems to the genetic track.
Curse you Dune, you've made me think too geneticly.
And Natural Selection has not gone away. Diseases still remain, and the method of choosing mates is still quite made for a quasi-natural selection method.
|
|