OK, that's a misleading title, but it'll do as a starting point. Humans have altered the progression of Darwinian evolution because of our delineation of sex and procreation, and yet we continue to use Darwinian terminology in the discussion of psychosocial and biological evolution.
1. "Survival of the fittest" ONLY relates to procreation. Period. It does not relate to physical fitness, longevity, comfortability of lifestyle, attractiveness, intelligence, prowess, or wealth. It specifically relates to the generational progression of genetic material via progeny. Therefore, unlikely though it may seem... Single Mom of three in trailer park with three viable offspring > Bill Gates 2. While much focus is placed in our society on health as key to longevity, longevity may actually be the antithesis to "fitness", in a Darwinian sense. First, a shorter life cycle leads to faster progression of generations, meaning in simple terms, faster evolution. This is why drosophilae are a favorite of geneticists, since changes to the core structure of DNA/RNA can be quickly (relatively speaking) tracked through several generations of offspring. Second, the longer humans live, the more our DNA degrades, leading to the predictably more common occurrencess of cancer of all types: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8460632?ordinalpos=1&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DiscoveryPanel.Pubmed_Discovery_PMC&linkpos=2&log$=citedinpmcarticles&logdbfrom=pubmed or for something a little simpler: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1944386?ordinalpos=1&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DiscoveryPanel.Pubmed_Discovery_RA&linkpos=3&log$=relatedarticles&logdbfrom=pubmed With humans living longer lives, and the growing western trend of procreating later in life, an illusion of "fitness" is created and maintained, while passing on degraded genetic material, the negative impact of which won't be seen for more than a century due to the length of the modern life cycle. Thoughts? --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups ""Minds Eye"" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/Minds-Eye?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
