Layoffs... Been there, done that - both sides of the cut. The business version of Survival of the Fittest?
P. ----- Original Message ---- From: Stephen A. Lawrence <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [email protected] Sent: Friday, December 14, 2007 10:38:08 PM Subject: Re: [Vo]:OT: Are humans evolving faster? Crummy night -- we just had a layoff at work (I made the cut but some very good people didn't). So the tone of this may be a little downbeat. PHILIP WINESTONE wrote: > LOL!!!! I empathize... in all respects. > > "Does that make us a self-evolving species?" I dunno. Humans "evolving" -- hah. Let's think about this a little. "Evolving" means changing over time, but it implies no value judgement. Tapeworms /evolved/ to get where they are. Of course, you absolutely must accept the notion that major traits -- such as intelligence and physical prowess (OK, pick nits, there are nuances to both of those) -- have their parameters determined by genetics rather than being totally, 100% plastic and controlled entirely by the environment; otherwise the whole issue vanishes in the mist. (You'd also better be willing to drop vacuous notions like "all men are created equal" -- define "equal", define "created", and then we can talk about ways of testing the assertion.) Classic Darwinian evolution results when there's /selection pressure/ of some sort at work. What sort of selection pressure is at work on humans? "Selection pressure" => creatures with some particular set of traits have more offspring which grow up than creatures with different traits. What "selection pressure" might exist for modern humans? Which groups have more offspring? Which groups have fewer offspring? Is it possible that there is any genetic basis at work in determining who is a member of which group? What can we conclude from that? C. M. Kornbluth asked these questions quite some decades ago, and came up with an answer which still looks pretty plausible. And I'll let my comments go at that. (I expect Jones will catch the reference, even if nobody else does...) > Depending on > your standpoint, the whole thing could be meaningless. For example, if > you know something about the Dalai Lama's background, where would you > place him in the species? How many children does the Dalai Lama have? If he doesn't have any, then he's out of the running -- in the long view of things, he doesn't count. Saddam Hussein doesn't count, either -- his "line" got dead-ended. That guy who worked in a sperm bank and substituted his own semen for the stuff he was supposed to be handing out, now -- HE counts for a LOT; he's an example of an extremely successful creature.
