# Is there a way for us humans to speed up our evolution?



## Diophantine

Blazkovitz said:


> Genetic engineering is the way. It must however be used wisely so that it won't become a tool of tyranny or hedonistic materialism. There must be a place for people who don't want to enhance their or their children's genotype. There must not be a hint of coercion.


This possibility is getting pretty scary, actually. Having just finished "Brave New World", I am more than ever concerned about this possible future of genetically altered humanity. Any synthetic "evolution" must be used solely to improve medical conditions or problems; otherwise it might set dangerous precedents.


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## Rusting

Diophantine said:


> This possibility is getting pretty scary, actually. Having just finished "Brave New World", I am more than ever concerned about this possible future of genetically altered humanity. Any synthetic "evolution" must be used solely to improve medical conditions or problems; otherwise it might set dangerous precedents.


Could you accept aging as a "medical condition" in the sense it behaving as a fundamental disease? Mostly a rhetorical kind of question really, but beyond it being silly, I think it is interesting what society may desire from the future. I tend to consider these fears more suspicious than the actual experimentation that would be involved, but I am not one to assume the government (or whatever powers may be, lol) could guarantee our absolute safety. 

I'm also not attracted to those cyberpunk futures where mankind is grossly linked with technology (cybernetic or even completely organic yet hideous), so a certain symmetry would remain for the human subjects involved. It would be really cool if we could beef up the whole nervous system and just watch it take off from there, but that sounds really complicated and perhaps unrealistic. I would also want to hold faith that the scientists involved in such extreme projects would be too ambitious to let it get commercialized whenever research settles down, but that is beyond us. I don't think that future would be any scarier than what we could expect from today's more mundane endeavors, but I'm just bored so I dunno. 

I guess the best thing to do is just watch what happens anyway.



Blazkovitz said:


> In a civilized environment there is no possibility of real evolution, because there is no "survival of the fittest". We try to cure diseases, rather than allow them to kill people with weak immune systems. We have the police to minimize violence. All this is very good, but makes natural evolution impossible.
> 
> Furthermore, evolution does not typically favor "more developed" individuals, but ones more adapted to their environment. Parasitic worms are more primitive than their wild ancestors, but more adapted to living inside the human (or canine, bovine, etc.) guts.


Oh, the whole dreariness of the "evolution is not goal oriented" rule  But to imagine what a man would be like who is able to endure the sins of the world, in a sense the superior consciousness that holds toward the end of human evolution. Beyond that, something else. 

"Simple works best" still kind of dictates the human though. To elaborate, my country really seems to favor loud and proud politicians who may not think as wisely as some of the people we leave swept aside into the art business or something. Bold moves are often not the greatest for long-term bearing of fruits, and vengeance proves as a kind of karma. Perhaps a better example, a "genius" or potential world leader may not flourish in a third world country. Culturally, we lose some very promising minds all due to hasty behavior that dictates mankind right now. Moreover, we may be able to overcome war itself and maintain the same technological development, if somehow social "wisdom" was elevated. But to finish off the loose ends we are left with, we may very well require more brutal instincts than wisdom. 

So yeah, human evolution now seems to be the antithesis of natural evolution (hence fat and hasty men are allowed to thrive as leaders, which would be impossible in some ancient civilizations). I'm curious if it is somehow possible to employ the "sins" of the world (including diseases, lust, greed, anything that tends to corrupt in some way) into one body designed to simply endure it all. Even if technologically "perfected", the body is still allowed to naturally evolve its own response and resistance against common struggles. Let us all come and believe in Nietzsche's Ubermensch! (in contrast with mimicking Nietzsche's own demise, the poor creature)


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## Diophantine

Rusting said:


> Could you accept aging as a "medical condition" in the sense it behaving as a fundamental disease? Mostly a rhetorical kind of question really, but beyond it being silly, I think it is interesting what society may desire from the future. I tend to consider these fears more suspicious than the actual experimentation that would be involved, but I am not one to assume the government (or whatever powers may be, lol) could guarantee our absolute safety.
> 
> I'm also not attracted to those cyberpunk futures where mankind is grossly linked with technology (cybernetic or even completely organic yet hideous), so a certain symmetry would remain for the human subjects involved. It would be really cool if we could beef up the whole nervous system and just watch it take off from there, but that sounds really complicated and perhaps unrealistic. I would also want to hold faith that the scientists involved in such extreme projects would be too ambitious to let it get commercialized whenever research settles down, but that is beyond us. I don't think that future would be any scarier than what we could expect from today's more mundane endeavors, but I'm just bored so I dunno.
> 
> I guess the best thing to do is just watch what happens anyway.


Funny, in _Brave New World_, aging was actually one of the last things to be altered by "medicine". "Gonadal hormones, young blood transfusion, and magnesium salts" were used to keep people looking 20-30 years old until they turned 60 years old, at which point they suddenly died. This also altered their brain makeup and ultimately demolished any psychological changes one experiences at aging. Huxley's society calls this "peculiarities", a society that, to be stable, must abolish all forms of pain or inconvenience, including the psychology that comes along with old age. Again, a dangerous precedent. 

Of course, there is nothing wrong with individuals themselves taking initiative to maintain good condition and slow their aging process. Just recently studies have shown that muscle atrophy is one of the main causes of illness at old age, and developing and maintaining one's muscle can keep one physically fit and able until very old age. Assuming a lot of exercise and proper diet. 

Personally, I think this could be a better solution than developing some sort of drugs to slow aging in an almost unnatural manner -- if that is even possible.


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## conscius

When I made the thread, I was thinking of evolution as something positive, for some reason, but I have to be reminded that it's a blind process, and about survival of the fittest and reproduction, that's the only thing that matters. Being more evolved doesn't mean you're better. It may be argued that many of us are physically weaker than people who lived many thousands of years ago. But given our enriched and complex intellectually demanding environment, quite likely we're smarter. 
Another interesting issue to ponder is ethnic and racial makeup of future generations. Right now the two most populous countries in the world are China and India. Of the two India has higher birth rate. The more technological advanced nations have lowest birth rates (highest are African countries). But evolution works on much larger scale so we're not talking 200 years from now, but like at least ten or twenty thousand years from now. It's cool though to imagine how future humans would look, act, think, behave.


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## Blazkovitz

Diophantine said:


> Any synthetic "evolution" must be used solely to improve medical conditions or problems; otherwise it might set dangerous precedents.


Self defeating for a society to choose this way. Another society will enhance itself and gain dominance. If this society is benevolent, it will allow the traditional humans to coexist with itself, but if it is not then... God protect us.


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## Blazkovitz

conscius said:


> Another interesting issue to ponder is ethnic and racial makeup of future generations. Right now the two most populous countries in the world are China and India. Of the two India has higher birth rate. The more technological advanced nations have lowest birth rates (highest are African countries).


Probably, races and ethnicities will melt. Some groups may however stay "racially pure", like the Amish.


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## Tzara

conscius said:


> Or rather, what would we be needed, for evolution to move faster? Is it only time?


Start killing the genetically faulty. And we will have a much better evolved human race in.. like 70 years tops.

I'm fairly disappointed with the sci-tech forum :/
Kinda hoping everyone here is being sarcastic.


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## Word Dispenser

AliceWonder said:


> I hate to nitpick but genetic engineering isn't evolution, it is genetic engineering.
> 
> evolution is a process involving natural selection to allow a population to adapt to its environment.
> 
> When we genetically modify plants, animals, etc. it isn't evolution. The modified genes may become part of evolution for the species but generally nature selects against them because they are not as advantageous outside of our control.
> 
> Now there are some who want to take genes in frog that provide resistance to the chitrid fungus and engineer them into critically endangered species that are vulnerable to the fungus. If we did that, released them, and the gene worked and spread through the population - that would be human assisted evolution because natural selection is involved.
> 
> But genetic engineering itself is not evolution.


Right!?

People just don't get the definition right these days. Thanks, television. :kitteh:


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## FourLeafCloafer

Tzara said:


> Start killing the genetically faulty. And we will have a much better evolved human race in.. like 70 years tops.
> 
> I'm fairly disappointed with the sci-tech forum :/
> Kinda hoping everyone here is being sarcastic.


And how are you going to determine that? Everyone has potentially deadly mutations, very harmful mutations, and mildly harmful mutations in about the same measure. Just because someone is a homozygote doesn't mean that they have more faults than others.


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## Tzara

stultum said:


> And how are you going to determine that? Everyone has potentially deadly mutations, very harmful mutations, and mildly harmful mutations in about the same measure. Just because someone is a homozygote doesn't mean that they have more faults than others.


I'm not saying kill people when they are born. -.-
Let them develop until the age they can procreate. Then kill the faulty ones based on one attribute.
When one attribute is completely implemented, skip to the next one.


Eg. 1000 beanstalks, kill 900 short ones
100 long bean stalks
produce more,
1000 long bean stalks
kill 900 green ones
100 yellow long bean stalks.
produce more
1000 yellow long bean stalks.

Same for humans:
Kill 5 billion selectively, and voila!
You have a tall human race in your hands.
reproduce,
kill 5 billion
and you have a smarter taller human race!
(We know that intellect has its nature counterparts as nurture)

Now obviously there will be some faulty kills, but overall, this will increase the genetic quality.


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## FourLeafCloafer

Tzara said:


> I'm not saying kill people when they are born. -.-
> Let them develop until the age they can procreate. Then kill the faulty ones based on one attribute.
> When one attribute is completely implemented, skip to the next one.
> 
> 
> Eg. 1000 beanstalks, kill 900 short ones
> 100 long bean stalks
> produce more,
> 1000 long bean stalks
> kill 900 green ones
> 100 yellow long bean stalks.
> produce more
> 1000 yellow long bean stalks.
> 
> Same for humans:
> Kill 5 billion selectively, and voila!
> You have a tall human race in your hands.
> reproduce,
> kill 5 billion
> and you have a smarter taller human race!
> (We know that intellect has its nature counterparts as nurture)
> 
> Now obviously there will be some faulty kills, but overall, this will increase the genetic quality.


No, it won't. You are creating bottleneck after bottleneck, eliminating the variation that keeps us healthy. I repeat:

Everyone has potentially deadly mutations, very harmful mutations, and mildly harmful mutations in about the same measure. Just because someone is a homozygote doesn't mean that they have more faults than others.

If you kill off a big part of the population, you increase the effect of genetic drift (as opposed to selection) which makes the population _weaker_ rather than stronger.

Selecting on traits that are determined by multiple genes only makes this process more dangerous, especially considering that one gene can influence multiple traits.

About those beanstalks: if you do this, they will probably be slightly taller, slightly more yellow, and taste like shit because you didn't take that into consideration while selecting. (asuming that those traits aren't governed by one gene, which would be extremely unlikely) Have you thought about how we were farming for ages before we reached our current, still far from perfect, crops? And that these crops won't grow unless you treat them very nicely, with the wild variations popping up everywhere? Have you thought about the health problems of racially pure dogs, that can be eliminated almost entirely by *surprise* outbreeding?


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## AliceWonder

Indeed, that's one of my pet peeves with the captive herp culture.

People pay more money for morphs so the breeders line breed to produce them in quantity, and then come up with these ridiculous claims that you can line breed for 7 generations before detrimental effects creep in.

Um, the very morphs they are producing are detrimental effects, just pretty ones.

Eugenics is a flawed concept that does not work.


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## AliceWonder

Another problem, what is a negative genetic trait?

sickle cell anemia is a negative thing, until you live where malaria is prevalent, in which case it is a positive trait.


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## conscius

Tzara said:


> Start killing the genetically faulty. And we will have a much better evolved human race in.. like 70 years tops.
> 
> I'm fairly disappointed with the sci-tech forum :/
> Kinda hoping everyone here is being sarcastic.


lol, yeah me too


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## Tzara

AliceWonder said:


> Another problem, what is a negative genetic trait?


Huntingtons.


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## AliceWonder

Tzara said:


> Huntingtons.


Biologists Link Huntington's Disease To Health Benefits In Young -- ScienceDaily


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## Tzara

> Everyone has potentially deadly mutations, very harmful mutations, and mildly harmful mutations in about the same measure. Just because someone is a homozygote doesn't mean that they have more faults than others.


Of course they do, thats why we arent targeting everything.
Its much more easier to target one thing, like the example I gave, despite it being terrible.
I was trying to show a point, not giving an exact literal use.



> If you kill off a big part of the population, you increase the effect of genetic drift (as opposed to selection) which makes the population weaker rather than stronger.


That would depend, but OP asked for a speed up evolution. This is speed up evolution(Maybe evolution isnt the best word for it).
Doesnt really matter if we are better or not, it serves the OP's purpose. 



> Selecting on traits that are determined by multiple genes only makes this process more dangerous, especially considering that one gene can influence multiple traits.


Again, the example of height is obviously too open to be taken seriously/practically.



> About those beanstalks: if you do this, they will probably be slightly taller, slightly more yellow, and taste like shit because you didn't take that into consideration while selecting.


Who cares about the taste? they were meant to be taller and yellower, not tastier, and its accomplished.



> Have you thought about the health problems of racially pure dogs, that can be eliminated almost entirely by *surprise* outbreeding?


Again, who cares?
(also, *most racially pure dogs, some pure breeds arent victorian made*)
I'm not saying lets do this. I'm saying this is a speed up deviation from our current selves, which is what OP asked.

*Why do we need to consider usefulness here?*


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## AliceWonder

Removing genes does not speed up evolution.
Removing genes does not increase the rate at which beneficial genes will arise resulting an evolution of our species into something new.

Reduction of genetic variety != evolution.


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## Tzara

AliceWonder said:


> Biologists Link Huntington's Disease To Health Benefits In Young -- ScienceDaily


"people with Huntington's disease are healthier in childbearing years"
Yea but you horribly die later on.


This is like saying:
Lighting yourself on fire is good.
Because you get warmer.
Before you get burnt to death.
---------------

I honestly dont know why I'm arguing with you Mr.Entropy
I should stop. This is unproductive.


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## AliceWonder

I think you will find a lot of mutations that have a positive are that way.

The proposed positive, assuming the research is valid, is likely why natural selection made it as common as it is, perhaps given enough time further random mutations or possibly the development of other genes will counter the negatives. That would be evolution. Of course that couldn't happen if in our infinite wisdom we removed it from the gene pool now.


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## Caged Within

conscius said:


> Or rather, what would we be needed, for evolution to move faster? Is it only time?


It's not linear. Evolution doesn't have a set goal. It just is.


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## conscius

Caged Within said:


> It's not linear. Evolution doesn't have a set goal. It just is.


I'm aware, but still, wouldn't it be interesting if we could speed up the evolution. Like scientists have seen evolution take place in real time:

Evolution in real time | Harvard Gazette

"After 26 years of workdays spent watching bacteria multiply, Richard Lenski has learned a thing or two.

"He’s learned that naturalist Charles Darwin was wrong about some things. For one, evolution doesn’t always occur in steps so slow and steady that changes can’t be observed.

"Lenski also learned that a laboratory freezer can function as a time machine.

"A professor at Michigan State University, Lenski has watched E. coli bacteria multiply through 59,000 generations, a span that has allowed him to observe evolution in real time. Since his Long-Term Experimental Evolution Project began in 1988, the bacteria have doubled in size, begun to mutate more quickly, and become more efficient at using the glucose in the solution where they’re grown...."

I know, it's crazy to think human beings can do anything similar but I enjoy the fantasy, lol.


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## FourLeafCloafer

Tzara said:


> *Why do we need to consider usefulness here?*


Ah, I understand now. You don't actually want to improve the human race, just change it.

In that case, you are absolutely right. Killing of a large part of the population creates a bottleneck that will undoubtedly change allele frequencies (= one of many definitions of evolution)


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## Tzara

stultum said:


> Ah, I understand now. You don't actually want to improve the human race, just change it.
> 
> In that case, you are absolutely right. Killing of a large part of the population creates a bottleneck that will undoubtedly change allele frequencies (= one of many definitions of evolution)


Thats what the OP was asking for

and

Thats why I said, "evolution might not be the best word" to describe it.


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## AliceWonder

stultum said:


> Ah, I understand now. You don't actually want to improve the human race, just change it.
> 
> In that case, you are absolutely right. Killing of a large part of the population creates a bottleneck that will undoubtedly change allele frequencies (= one of many definitions of evolution)


Just curious, who defines a change in allele frequency as evolution?


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## FourLeafCloafer

AliceWonder said:


> Just curious, who defines a change in allele frequency as evolution?


Every biologist I know. Including myself.

'Evolution' is a vague term, just like 'Gene'. You have to define what you mean by it at the start of a paper, or people will misunderstand you. The 'Change in allele frequencies in a population over time and/or space' definition is one used most often when dealing with a long-running experiment over many generations, or when looking at (relatively) spatially isolated populations. There are many other definitions, equally correct, and used in many branches of research.


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## AliceWonder

Since every paper has to define evolution at the beginning, are there any you know of that define it that way?

Change in allele frequency is part of evolution, natural selection as conditions change that require adapting from within the available gene pool, but I have never heard it _called_ evolution.

I would like to see evolution defined that way in a journal or other academic study, so I can see the context of why - just like there are different definitions of species depending upon context.

I can certainly imagine contexts where it is defined as _part_ of the process, but not as evolution itself. Please enlighten me.

Most of the papers I read are herpetology related.


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## AliceWonder

Okay yahoo answers oddly - https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20091003085612AAjBgZH

When biologists refer to it as the change in frequency they are not *just* talking about the change in frequency itself (such that wiping out a third of the population would do) but in response to the formation of a new mutation.

The mutation itself doesn't change the species until it has been selected and spread.

That's different though than just a change in frequency - frequencies often change in response to changing conditions without evolution being a part of it.


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## with water

Fuck more.


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## FourLeafCloafer

AliceWonder said:


> Since every paper has to define evolution at the beginning, are there any you know of that define it that way?
> 
> Change in allele frequency is part of evolution, natural selection as conditions change that require adapting from within the available gene pool, but I have never heard it _called_ evolution.
> 
> I would like to see evolution defined that way in a journal or other academic study, so I can see the context of why - just like there are different definitions of species depending upon context.
> 
> I can certainly imagine contexts where it is defined as _part_ of the process, but not as evolution itself. Please enlighten me.
> 
> Most of the papers I read are herpetology related.


Damn, you caught me at a bad time (my study books are in my room where I study; I'm about a hundred kilometers away at my parents) but I'll try to find you something. I can assure you that this is one way in which the term Evolution is used, as it was listed as such in several of my books that were written by different people, (I'm positive that 'principles of population genetics' lists it as one of many definitions... you can see the table of contents here: http://tocs.ulb.tu-darmstadt.de/183030028.pdf ) but I'll try to find a paper... Web of science here I come! (couldn't find anything in those few minutes. moved to the internet at large)

For example this site:
Evolution Resources from the National Academies

Evolution consists of changes in the heritable traits of a population of organisms as successive generations replace one another. It is populations of organisms that evolve, not individual organisms.

In other words: The change of phenotypes which is the change in allele frequencies, if you assume that the phenotype is determined by the genotype which, in evolutionary biology, you generally do. Like, when a population becomes more blue, that's because blue genes become more prevalent = the frequencies of the blue alleles increase.

It's a definition that is used in evolutionary genetics; a field that I want to go into, as it is the perfect mix of history and mathematics. Evolution takes place both on small and big scales. This definition isn't useful if you want to know how birds diverged from dinosaurs, but it is useful if you want to know if blackcaps flying to England rather than Spain do that because they feel like it, or because the genes that govern the direction in which they travel are different from twenty years ago.


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## AliceWonder

In herpetology, populations that are isolated are more likely to produce morphs (like albinism) because of the inbreeding as they are cut off from gene flow. These mutations were often there from the start, just the frequency of expression is increased because of the bottleneck.

Kind of like what was suggested here.

Would any biologist call that evolution?

Or the wolves on Isle Royale where the genetic bottleneck resulted in an extremely high frequency of a bone disease rare in wild wolves. Is that evolution?


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## AliceWonder

stultum said:


> Damn, you caught me at a bad time


Don't worry about it, I think I am just being overly pedantic, a tendency I have.

I can see the point, if new beneficial mutation do exist then the bottleneck will bring them to high frequency sooner, speeding up the point where it is called evolution.


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## FourLeafCloafer

AliceWonder said:


> In herpetology, populations that are isolated are more likely to produce morphs (like albinism) because of the inbreeding as they are cut off from gene flow. These mutations were often there from the start, just the frequency of expression is increased because of the bottleneck.
> 
> Kind of like what was suggested here.
> 
> Would any biologist call that evolution?
> 
> Or the wolves on Isle Royale where the genetic bottleneck resulted in an extremely high frequency of a bone disease rare in wild wolves. Is that evolution?


Yes, we would. It's a change in the genotype and phenotype of a population. Evolution isn't the improvement of a population, it's change. Most of the time, the bad bits get selected out, but in the mentioned examples, the populations go through a bottleneck, and drift becomes a bigger factor than selection. That's almost never a good thing. Almost - because some genes are deleterious in the heterozygote, but advantageous in the homozygote, and only spread in small populations. Example: If you know about sickle cell anemia, you probably know that there's two alleles: but that's not true, there are more. One of them is highly advantageous in the homozygote, but very disadvantageous in the heterozygote. As such, it is selected against in the population at large. However, there are some pockets where it survives in small populations, because it fixed through drift. This, however, is very rare.


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## AliceWonder

A change in phenotype without new genes is not what I consider to be evolution.

My definition comes from G. Ledyard Stebbins (UC Davis I believe) -

When a population has changed to a point that it would have to adapt to former conditions in a new way rather than reverting, then evolution has occurred

That's not an exact quote, but that's evolution to me.

But it's okay, that's just a semantic issue.


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## AliceWonder

For example, wolf size tends to correlate with prey.

So if a disease wipes out the species they normally prey upon and a different species fills that niche and the genotype changes to produce smaller wolves on average, it isn't evolution because when the wiped out species comes back from a neighbor population, the genotype will simply adapt by reverting.


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## AliceWonder

> Evolution is a directional and essentially irreversible process occurring in time, which in its course gives rise to an increase of variety and an increasingly high level of organization in its products (Julian Huxley cited in Newman 1956: 278).


That's the view that G. Ledyard Stebbins had in his book though different words. Note the irreversible part.
Allele frequency change by itself is not irreversible.

So basically it looks like starting late 80s early 90s - textbooks started to change the definition, I guess so they could call stuff evolution that before was just natural selection within the gene pool.

Semantics.


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## Death Persuades

Look up transhumanism.


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## FourLeafCloafer

AliceWonder said:


> That's the view that G. Ledyard Stebbins had in his book though different words. Note the irreversible part.
> Allele frequency change by itself is not irreversible.
> 
> So basically it looks like starting late 80s early 90s - textbooks started to change the definition, I guess so they could call stuff evolution that before was just natural selection within the gene pool.
> 
> Semantics.


Science moves on. We usually don't use sources that old, especially when they don't hold up. This one doesn't. Evolution isn't directional, convergent evolution exists, competitive exclusion decreases variety, complexity that doesn't increase fitness is usually discarded. 

This definition you give is essentially correct; assuming that our knowledge of evolution hasn't moved on in the last fifty years.

Question: Do you know what a gene is?


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## AliceWonder

It doesn't sound like science moving on as much as changing definitions for convenience, because this changed definition does nothing to advance science - the concept of allele frequency change was always considered part of the process as soon as Darwin came up with survival of the fittest.

When it is reversible, then population A can evolve and then evolve again to be identical to A before it evolved.

That's just adaptation and shows the importance of genetic variety.

Drought in California is greatly reducing many Western Pond Turtle populations. There will be inbreeding resulting in allele frequency change - until gene flow between populations adjusts them back.

That's not evolution, and there is no logical reason to call it such, other than semantic games to say it is constantly observed.


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## AliceWonder

With respect to genes, I use the word the way allele is usually used - as do most people outside the lab - I do know there is more to it than that.


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## AliceWonder

With respect to the pond turtles, what I meant to say and didn't -

The local populations having their allele frequency change from the massive die-offs resulting from the drought - that's not because of natural selection which is a key component of evolution, it is the result of luck - chance.


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## FourLeafCloafer

AliceWonder said:


> With respect to genes, I use the word the way allele is usually used - as do most people outside the lab - I do know there is more to it than that.


That's it. That's exactly it.

There is no good, complete definition of a gene. We used to think that a Gene is something that codes for a protein, with its associated promotors etc, but then we found out about introns and exons, and how one sequence can code for many proteins, how some sequences of DNA regulate other bits (where does one gene start and the other end) and that even 'junk' DNA has a function, although that's still vague.

The same with evolution. As we found out more, we found that the definitions we used to use aren't covering it. So we get into the situation where the term 'Gene' can mean a lot of things, you pick the thing that is useful to you. Same with 'Evolution'. You aren't wrong in saying that evolution is irreversible. You are being incomplete.


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## AliceWonder

A gene is something concrete, evolution is a conceptual process.

I honestly think that what is happening is publish or perish syndrome.

Same thing happens in software programming - you have to leave your mark in the code so you add some feature or change some feature not because it actually enhances the product - but because if you don't leave your mark, your resume does not look as good.

Broader scope of evolution is answering the question of where we come from : Extreme biological diversity with a common ancestor.
Evolution is the process of how that took place.

Allele frequency change is _*part of the process*_, the mechanism of Darwin's brilliant natural selection insight - it is not the process itself.

Now I'm not a biologist so I am certainly not qualified to write a book expressing that, but calling allele frequency change evolution in my view is simply semantics rather than a construction definition change, like redefing a gene may be.

The side-blotched lizard has three identified types of males, and it is genetic. One type has orange breeding colors, one type has blue, one type has yellow.

These three types have different roles within the population and are constantly competing with the ratio of them constantly changing.
Obviously if the number of males of each type is constantly changing, then so is the allele frequency that causes those genders.

That's not constant evolution taking place, but rather, the natural history of the species doing what the species _already evolved_ to do.

My two cents.

But I'll be quiet, I have found too many references in modern textbooks (all starting to be published right about the time I was finishing college) that point to allele frequency change as the definition - clearly that is how biology is currently defining it.

What purpose though does the new definition really serve?

It is my opinion that in academics, change for the sake of change is destructive, not constructive.


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## Stelmaria

AliceWonder said:


> A change in phenotype without new genes is not what I consider to be evolution.


It is not merely about new genes, but using old genes in new ways. Eg the genes that allow an eye to form existed before species actually formed sophisticated eyes.


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## LibertyPrime

conscius said:


> Or rather, what would we be needed, for evolution to move faster? Is it only time?


>.> well all I have to do is look at my grandmother...she is so outdated she doesn't know how to function in the world anymore, because the world changed drastically in a short amount of time.

Our environment is evolving & people that can't adapt will be left behind. A change in environment is what usually triggers adaptation to it. If the environment doesn't change there would be no reason to evolve to meet it's demands.

The the environment is increasingly complex & requires more and more brain power. That is the direction we are going in.


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## FourLeafCloafer

AliceWonder said:


> A gene is something concrete, evolution is a conceptual process.
> 
> I honestly think that what is happening is publish or perish syndrome.
> 
> Same thing happens in software programming - you have to leave your mark in the code so you add some feature or change some feature not because it actually enhances the product - but because if you don't leave your mark, your resume does not look as good.
> 
> Broader scope of evolution is answering the question of where we come from : Extreme biological diversity with a common ancestor.
> Evolution is the process of how that took place.
> 
> Allele frequency change is _*part of the process*_, the mechanism of Darwin's brilliant natural selection insight - it is not the process itself.
> 
> Now I'm not a biologist so I am certainly not qualified to write a book expressing that, but calling allele frequency change evolution in my view is simply semantics rather than a construction definition change, like redefing a gene may be.
> 
> The side-blotched lizard has three identified types of males, and it is genetic. One type has orange breeding colors, one type has blue, one type has yellow.
> 
> These three types have different roles within the population and are constantly competing with the ratio of them constantly changing.
> Obviously if the number of males of each type is constantly changing, then so is the allele frequency that causes those genders.
> 
> That's not constant evolution taking place, but rather, the natural history of the species doing what the species _already evolved_ to do.
> 
> My two cents.
> 
> But I'll be quiet, I have found too many references in modern textbooks (all starting to be published right about the time I was finishing college) that point to allele frequency change as the definition - clearly that is how biology is currently defining it.
> 
> What purpose though does the new definition really serve?
> 
> It is my opinion that in academics, change for the sake of change is destructive, not constructive.


That's not what I meant. That lizard is a well known example (bit overused in my opinion, I have seen those lizards too often this year)- in density dependent selection. Evolution is like when you have white and black poppies, where there's a dominant black allele and a recessive white allele and by chance or by selection, the white allele becomes more prevalent. And it doesn't change right back because of density dependence.


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## AliceWonder

Snowy Leopard said:


> It is not merely about new genes, but using old genes in new ways. Eg the genes that allow an eye to form existed before species actually formed sophisticated eyes.


Right, but that still requires one (or more) mutations to occur.


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## AliceWonder

stultum said:


> That's not what I meant. That lizard is a well known example (bit overused in my opinion, I have seen those lizards too often this year)- in density dependent selection. Evolution is like when you have white and black poppies, where there's a dominant black allele and a recessive white allele and by chance or by selection, the white allele becomes more prevalent. And it doesn't change right back because of density dependence.


Thank you for that. That gives me a hypothetical gray area by my definition.

If nature chose the recessive gene in an extreme condition, the dominant gene could vanish.

Then an irreversible change has occurred without a new allele - because if conditions changed to where the dominant but now gone allele was better, the population would need to adapt in a new way rather than reverting.

So in that hypothetical case, by my definition, evolution has occurred by allele frequency change alone - with the frequency of the removed dominant allele going to zero.


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## HAL

Seen this thread here for while but have only just now realised the obvious answer: Eugenics.


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## AliceWonder

HAL said:


> Seen this thread here for while but have only just now realised the obvious answer: Eugenics.


Eugenics does not work. Biodiversity is necessary, and a mutation in a gene may be good or bad depending upon circumstance.

Negative traits that natural selection did not remove very often were kept around for a reason we may not yet be aware of. Attempting to remove them from the gene pool could result in our future extinction rather than evolution.


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## Ubuntu

I *strongly *believe that all future human beings should be (neurosurgically and/or) genetically engineered to have a strong disposition toward compassion and altruism, affection, optimism and a tendency to focus on the positive, low anxiety, no aggression, no so-called mental illness (above and beyond a reasonable amount stress - no extreme depression, social anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorder etc.), no genetic diseases, strong immune systems, high emotional resilience, high sensitivity to pleasure etc. Social engineering alone will never be enough to change the world. Through genetic engineering as well as medical and scientific advancement, I believe that humans could create something close to heaven on Earth (even altering the physical world and not just the human condition, like purifying all water, making all soil arable, fixing the ozone layer and manipulating nature for the benefit of all animals - who should be engineered to be herbivorous and capable of digesting all plant material and to produce fewer offspring to avoid overpopulation ) but it won't happen even if its technologically feasible. There's no reason why it shouldn't.

It would also be nice if scientists invented non-addictive drugs that induce the high people feel on MDMA or even harder drugs like heroin and cocaine without the bad trips, crashes or long-term negative side effects.


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## Daniellekk

(Haven't read the thread so idk what's already been mentioned)

Isn't evolution.. stopping.. almost? In developed countries anyway. Evolution is mutation right, and this mutation benefits the owner so they survive and pass on the mutation. But in our society where there is no "competition" as such physically, only intellectually. (We don't need longer necks for reaching food for eg) 

Then again this is my basic scientific knowledge here feel free to tell me i'm stupid :wink:


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## AliceWonder

mutations continue to happen, and what benefits reproductions continues to change.

In human society, it seems that poor / oppressed cultures reproduce more and have more offspring, so that is where I am guessing most of our current evolution is coming from.


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## FourLeafCloafer

Daniellekk said:


> (Haven't read the thread so idk what's already been mentioned)
> 
> Isn't evolution.. stopping.. almost? In developed countries anyway. Evolution is mutation right, and this mutation benefits the owner so they survive and pass on the mutation. But in our society where there is no "competition" as such physically, only intellectually. (We don't need longer necks for reaching food for eg)
> 
> Then again this is my basic scientific knowledge here feel free to tell me i'm stupid :wink:


Inhales...

You aren't stupid. You just lack information :wink:


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## Daniellekk

Well that isn't so bad :tongue:


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## Strostkovy

I admit I only skimmed the thread, so this may have already been proposed.

Give everyone (un)healthy doses of radiation. Let natural selection do it's thing. Repeat a few times. Unfortunately, I don't think 7 billion people gives enough chances of gaining good mutations for anything even noticeable to happen (except for world wide geno-suicide that would likely occur)


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## TheProphetLaLa

Speed up evolution? No. But we can choose the direction our evolution will take us, which is more than any other mammal can say for itself.


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## Just_Some_Guy

Frankly, the human being is next to clueless when it comes to operating the hardware we have. We should probably focus on passing the grade we are in before we turn our eyes to next year.


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## Glassland

Where we kill off natural evolution, we start to develope ourselves consciously. 
**** evolutis, the being that evolves itself. Technology is our greatest asset.
All we need to do now is to behave responsibly with it.


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## The Proof

Read a book


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