Exactly. So to say evolution is stopped would be to state that the environment is no longer changing. Does that mean global warming is a crock of crap?
child of wonder
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Atomic Playboy
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Originally posted by: tiejiba
After coming back from my african wild life trip, I feel people (human) is the end of life evolution. From this point, the life on earth is going down.
By far, human has the best gene on earth and it takes millions of years to get this point.
Life started from very simple form and began more and more complex through the natural selection.
When I was in africa I wittness the whole process. In the animals, only the ones (male) that are strongest, toughest can mate and pass on their gene. Overall, the ones with best gene and their offsprings will survive while improving their gene. Eventually, they evolve into a higher level of life form.
Rightnow, human dominates this planet and other speices have no room or time so they can out evolve us and replace human.
At the other end, look at ourselves, everybody can mate and reproduce no matter what kind of gene he has. This means all the gene (good, mediocre, bad) are passed on. The bottomline is we are not improving our genes in long term. We may create technical wonders, but as a life form, our quality is going down.
It's an interesting proposition that we are the best species on Earth. It's a bit hard to be objective about that, don't you think? After all, we're making the list; our egotistical nature will want us to come first. But what warrants us getting that top position? As a species, we're remarkably fragile. If all the nuclear bombs in the world were detonated right now, all humans would die. So would pretty much every mammal, bird, reptile, amphibian, most insects, etc. There would probably be some fish that lived, deep in the ocean, where radioactivity was unlikely to reach. Everyone always says cockroaches would survive (don't know if I believe that one myself, but whatever). Bacteria would survive.
Bacteria are better than us.
In fact, I'd be willing to say that virtually any disaster that could befall the Earth (a giant volcano, a meteor hitting us, etc.) that would wipe out humans would hardly affect bacteria at all. Sure, an inconceivable number of bacteria would die, but not all of them (scientists estimate that there are 5,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 bacteria on Earth). Short of a comet or meteor hitting us that was large enough to actually destroy the planet, I can't conceive of an event that would effectively eradicate all life on Earth. Regardless of what happens to us, bacteria will press on.
Bacteria are better than us.
In fact, our comparative weakness is such that we can even be killed by bacteria. Toxic shock, anthrax, tuberculosis, and other potentially fatal diseases are caused by bacteria. But bacteria aren't all bad; without bacteria in our stomach, we would be unable to digest food, and would surely die of malnutrition. Bacteria are so important to human life, and hold the keys to our mortality.
Bacteria are better than us.
So before you go saying that humans have "the best genes," maybe you should consider what's best? Bacteria are genetically inferior to humans by any objective measure, and yet they are able to endure more than humans could ever dream of. They can live miles beneath the surface of the ocean, where the pressure would crush a human to the size of a soda can. They live in the frozen tundra of the Arctic, where temperatures rarely creep above -30. They live in steam vents at over 3500 F. They can live in acid or base, in an environment of methane and amonia. They were here billions of years before us. They will exist after humans are extinct.
Evolution will not end with us.
- Aug 23, 2003
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The dinosaurs thought they were invincible too, and they ruled much longer than us.
I would give humans a shorter lifespan than any of the prior dominating species that ruled our planet, given that we have an uncanny propensity to destroy ourselves.
I would give humans a shorter lifespan than any of the prior dominating species that ruled our planet, given that we have an uncanny propensity to destroy ourselves.
johnjohn320
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Which gene is the best one on earth if humans have it? This is an extraordinary scientific breakthrough.
Atomic Playboy
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That, and whenever we think of something ruling the planet (in the past), it's an order of animals (ie Dinosauria, the dinosaurs). You never hear someone say "when Tyrannosaurus ruled the Earth."
We are one species. We are vulnerable. If there is a disease that attacks humans, we are all vulnerable to it (the occasional natural immunities aside). Perhaps one reason the dinosaurs ruled for as long as they did was the wealth of species distinction they had. They weren't all the same. We are. And while I don't see humanity going extinct any time soon, I would be amazed if we still existed 100 million years down the road. If anything, we will have evolved into a new species (tiejiba's exceptions not withstanding).
- Aug 23, 2003
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Carl Sagan wrote about how humanity has to jump a significant hurdle before our survival or evolution is guaranteed, but we might need a world-changing event before it happens. For example, if we found evidence of life beyond our world, then our quarrels here would seem insignificant and humanity would unite in a single endeavor. That is a benign example, though. A more realistic one would be something similar to what happened in Japan during WWII. Dropping those atomic bombs changed the course of Japan permanently; humanity might need another world war to unite the planet (as sad as that sounds). The only challenge is living through it first.
but wont the mediocre genes and many bad genes die off, since they may have problems, such as lack of a strong immune system, and other general problems biologically. this will cause people with poor genes to be more susceptible to death, and thus, only those with the strongest traits survive over a long period of time.
Some thoughts:
One argument is that modern technology and medicine has pretty much stopped evolution. While this can be a convincing argument, it could also be argued that modern technology and medicine is simply a part of our evolution. In time, medicine and technology could potentially permanently enhance or replace many of our biological functions. Viewed from a broad perspective, it can be argued that what we create through problem solving is natural for our species and therefore a natural part of our evolution. It could further be argued that our technology and intelligence is at a point where, through our own actions, we could advance to regress at a far faster pace than ever before possible, in a way making our evolutionary condition unstable, which could be good or bad depending on which way it swings.
Even if we kill ourselves off, it can be argued that evolution merely took a step back on the planet, but further evolution of all remaining life could in time surpass our level of advancement.
Now to the issue of what is considered advanced. Why do we consider ourselves at the peak of evolution? Personally, to put it in simple terms, I believe it's a matter of which life is the most intelligent, adaptive, and capable of controlling it's environment. We have no evidence of any other life being anywhere near our level of capability.
This puts us in a unique position of power. And as Spiderman tries to teach us, with great power comes great responsibility. I suppose you could further expand on defining what life is the most evolved by also weighing a species level of responsibility taken towards life in general. It starts with caring about your own survival, something pretty much all species do, and advances to broader and broader levels: caring about your family, caring about your community, caring about your country, caring about all the people of the world, caring about all life on Earth, and finally, caring about all life in the Universe. You can expand on this further by also measuring the duration of care: caring only about the here and now, caring only about your own lifespan, caring about several lifespans, and on and on, up to caring to the end of time. We are humans in these categories? All over the board, but I'd say the greatest majority are at the level of caring about their country for the duration of their own lifetimes. Most lifeforms we tend to think about, humans excluded, are mammals that generally have levels of care that don't expand past caring about their family in the here and now. Again, you can say we suck, but we are still in the lead for now.
In the end, why does any of this matter? It only matters if we say it matters. And most of us say life matters. It is, after all, in life's best interest to care about life. We wouldn't be here if we didn't. And that's just another part of evolution. Do we care enough such that our own evolution will continue? I hope we do. But if not, evolution will probably take a step back and try again.
One argument is that modern technology and medicine has pretty much stopped evolution. While this can be a convincing argument, it could also be argued that modern technology and medicine is simply a part of our evolution. In time, medicine and technology could potentially permanently enhance or replace many of our biological functions. Viewed from a broad perspective, it can be argued that what we create through problem solving is natural for our species and therefore a natural part of our evolution. It could further be argued that our technology and intelligence is at a point where, through our own actions, we could advance to regress at a far faster pace than ever before possible, in a way making our evolutionary condition unstable, which could be good or bad depending on which way it swings.
Even if we kill ourselves off, it can be argued that evolution merely took a step back on the planet, but further evolution of all remaining life could in time surpass our level of advancement.
Now to the issue of what is considered advanced. Why do we consider ourselves at the peak of evolution? Personally, to put it in simple terms, I believe it's a matter of which life is the most intelligent, adaptive, and capable of controlling it's environment. We have no evidence of any other life being anywhere near our level of capability.
This puts us in a unique position of power. And as Spiderman tries to teach us, with great power comes great responsibility. I suppose you could further expand on defining what life is the most evolved by also weighing a species level of responsibility taken towards life in general. It starts with caring about your own survival, something pretty much all species do, and advances to broader and broader levels: caring about your family, caring about your community, caring about your country, caring about all the people of the world, caring about all life on Earth, and finally, caring about all life in the Universe. You can expand on this further by also measuring the duration of care: caring only about the here and now, caring only about your own lifespan, caring about several lifespans, and on and on, up to caring to the end of time. We are humans in these categories? All over the board, but I'd say the greatest majority are at the level of caring about their country for the duration of their own lifetimes. Most lifeforms we tend to think about, humans excluded, are mammals that generally have levels of care that don't expand past caring about their family in the here and now. Again, you can say we suck, but we are still in the lead for now.
In the end, why does any of this matter? It only matters if we say it matters. And most of us say life matters. It is, after all, in life's best interest to care about life. We wouldn't be here if we didn't. And that's just another part of evolution. Do we care enough such that our own evolution will continue? I hope we do. But if not, evolution will probably take a step back and try again.
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