Are their people in society that are farther on the evolutionary scale than others.

Discussion in 'Biology & Genetics' started by Mechapixel, Jul 10, 2009.

  1. GeoffP Caput gerat lupinum Valued Senior Member

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    Stupid cats. You know, I'd always considered them so specialized compared to Canis. I suppose the taxonomic nomenclature - and don't we love to blame things on labels - is to blame.
     
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  3. Doreen Valued Senior Member

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    Only time will tell. But the ones who are ahead of us probably are more like cockroaches than other homo sapians: iow they can deal with a high level of toxins and radiation, they will eat just about anything organic including rotting flesh and shit and they only come out at night.
     
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  5. D.W. Dr.Weirdo Registered Senior Member

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    This theory relates to incest and inbreeding depression. Both partners engage in sexual intercourse, one of them might have lower traits through genes from there parents and grandparents, and ancestors and so on. Of couse since you didn't EXPLAIN what kind of traits, just gonna wing it here.

    Inbreed Depression would be more close to this subject, I don't wanna go into it.
     
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  7. baftan ******* Valued Senior Member

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    What does more evolved/less evolved mean? What is the criteria? Are we "more evolved" than chimpanzees, is it this sort of thing?

    Natural evolution has no relevance for humans any more. How could it be, we are pushing our limits with artificial devices. There are more -or less- capable individuals within the margins of human population. But if they do not get together and physically isolate themselves from the rest of the humanity, they will always remain as Einstein, Beethoven or other similar distinctive characters. Instead of separating its marginal mutants, humanity normally group them under professions, such as artists, scientists, etc. and members of these professions interbreed among each other.

    Other than this, "more evolved" sounds like "having more money" or "better education"...
     
  8. D.W. Dr.Weirdo Registered Senior Member

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    Or a natural selection.
     
  9. prem Registered Senior Member

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    Plant and animal breeders. They have been into the subject of evolution and its control from a long time. Controlled mating is possible with the material they work on. But to know whether it is a new and improved variety multi location adaptability trials are conducted. And it takes about 6 -7 years of trials. And the variety breaks down in about 3 years - pests and diseases or anything else from the environment.

    A particularly significant topic that I have not seen being considered in evolution reasearch is "coevolution" - for example it is known that host - pathogen coevolution exists in rust of wheat and for for every gene for resistance there is corresponding gene for pathogenicity.

    Incidentally you mentioned Fisher - as far as breeders are concerned, design of experiments and Fisher based ANOVA works. No impelling reason to repair a bridge that is not broken. wikipedia has this on him.

    In 1943 he was offered the Balfour Chair of Genetics at Cambridge University, his alma mater. During the war, this department was almost entirely destroyed, but the University promised him that he would be charged with rebuilding it after the war. He accepted the offer, but the promises were largely unfilled, and the department grew very slowly. A notable exception was the recruitment in 1948 of the Italian researcher Cavalli-Sforza, who established a one man unit of bacterial genetics. He continued his work on mouse chromosome mapping and other projects. They culminated in the publication in 1949 of The Theory of Inbreeding. In 1947 he co-founded with Cyril Darlington the journal Heredity: An International Journal of Genetics.

    Ronald Fisher was opposed to the UNESCO Statement of Race. He believed that evidence and everyday experience showed that human groups differ profoundly “in their innate capacity for intellectual and emotional development” and concluded that the “practical international problem is that of learning to share the resources of this planet amicably with persons of materially different nature,” and that “this problem is being obscured by entirely well-intentioned efforts to minimize the real differences that exist.” The revised 1951 statement titled "The Race Concept: Results of an Inquiry" was accompanied by Fisher's dissenting commentary.[15]
     
  10. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    Scientists do use the term "more evolved", but they mean on the scale of time, according to what has already happened. Like a "primitive" crocodile is only one with early features, and a "more evolved" one is one that looks more like present day crocodiles.
     
  11. GeoffP Caput gerat lupinum Valued Senior Member

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    I am an animal breeder. I work with animal breeders. I have been into the subject of evolution and its control from a long time. And more and more of us are griping about the 95th %ile. It's sort of an absurd proposition, really: why not 90%? 99%? Why not the third standard deviation? 95% isn't so special, really.

    I expect it would depend on the species. Breeding trials in cattle are that long at least; shorter in pigs.

    I almost did a postdoc with a guy interested in this. Daphnia system.

    I'm glad of the wiki info, but my issue is the ancient Fisher vs. Wright scenario. It's not of as much interest these days, but I do love the classics. I think a lot of people went the way that I did and accepted that either would be possible, given the right circumstances. Lande-land.

    But anyway: if you're referring to ANOVA vis-a-vis Bonferroni, a lot of quantitative geneticists are pissed off about it, and I'd say at least 3/4 of them find ways to avoid it. It's just too extreme a correction level for small, Fisherian-style effects. Do you really think you have much chance of success at detecting a gene responsible for much less than 5% of variance? You'd need to be on the higher-power end or else have massive substitution differences between the strains. I prefer FDR or permutation.
     
  12. GeoffP Caput gerat lupinum Valued Senior Member

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    Yeah. I'm on an animal protocol review committee, and it sort of zoologically pisses me off that they ask whether "less evolved" species can be used in place of mammalian models. WTF is that meant to mean?, I want to ask, but it's non-evolutionary types, so I imagine they'd just stare at me blankly.
     
  13. Dywyddyr Penguinaciously duckalicious. Valued Senior Member

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    Lawyers, estate agents, that sort of thing.
     
  14. baftan ******* Valued Senior Member

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    I think especially humans should be banned using the term of "natural", after all we have done to ourselves and the rest of the nature. Nature does not use any committee to make a "selection"; asteroid hits, landscape changes, food supply shifts, a virus appears, mutations go wrong, some shit happens.

    Nature has left the building of human selection department. We occupied the building and put some serious people in there, they will either destroy everything or put us into another dimension. I don't think they have a space for natural selection.
     
  15. D.W. Dr.Weirdo Registered Senior Member

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    Wow, I didn't know we can quote wikipedia and can be "loose" here I thought I had to post goody two-shoes opinons.

    On to the topic, I mean as humans we evolved naturally. As for natural selection...as you say nature isn't in charge but we tooken control of that wheel and decide our own fate is in the hands of scientist, by more evolved and natural selection, we let humans evolve us more with medicine and enhancing the fetus to be slightly more healthy, stronger, smarter.
     
  16. amark317 game developer-in-training Registered Senior Member

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    so THAT'S why my ears were burning!
     

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