Active Users:778 Time:14/11/2024 10:10:13 PM
Probably; as discussed in Brams thread it should never be seen as predictive, let alone prophetic. - Edit 1

Before modification by Joel at 25/08/2011 09:31:11 PM

Evolution is the affect of natural selection and like it or not we are part of nature. The actions and behaviors of birds affect how they evolve and the actions and behaviors of humans affects how we evolve. Evolution isn't a ladder where some creature are higher than others it is simple the result of selection. There is a real question about how our technology will affect our evolution but if we select for dumb and lazy then that is evolution as just as much as selecting for fast and smart.

Evolution does a great job at tailoring species to survive their environments, but change that environment too much and all the gradual changes that enhanced survival for millennia can become a real detriment. We all know about the prevailing theory that an asteroid killed the dinosaurs with a "nuclear winter" style apocalypse, but let's not kid ourselves: The next ice age had pretty dire implications for stupid building sized exotherms. On the other hand, most modern mammals would've overheated and run themselves to death escaping those dinosaurs amid the rainforest like conditions in which they lived. If we accept that view of evolution as more description than destiny it's just one more reason not to argue mans achievements are any kind of evolutionary verdict.

I also still contend that a 200,000 year old species that takes at least a dozen years to reproduce (often twice that) doesn't give much basis for conclusions about evolution anyway. Once we've survived the end of the ice age and interglacial that spawned us maybe we'll be able to make some definite statements, but "if the previous period [interrupted by numerous frigid spells lasting hundreds of years] was more typical than the present one, the period of stable climate in which humans flourished—inventing agriculture and thus civilization—may have been possible only because of a highly unusual period of stable temperature." In that case we're back to "humans aren't a triumph of evolution, we're a freakish anomaly."

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