Music Banter - View Single Post

Guybrush · 03-07-2012, 09:43 AM

Satch, I get what you're saying (or writing) and I agree with you

My last post before yours should confirm it, although perhaps I got a bit wrapped up in biological terminology to get the point across clearly.

Using terminology, you can say that technology lessens or even completely removes selection pressure. In the future, there's less need for genes coding for strong and durable hearts because we can get artificial hearts when the biological ones fail. Or a bit more out there; we don't have to evolve wings to fly because we can build planes.

One could say that we influence evolution, but it may be more correct to say we are influencing our environment. It's the environment which determines which way we'll evolve and technology is part of the our environment.

Some past technological achievements will have had tremendous effect on our evolution, like the invention of the spear and the collection/nurturing/creation of fire. I've sometimes wondered if the human fascination and fondness for fire could have something to do with our evolutionary history. After all, most animals don't like it.

edit :

Moonlit, just read your post now! Good call on the environment thingy

I don't think there's need to despair over the course of human evolution just yet. At the moment, people in general only seem to get smarter. Perhaps when that curve starts to flatten or even slope downwards, we can worry about that sort of stuff.

In general, I'm sceptical towards praising certain traits over others, like intelligence. Enough intelligence to not be an idiot is good of course, but having more than average intelligence isn't necessarily better than for example having good social skills. It depends on the person and what he or she does with it. If you start thinking eugenics, you could rank the quality of a person based on what genes he or she has and then we have low quality people and good quality people of better breeding. To some degree, people do this already, but I generally don't think it's a good idea and so perhaps thoughts like these don't need encouragement.

03-07-2012, 09:43 AM	#334 (permalink)
Guybrush Juicious Maximus III Join Date: Nov 2008 Location: Scabb Island Posts: 6,525	Satch, I get what you're saying (or writing) and I agree with you My last post before yours should confirm it, although perhaps I got a bit wrapped up in biological terminology to get the point across clearly. Using terminology, you can say that technology lessens or even completely removes selection pressure. In the future, there's less need for genes coding for strong and durable hearts because we can get artificial hearts when the biological ones fail. Or a bit more out there; we don't have to evolve wings to fly because we can build planes. One could say that we influence evolution, but it may be more correct to say we are influencing our environment. It's the environment which determines which way we'll evolve and technology is part of the our environment. Some past technological achievements will have had tremendous effect on our evolution, like the invention of the spear and the collection/nurturing/creation of fire. I've sometimes wondered if the human fascination and fondness for fire could have something to do with our evolutionary history. After all, most animals don't like it. edit : Moonlit, just read your post now! Good call on the environment thingy I don't think there's need to despair over the course of human evolution just yet. At the moment, people in general only seem to get smarter. Perhaps when that curve starts to flatten or even slope downwards, we can worry about that sort of stuff. In general, I'm sceptical towards praising certain traits over others, like intelligence. Enough intelligence to not be an idiot is good of course, but having more than average intelligence isn't necessarily better than for example having good social skills. It depends on the person and what he or she does with it. If you start thinking eugenics, you could rank the quality of a person based on what genes he or she has and then we have low quality people and good quality people of better breeding. To some degree, people do this already, but I generally don't think it's a good idea and so perhaps thoughts like these don't need encouragement. __________________ Something Completely Different Last edited by Guybrush; 03-07-2012 at 09:50 AM.