Current Society Degenerating ? Evolution

[PilzzE 0]

Last time i had a discussion with my cousin it was aboutevolution and if mankind has the power to evolve further in mind and body.An agreement we basicly came out with that was darwin's theory doesnt work on us all that much anymore.Ofcourse there are differences between people from different nations (coloured people per example as protection from the sun)but we do not evolve any further in our favor. (I have yet to see people with claws or hawk-eyesight)We do not use our brain more nor do we gain physical strenghts is what i am basically trying to say.This is a harsh statement and resembles a mindsetting Adolf. Hitler had aswell.To further purify a race and make sure we are going forward we have to make sure that only the strongest survive(culling the weak...rites of survival however you want to call it) and we have to make sure we have a healthy clean and diverse genepool.Right now in our current society weak people (with defective genes) are allowed to live and are helped by our current medical system.Even if it is morally incorrect one could say that we must not allow them to reproduce or even not allow them any medical help.So that they die out (certain diseases and disfunctions could just simply dissapear useing this method)By letting our species breed the way we are right now we are further diluteing our genepool with bad gene's and bad mutations will keep occuring generally makeing our race weaker as the years progress eventually killing ourselves.P.S I do not see leaps in technology something as evolution.Just because we can kill other animals with bombs now does not deviate from the fact that we used sticks to do the same thingit makes us less reliant of our skills and own doings letting our body degenerate further and further during more years to come.Most people in this world share the following mind setting :Why wrestle a bull to the floor skin it debone it and prepare it if i can buy one from the local supermarket aswell.

[pedro-kun 0]

By letting our species breed the way we are right now we are further diluteing our genepool with bad gene's and bad mutations will keep occuring generally makeing our race weaker as the years progress eventually killing ourselves.

Please don't underestimate genetic engineering. Those bad genes and bad mutations that you talked about will someday be possible to correct and/or disable. Perhaps we will even be able to strip them off the genome altogether.Performing the "natural selection" you talked about is denying the very thing that makes us humans: we think and feel, and care about others too.

As for evolving the mind and body themselves, you don't really know if it is not possible. It is highly improbable, but not impossible.

[minimcmonkey 0]

It would not be good to stop faulty genes being created, as "faulty" really refers to a gene which is not normal, remember that humans must evolve and change with the earth to survive. and therefore, that "faulty" gene, may be part of natures way to protect us from global warming or something.

[pedro-kun 0]

It would not be good to stop faulty genes being created, as "faulty" really refers to a gene which is not normal, remember that humans must evolve and change with the earth to survive. and therefore, that "faulty" gene, may be part of natures way to protect us from global warming or something.

I don't really know if the reply was intended for me, but it doesn't matter. I just want to make a little correction.
Yes, genes may have their own (unknown) purpose even if they aren't normally active. However, when one talks about "no more faulty genes" one surely means "no more "bad" mutations of said gene."

[isdrobotica 0]

I currently study robotics...yes thats my "major" (in my country there is no such system as major or minor just major) And among the things we study are that for around 2050 robots will be as smart a us, in fact the current predictions say that humans and robot will have relationships (sex, etc etc,) the thing is when you say

it makes us less reliant of our skills and own doings letting our body degenerate further and further during more years to come.

Most people in this world share the following mind setting :

Why wrestle a bull to the floor skin it debone it and prepare it if i can buy one from the local supermarket aswell.

if I understand correctly what you said you mean technology makes us lazy and there are implications contrary to evolution like obesity and etc etc....I already mentioned the capacity of the robots for the future, as of now there is this branch of robotics called Neuroprosthethics, this is for people who lost limbs and there is a "new" branch which investigates the possibility of making us "cyborgs" part machine part human. (sentient entities) meaning in my point of view that we really arent much different than the original *person* sapience, just that we have developed our potential a lot more, so I think that humans have come to a point where we do not have to wait for the millions of years for evolving in a way like X-men or something like that...instead we have now the ability and potential of instead of walking in the evolutionary line jogging and running....either with my definition of cyborgs or manipulating only DNA or even both.

I will like to apologize for my english and I hope I made my point of view clear.

(by the way what happens if I have like 10 posts but I dont want to ask for the host until like 300 will those posts count for the days without posting or are the posts after you give me the hosting the ones that count...well I might even buy it)

 

***sorry it think it doesnt allow me to say homosapiens... is it the *person* part???

Edited September 18, 2008 by isdrobotica (see edit history)

[HDuffRules 0]

Well the whole eradicating bad things by not letting certain people mate has been tried before, the Eugenics movement never really worked out, it just put tons of people into governement-maintained facilities, which basically just ended up costing a lot of money. The thing with evolution and evolutionary forces is that the forces that shaped our evolution in the past don't have as strong a sway anymore. Genes basically sit around. The point when man realized he could manipulate the environment in his favor, evolution in the old sense started losing its influence. But just because physical evolution has stagnated doesn't mean mental evolution can't. Basically now we are what we are and we have what we have, but its up to us to innovate, to think of new ways to utilize these resources. The concept of a "meme" as coined by Richard Dawkins points to that. A "meme" is kind of like a gene, but it represents an idea. Memes can be accepted or rejected collectively by societies. Whether or not a society accepts a meme and aplies it to its everyday function comes to define that society. Memes can also be transmitted between societies, either through immigration, emigration, or education, etc. Essentially, the day of competition between individuals is over, and now its down to competition between groups of individuals. Eventually, given enough time (if we're still around, asumming no particularly aggressive society decided it would be a good idea to start a nuclear war) all societies should consolidate, ie. have accepted the same combination of memes. At this point evolution may have reached its highest point; when everyone agrees on a large set of memes, then they by extension agree on all related memes, and any new memes to arise (kind of like mutation) would violate a meme already well-established, and would be rejected quickly. Only at that point has evolution reached the end of evolution.. unless you believe in ascension, but idk if ascension is something that is actually possible. But going back to the actual question, its definitely possible the society we're living in may be degenerating, this would be the result of adopting too many memes that have turned out to be detrimental to our standing in relation to other societies...