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BigPapaSmurf
SFN Die Hard
3192 Posts |
 Posted - 09/02/2004 : 08:16:33
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I was wondering what the Skeptic Friends thought about humans and evolution in todays world?
The way I see it we have taken ourselves out of the natural selection process and moved on to unnatural selection for the most part. (most)Humans are no longer subject to the dangers of life and breeding which drive standard speciation. In some aspects we can be considered to be going backwards because some folks who would have died in a pre-civiliazion setting now survive just fine and breed themselves. (someone with the obesity gene or born with one leg etc.)
But for all of the natural adaption we eliminate the technologic adaption has developed into a vast influance on the human condition. From diet and exercize to medicine and genetics, the potential changes to humanity increase all the time.
Do you consider the techno-evolution to be just another aspect of evolution or something else entirely?
Do you consider the lack of predators to be a boon or bane to the natural evolution of the species?
IF you dont believe humans evolved, please dont clutter me thread.
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"...things I have neither seen nor experienced nor heard tell of from anybody else; things, what is more, that do not in fact exist and could not ever exist at all. So my readers must not believe a word I say." -Lucian on his book True History
"...They accept such things on faith alone, without any evidence. So if a fraudulent and cunning person who knows how to take advantage of a situation comes among them, he can make himself rich in a short time." -Lucian critical of early Christians c.166 AD From his book, De Morte Peregrini |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 09/02/2004 : 08:47:53 [Permalink]
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I need to think about this. But I will say for now that evolution never ceases. Our species evolves even as we speak.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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astropin
SFN Regular
USA
970 Posts |
Posted - 09/02/2004 : 09:04:30 [Permalink]
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| Personally I consider technology to be another aspect of evolution. Maybe not "natural" selection as we have previously defined it, but an inevitable junction none the less. What is natural? One could argue that since Humans are natural that anything we do or create is also natural. Therefore computers & artificial hearts are natural; AI (when it arrives) will be the result of a natural process. My Theory is that given enough time the evolutionary process leads to an intelligence which then flows into the next phase of "controlled" evolution. Which is were we are now. We (humans) will create the next order of intelligence. I believe this to be inevitable. This does not however rule out the possibility that we or any other higher form of intelligence in this Universe will dot destroy itself in the process. That is still to be seen. Technology and evolution are intertwined and technology advances at an exponential rate ( see Ray Kurzweil at http://www.kurzweilai.net/meme/frame.html?main=/articles/art0298.html ). Things are about to change very, very quickly so grab on to your boot straps. I think a true AI could exist as early as 2030. Now once you have an AI designing the next level of AI! How quickly will things change then? |
I would rather face a cold reality than delude myself with comforting fantasies.
You are free to believe what you want to believe and I am free to ridicule you for it.
Atheism:
The result of an unbiased and rational search for the truth.
Infinitus est numerus stultorum |
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BigPapaSmurf
SFN Die Hard
3192 Posts |
Posted - 09/02/2004 : 09:14:53 [Permalink]
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quote:
I think a true AI could exist as early as 2030. Now once you have an AI designing the next level of AI! How quickly will things change then?
I think Terminator/Matrix/etc. will prevent an AI machine from being able to build things itself. Call it Artiphobia.
I have seen a non-intelligent program designed to build robots which can move using set peices. The program used trial and error until it came up with some really wacky ideas. |
"...things I have neither seen nor experienced nor heard tell of from anybody else; things, what is more, that do not in fact exist and could not ever exist at all. So my readers must not believe a word I say." -Lucian on his book True History
"...They accept such things on faith alone, without any evidence. So if a fraudulent and cunning person who knows how to take advantage of a situation comes among them, he can make himself rich in a short time." -Lucian critical of early Christians c.166 AD From his book, De Morte Peregrini |
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Valiant Dancer
Forum Goalie
USA
4826 Posts |
Posted - 09/02/2004 : 09:46:30 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by astropin
Personally I consider technology to be another aspect of evolution. Maybe not "natural" selection as we have previously defined it, but an inevitable junction none the less. What is natural? One could argue that since Humans are natural that anything we do or create is also natural. Therefore computers & artificial hearts are natural; AI (when it arrives) will be the result of a natural process. My Theory is that given enough time the evolutionary process leads to an intelligence which then flows into the next phase of "controlled" evolution. Which is were we are now. We (humans) will create the next order of intelligence. I believe this to be inevitable. This does not however rule out the possibility that we or any other higher form of intelligence in this Universe will dot destroy itself in the process. That is still to be seen. Technology and evolution are intertwined and technology advances at an exponential rate ( see Ray Kurzweil at http://www.kurzweilai.net/meme/frame.html?main=/articles/art0298.html ). Things are about to change very, very quickly so grab on to your boot straps. I think a true AI could exist as early as 2030. Now once you have an AI designing the next level of AI! How quickly will things change then?
Not very, IMHO. I have always thought of the concept of a machine having a program sophisticated enough to make blind freaking guesses based on instinct to be absurd. They are machines and operate as designed. They are completely (and I believe cannot be made to operate otherwise) tied to the answers given it. They are incapable of independant thought.
In a word, they are unintelligent. Think of the computer on your desk. It can do math really fast. It has the equivalent logical processes of a very literal idiot child. It will consistently do the same thing the same way it was told to. It doesn't do any problem solving it wasn't already told to do and reaches the problem solving it currently does through answer trees it was given.
Nice Sci-Fi, but I don't think that something complex as say Lt. Cmdr. Data will appear anywhere outside of Star Trek.
"It would be interesting to impress your memory engrams on a computer, doctor. The resulting flood of illogic would be most entertaining." -- Spock |
Cthulhu/Asmodeus when you're tired of voting for the lesser of two evils
Brother Cutlass of Reasoned Discussion |
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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard
USA
4574 Posts |
Posted - 09/02/2004 : 09:48:23 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by BigPapaSmurf
The way I see it we have taken ourselves out of the natural selection process and moved on to unnatural selection for the most part. (most)Humans are no longer subject to the dangers of life and breeding which drive standard speciation. In some aspects we can be considered to be going backwards because some folks who would have died in a pre-civilization setting now survive just fine and breed themselves.
Do you consider the lack of predators to be a boon or bane to the natural evolution of the species?
Hmm, well I would agree that we as a species are no longer subject to strict natural selection. I think of "super" microbes that have become resistant to many of our vaccinations. Now, the microbes have certainly evolved, but without allowing them to periodically cull our herd we have stalled our own evolutionary drive to achieve immunity. We now rely on drugs for that. So its a double-edged sword, viruses are evolving and we aren't.
Of course, I think we no longer need to naturally evolve. Just as animal husbandry lead to better breeding and better livestock, so too does our medicine and science direct the formation of our own species. I think our evolution is more guided now, less happenstance. Though, there are still enough variables to make our future character unknown.
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"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman
"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie |
| Edited by - H. Humbert on 09/02/2004 09:50:11 |
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RightWingAtheist
New Member
USA
7 Posts |
Posted - 09/02/2004 : 09:50:05 [Permalink]
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Just a nit pick first...just what is this "backwards" direction of evolution? I don't think it exists. All evolution moves forward through time as dictated by, among other things, environmental pressures. If the environment returns to its previous state, the resulting evolutionary changes are still moving "forward" in response to a change in environment.
Now, let me return to your example of people surviving under present day circumstances when they wouldn't likely have done so in the past. Could you clarify why you think this results in evolutionary change to a form resembling one from the past? I don't think you adequately demonstrated that these longer-living people are passing on significantly different genetic traits with a differential reproductive success.
First, was the obesity gene being selected out of the population in our pre-civilized past due to pre-breeding age deaths as your example indicates? I suggest that it was not. Research indicates that obesity-related genes have an extremely long history. For example, the appetite-stimulating gene, Beacon, is found in both earthworms and rats which are about 800 million years apart on the evolutionary tree. It's also found in human DNA and appears to be the same across regions and ethnicities.
Second, I'm unaware of a "one-leg" gene creating significant problems at the species level. In my estimation, such births are usually developmental rather than genetic abnormalities and thus, would not normally be passed on to progeny.
Now, on to your questions. Yes, I think technology is just another aspect of evolution, albiet a unique aspect. Technology is changing our lifestyle and our environment which may result in evolutionary pressure to change. However, medical technology enters into the mix and may diminish or exacerbate those pressures. Only time will tell.
Regarding predators, I think they were essential to (but not entirely responsible for) our early evolution. We weren't particularly strong or fast compared to those predators so we needed larger brains with which to outwit and out-tool them. But, that's not the only thing for which bigger brains were needed. There was also the need to find food and shelter. My vote: predators=boon...at least back then.
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astropin
SFN Regular
USA
970 Posts |
Posted - 09/02/2004 : 10:08:11 [Permalink]
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quote:
Nice Sci-Fi, but I don't think that something complex as say Lt. Cmdr. Data will appear anywhere outside of Star Trek.
Sci-Fi huh,
You think our brains are so complex as to never be duplicated artificially? Interesting. What is it you think makes us conscious? Basically are brains are a complex biological computer. |
I would rather face a cold reality than delude myself with comforting fantasies.
You are free to believe what you want to believe and I am free to ridicule you for it.
Atheism:
The result of an unbiased and rational search for the truth.
Infinitus est numerus stultorum |
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BigPapaSmurf
SFN Die Hard
3192 Posts |
Posted - 09/02/2004 : 10:18:01 [Permalink]
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sorry my examples were bad, The obesity gene has always been around but nowadays it is not a death sentence because we are not running from wolves or whatever. In fact many folks with this gene are able to live long and breed all they want therefor the potential for a higher percentage of obesity gene folks arises. This is what I meant by backwards, to move from adaptions which aid survival to adaptions which hinder it, however slow.
I just threw in the one leg guy as an example of someone likely to die early in a pre-civ society. |
"...things I have neither seen nor experienced nor heard tell of from anybody else; things, what is more, that do not in fact exist and could not ever exist at all. So my readers must not believe a word I say." -Lucian on his book True History
"...They accept such things on faith alone, without any evidence. So if a fraudulent and cunning person who knows how to take advantage of a situation comes among them, he can make himself rich in a short time." -Lucian critical of early Christians c.166 AD From his book, De Morte Peregrini |
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Valiant Dancer
Forum Goalie
USA
4826 Posts |
Posted - 09/02/2004 : 10:56:08 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by astropin
quote:
Nice Sci-Fi, but I don't think that something complex as say Lt. Cmdr. Data will appear anywhere outside of Star Trek.
Sci-Fi huh,
You think our brains are so complex as to never be duplicated artificially? Interesting. What is it you think makes us conscious? Basically are brains are a complex biological computer.
And no two of them operate the exact same. Humans as individuals are unpredictable. Computers react the same way to the same stimuli every time. I believe that humans will never possess the technology necessary to duplicate such a complex biological organ as the brain. To replicate something, one must be able to measure what it does and exhaustively understand it's core mechanisms. We do not in the case of the human brain. |
Cthulhu/Asmodeus when you're tired of voting for the lesser of two evils
Brother Cutlass of Reasoned Discussion |
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astropin
SFN Regular
USA
970 Posts |
Posted - 09/02/2004 : 11:25:32 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Valiant Dancer
Computers react the same way to the same stimuli every time.
That is only true so far...does not mean it will hold true in the future. I believe some day computers will be far more complex and possibly as individual as we are.
quote:
I believe that humans will never possess the technology necessary to duplicate such a complex biological organ as the brain.
I find that to be a bit pessimistic and a little sad. Never is a very long time. Reminds me of people saying humans will never fly, or walk on the moon or etc....
quote:
To replicate something, one must be able to measure what it does and exhaustively understand it's core mechanisms. We do not in the case of the human brain.
1. Who says we need to replicate the human brain in order to surpass it? There may be many roads to higher intelligence and a biological model will probably be one of the last choices.
2. Brains are complex...but not irreducibly so. Some day we will have full understanding of how our brains function
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I would rather face a cold reality than delude myself with comforting fantasies.
You are free to believe what you want to believe and I am free to ridicule you for it.
Atheism:
The result of an unbiased and rational search for the truth.
Infinitus est numerus stultorum |
| Edited by - astropin on 09/02/2004 12:32:32 |
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Valiant Dancer
Forum Goalie
USA
4826 Posts |
Posted - 09/02/2004 : 12:11:23 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by astropin
quote:
Originally posted by Valiant Dancer
Computers react the same way to the same stimuli every time.
That is only true so far...does not mean it will hold true in the future. I believe some day computers will be far more complex and possibly as individual as we are.
quote:
I believe that humans will never possess the technology necessary to duplicate such a complex biological organ as the brain.
I find that to be a bit pessimistic and a little sad. Never is a very long time. Reminds me of people saying humans will never fly, or walk on the moon or etc....
quote:
To replicate something, one must be able to measure what it does and exhaustively understand it's core mechanisms. We do not in the case of the human brain.
1. Who says we need to replicate the human brain in order to surpass it? There may be many roads to higher intelligence and a biological model will probably be on of the last choices.
2. Brains are complex...but not irreducibly so. Some day we will have full understanding of how our brains function
.
What you propose would entail humans to be able to create artificial sentient life. I believe that this is something that cannot be attained ever. |
Cthulhu/Asmodeus when you're tired of voting for the lesser of two evils
Brother Cutlass of Reasoned Discussion |
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astropin
SFN Regular
USA
970 Posts |
Posted - 09/02/2004 : 12:29:39 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Valiant Dancer
What you propose would entail humans to be able to create artificial sentient life. I believe that this is something that cannot be attained ever.
Yes I am beginning to understand that. I simply find that to be an illogical position to take. What is the basis for your hypothesis? You can't imagine anything more intelligent than us? Or you can't imagine anything as dumb as us creating something more intelligent?
Never say never my friend....never
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I would rather face a cold reality than delude myself with comforting fantasies.
You are free to believe what you want to believe and I am free to ridicule you for it.
Atheism:
The result of an unbiased and rational search for the truth.
Infinitus est numerus stultorum |
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astropin
SFN Regular
USA
970 Posts |
Posted - 09/02/2004 : 12:45:12 [Permalink]
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Valiant I have started a new thread on AI here:
http://www.skepticfriends.org/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=3146 |
I would rather face a cold reality than delude myself with comforting fantasies.
You are free to believe what you want to believe and I am free to ridicule you for it.
Atheism:
The result of an unbiased and rational search for the truth.
Infinitus est numerus stultorum |
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RightWingAtheist
New Member
USA
7 Posts |
Posted - 09/02/2004 : 14:05:03 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by BigPapaSmurf
sorry my examples were bad, The obesity gene has always been around but nowadays it is not a death sentence because we are not running from wolves or whatever. In fact many folks with this gene are able to live long and breed all they want therefor the potential for a higher percentage of obesity gene folks arises. This is what I meant by backwards, to move from adaptions which aid survival to adaptions which hinder it, however slow.
By "obesity gene", I'm guessing you're referring to the Leptin gene. Disclaimer: I'm no geneticist and the following is my meager understanding (IIRC) of the subject.
Beacon and NPy are appetite stimulating genes while Leptin acts to suppress appetite. Possessing all three is normal to the population. Way back when meals might be fewer and farther between, storing some extra fat was a good adaptation to keep energy readily available when you really needed it. Today, with calories at our beck and call, we can tend to be overweight with those genes working as "designed." (no ID intent here)
This isn't the result of an evolutionary process, per se. That is, the genes haven't become any more frequent in the population, as far as I know. These genes were selected for a given way of life (the lean times) and we changed that faster than evolution can keep up. Clinical obesity is another matter.
Apparently, many obese people don't respond well to the Leptin gene's appetite suppression. I'm not sure they lack the gene entirely and I'm even less sure of the evolutionary impact on the species. Considering the numerous causes and contributors to obesity...physiological, psychological, and behavioral...I'm not confident that the problem can simply be pinned to a bioligical process of evolution.
However, if there is a strong enough genetic component to obesity, I'd argue that, left to its own devices, evolution would sooner or later select the gene(s) out of the population given the health risks associated with being so overweight. Of course, it's too early to tell, but I think modern medicine just might be forestalling this eventuality.
Damn, all this talk has made me acutely and uncomfortably aware of my own waistline. |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 09/02/2004 : 14:53:00 [Permalink]
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All very interesting, if a bit esoteric.
We continue to evolve simply because we are a very poorly designed biped. Our spines, ribcages, knees and hips are are excellent for a quadraped, but not so great for our way of going. If the species lasts long enough, I think that this will be improved. After all, we've not been around long, relitivly speaking.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
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