Human Evolution; Extinct? Part Three

As I said earlier, I think that human evolution is done on a physical standpoint for several reasons, unless we have some sort of cataclysmic event that causes natural selection to start weeding out some of the population.  Now where does this leave humans?  The idea occurred to me that maybe we were experiencing evolution on more of a social level about 2 weeks ago, when I realized that some people were actually not having children due to their various problems.  A key example would be my friend.  She has a lot of issues, both physically and mentally.  She is determined to not have kids because she doesn't want to pass on these problems to her potential kids, as this would be unfair to them.  Maybe it is now up to the individuals to pass on their genes or not, so now maybe the "natural selection" is our own social consciousness.  Now don't get me wrong, not everyone is socially conscientious, in fact, I believe the vast majority of the populous is not.  If everyone were to be considerate and conscientious about the society as a whole, and not what is best for the individual, we might actually see a significant evolution of sorts.  This problem can be explained with a little bit of advanced economics.  There is this theory called the tragedy of the commons and to explain it, lets say that there are several fishermen and a supply of fish that they can all fish from.  The individual fishermen will do what is economically best for them, so the vast majority of them will fish.  For every fisherman that decides to fish, the total marginal benefit, or profit, decreases for all fishermen.  After a while, the fishermen will deplete the supply of fish, even though none of them intended to so as it is not economically beneficial to any of them.  If they would have worked together, the total benefit amongst all fishermen could have been achieved, and the supply of fish wouldn't have been defeated.  The moral of the story is that we as a society need to work together in order to receive the most benefit, as most individual working on their own will pick an inefficient solution that could produce a lot of harm in the long run.

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Sorry

Sorry guys for the lack of updates.  I've just been really bogged down with work, school, and my new projects.  I will post a new blog soon.  Sorry for the delay.

Human Evolution: Extinct? Part Two

Seeing from the overwhelming response of the last post, I will continue on the topic of human evolution.  It could be said that natural evolution is at the very least stunted due to modern advances in technology and medicine.  This being said, it would take some unforeseen force to continue evolution in humans at the same rate it has occurred in the past.  Now, what if people were in charge of this "natural selection"?  I'm glad eugenics was brought up in the previous post, because that is exactly what forced, man-made evolution is.  We've seen Hitler try this, and the results were disastrous. What if people were just randomly killed at birth, with no rhyme or reason?  Would this help evolution, or would it do nothing but throw a theoretical wrench into the evolution engine?

In the next post, I will discuss where I believe human evolution is going.

Human Evolution Extinct?

According to the theory of evolution, mutations occur within a species.  When these mutations are harmful, the organism is less likely to reproduce, and the gene is removed from the gene pool.  However, when the mutation is beneficial, the organism is more likely to pass on the gene and have it become a normal trait.  This is exactly how every species arrived to their current disposition.  It could also be noted that if there are no pressures or forces against these mutations, that the weaker and harmful mutations would subsequently survive and reproduce.  In humans, there are no real pressures that would wipe out these mutations in modern times.  Medical science has improved so much that diseases that would have killed people in their childhood can now live happy and fulfilling lives.  Would this ultimately make humans weaker, or will it have some other unforeseen circumstance?  Are some of these mutations actually beneficial?  Does human evolution still exist?

New Design

For those of you who have been here for a while, I have renovated the site.  Please let me know what you think and what I can improve on.  I look forward to hearing your comments and suggestions.

Sexual Education

My friend and I had a debate the other day on sexual education in schools.  His debate was that fat kids shouldn't get sex education because they are fat and less likely, if not completely unable, to get laid.  By educating these fat kids, it would depress them because they would never be able experience sexual intercourse.  My argument was that everybody should be educated in case they ever do have intercourse.  Some people have a genetic predisposition to be heavier, and that should not be held against them.  My friend retorted that in the case that these fat kids were to ever become skinny, that they would be instated to receive the education. In short, my friend argued to not educate fat kids with sexual education in order to keep them happy, while I argued that everyone, regardless of any issues, be it genetic or social, be educated in case that the situation arises where intercourse is imminent.  What do you think?

Evolution Thought

It has long been thought that organisms adapt to their environment, taking up certain ecological niches.  According to this train of thought, plants would adapt to utilize an untapped niche, feces.  It could then be hypothesized that plants evolved to utilize the nutrients found in the fecal matter.  What would that mean about other organisms?  Perhaps it was the organisms that adapted to the plants.  If an animal were to excrete a stool high in certain nutrients beneficial to plants, the local plants around the animal would grow in more abundance.  This increase in plant life could have then increased that animal's chance of survival by supply some sort of benefit, such as an increased food supply.  Over vast amounts of time, this relationship could have help nudge an animal's evolution in a certain direction.  Just a fun idea to ponder.

First Blog

I don't really know what I'll be talking about in this blog, just whatever happens to interest me at the moment.  I could talk about video games, philosophical debates, movies, apps, whatever I see fit.  That's all for now.  I'll hopefully feel the urge to start writing soon.