De - Evolution
- Thread starter The God
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exchemist
Valued Senior Member
Surely that would only be if it were selected for, i.e. less capable people had more children than capable ones?
My impression is that people still look for physical and mental capacity in a partner. I suppose it is possible this might change, but I suspect not.
On the other hand, perhaps it has already happened without us noticing! After all Trump was chosen by quite close to 50% of US voters, and the UK did vote to leave the EU......
Triumph of the Stupid?
No that would be evolution.
Sounds good.
Point is something is evolved over a period of time due to necessity, and now that necessity is no longer there.
Yazata
Valued Senior Member
I'm not comfortable with the idea of "de-evolution". Even parasitic organisms, worms that have lost most of their digestive and neurological capacities while adapting to their parasitic lifestyle, are highly adapted to that parasitic lifestyle and hence highly evolved for it.
It's certainly true that we human beings value some things more highly than others. We favor intelligence, courage, ambition, athletic prowess and all kind of things like that.
We may indeed be unintentionally breeding our population for lack of the qualities that we favor, if we create societies that however well intentioned, try to eliminate most of the selective disadvantages of not having them.
Mike Judge presents a somewhat "skewed" take on just such "devolving evolution"(?) in his movie "Idiocracy".
So your question is, more or less and do correct me if I'm wrong, "Through technological advancement do we lose cognition along the way?" I think that's an interesting question but the word de-evolution is sloppy. All evolution is simply evolution, the terminology needn't be adjusted. As for your question though, I think technology is a step forward and a step backward in terms of human development. It allows us tools to solve problems more quickly and accurately at the expense of our ability for lateral thinking. Technology has its place, but the brain in a muscle that needs exercise and the internet rarely scratches that itch.
Yes, this is one aspect of De-evolution. I have acknowledged that right term still could be Evolution only, but to emphasize I am continuing with De-evolution.
Noise on any subject does not affect evolution. However, the actual events of climate change will substantially affect every biological system.
Among other things, it will certainly break any linear projection you may have regarding current technology and social organization.
The vast human populations around the world is quite various in its living conditions, skill-sets, capabilities, life expectancies and reproductive patterns.
Climate certainly bears strongly on adaptability and the traits that become useful in one geographical area or another, but there are segments of population on all continents that will be suited to just about any conditions that might arise. Going forward from the break, each of those local surviving populations will select for the most useful traits in their environment.
The results might begin to show on a biological level in about 30,000 years. (Faster, even perhaps much faster, if the break involves massive quantities of radioactive fallout.)
Human reproduction operates on a time-scale magnitudes greater than any organism in which we are able to observe evolutionary changes; therefore, we can only piece together a fragmentary record of how humans evolved in the past, under what prevailing conditions, over what period of time: any forward projection is pretty much guess-work.
De-evolution has meaning in an assumption of evolution having a purpose, or value system. I don't believe such a thing exists in nature.
When you say "we" and "our", you do not refer to the entire human race, but only the portion with which you are familiar. Most people do not have the luxury of robots or personal-service technology to depend on. People learn the skills they need in their given circumstances (and new skills when circumstances change, even in adulthood), but the complement of potentials is fairly evenly distributed.
Earlier skills, like muscles, may atrophy when not used by an individual, but that individual's offspring come into the world with the full potential to develop those same muscles.
In order for the majority of humans to lose any physical abilities permanently, 1. the dependency would not only have to continue uninterrupted for many generation, but 2. the less capable specimens would have to exhibit some exceptional mating or reproductive trait.
Neither 1. nor 2. is likely to happen.