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Are humans evolving, or devolving, or both? (1 Viewer)

matttyl

matttyl

Footballguy
I'm a huge fan of nature shows like "Life" and "Earth."  Recently started watching a new one on Netflix called "Life Stories", which apparently follows a creature from birth (or hatching) until adulthood.  A line from it really struck me, and got me thinking - it was something like "the goal of life for these creatures is to produce offspring, the closest thing to immortality." 

That got me thinking if that's the case for humans as well - and for a long, long time in the "hunter/gatherer" days I'm sure it was.  Don't get eaten or killed long enough to procreate and produce offspring, and raise them to the age where they could do the same.  In modern society, though - we as humans don't have to worry so much about being eaten by the sabertooth tiger or other predator, or (at least on a percentage basis) being killed by other potentially stronger/smarter humans for whatever reason.  You know, survival of the fittest type stuff.  Over the entire timeline of "humans", that change has actually been somewhat recently - maybe a few hundred years (roughly only 20 generations from the "old world's" discovery of the "new world").   Through modern medicine and modern society, there is a far, far, far greater chance for a human to survive long enough to produce offspring - so "evolution" in the Darwin sense of the word doesn't really apply any more.

With that in mind (assuming any basis for that thought process), are we as humans evolving - or considering there is no longer any "survival of the fittest" situation, are we devolving?

 
Related...

IQ in decline across the world as scientists say we’re getting dumber

FOR at least a century, average IQ has been on the rise, thanks to improved nutrition, living conditions and technology.

But now, scientists think the trend is going into reverse.

In Denmark, every man aged 18 is given an IQ test, to assess them in case of military conscription. It means around 30,000 people have been taking the same test for years — and scores have fallen by 1.5 points since 1998.

The pattern is repeated around the world, according to New Scientist, with tests showing the same thing happening everywhere from Australia and the UK to Brazil and China.

The most rapid signs of IQ growth in the US appeared between the 1950s and 1980s, the magazine reported, with “intelligence” rocketing by around 3 points per decade.

The trend for rising IQs was first documented by New Zealand scientist James Flynn, and is known as the Flynn Effect.

It has been attributed to advances in health and medicine, as well as ever-expanding technology and culture forcing us to contend with a multi-layered world.

Now, the theory is that in developed countries, improvements such as public sanitation and more stimulating environments may have gone as far as they can in terms of increasing our intelligence.

The first evidence of a dip in IQ was reported in Norway in 2004, closely followed by similar studies emerging from developed countries including Sweden and the Netherlands.

Dr Flynn has said that such minor decreases could be attributable to reversible issues with social conditions, such as falling income, unhealthy diet or problems with education.

But some experts believe our IQs are in a state of permanent decline.

Some researchers suggest that the Flynn effect has masked an underlying decline in our genetic intelligence — meaning more people have been developing closer to their full potential, but that potential has been dropping.

This has been attributed in some quarters to the fact that the most highly educated people in society are having fewer children than the general population.

It is an uncomfortable thought, and one that strays worryingly close to controversial theories on genetic modification and even eugenics.

The idea that natural selection pays little heed to intelligence was explored in 2006 black comedy Idiocracy, made by the creator of Beavis and Butthead.

It has become a reference point for those who despair at what they see as relentless dumbing down of society.

 
ShamrockPride said:
Physically evolving.

Mentally devolving.
Click to expand...


This.

Now I think the mental devolve is a fairly recent thing.    I think we peaked very recently historically.

Some minds I believe are achieving higher highs than ever before.. but less of those are being bred as smart people have less kids and dumb ones have more kids, idiocracy style

 
ShamrockPride said:
Physically evolving.

Mentally devolving.
Click to expand...
Are we, though, and if so - how?  Again, talking about the net effect across humanity as a whole.  Centuries ago, if someone had a disease or simply wasn't strong enough to survive, they likely would perish before reproducing.  I don't mean to sound harsh, but the net effect of that was a stronger remaining humanity.  Today, that's not the case (which I don't mean to sound as if it's a bad thing).  You can have a disease, or be "weaker" than the average and still live more than long enough to reproduce. 

 
Devolving isn't a biologically coherent concept.

Humans are evolving, and are doing so at a faster pace than at any time in human history.

 
matttyl said:
Are we, though, and if so - how?  Again, talking about the net effect across humanity as a whole.  Centuries ago, if someone had a disease or simply wasn't strong enough to survive, they likely would perish before reproducing.  I don't mean to sound harsh, but the net effect of that was a stronger remaining humanity.  Today, that's not the case (which I don't mean to sound as if it's a bad thing).  You can have a disease, or be "weaker" than the average and still live more than long enough to reproduce. 
Click to expand...
People still reproduce at different rates. Not everyone has the same number of grandchildren. And those differential rates are not completely random -- they are correlated with various genetic traits. So the "selection" part of "mutation and selection" is still alive and well.

Moreover, the "mutation" part is stronger than ever simply by virtue of the fact that the human population is larger than ever. More total people = more total mutations.

 
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So basically the summary is this:  there is an indirect correlation between IQ and reproduction rates across humanity.

I blame birth control.

 
Maurile Tremblay said:
So the "selection" part of "mutation and selection" is still alive and well.
Click to expand...
"And it is now beyond doubt that human evolution is a continuous process that has proceeded vigorously within the last 30,000 years and almost certainly — though very recent evolution is hard to measure — throughout the historical period and up until the present day.

New analyses of the human genome have established that human evolution has been recent, copious, and regional. Biologists scanning the genome for evidence of natural selection have detected signals of many genes that have been favored by natural selection in the recent evolutionary past. No less than 14% of the human genome, according to one estimate, has changed under this recent evolutionary pressure."

TIME <--- (Article that Maurile is referencing)

 
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Both

One, much smaller section of society, is evolving, working on the forefront of knowledge they will be ones that tries to keep humanity on track

The rest is devolving.  Trapped in fear and cloaking themselves in religion and shopping. Using the brain is secondary for these people.  They spend their time powering the old reptilian part of their brain.  

 
Maurile Tremblay said:
Devolving isn't a biologically coherent concept.

Humans are evolving, and are doing so at a faster pace than at any time in human history.
Click to expand...
It's not a biological concept because it's never been encountered before.  I think it's possible that we have built ourselves in such a way that devolving is in fact biologically possible.  In nature devolving wouldn't occur because it would end in the extinction of the species. 

 
killface said:
Both

One, much smaller section of society, is evolving, working on the forefront of knowledge they will be ones that tries to keep humanity on track

The rest is devolving.  Trapped in fear and cloaking themselves in religion and shopping. Using the brain is secondary for these people.  They spend their time powering the old reptilian part of their brain.  
Click to expand...
So how is this different from any other time in human history? There have always been a small population of smart people that drive society forward and a large population of dumb people that get drug along.

 
Insein said:
So how is this different from any other time in human history? There have always been a small population of smart people that drive society forward and a large population of dumb people that get drug along.
Click to expand...
The dumb died earlier though.  They didn't have the protection they have now.  They were also the minority in terms of driving policy.  

 
killface said:
It's not a biological concept because it's never been encountered before.  I think it's possible that we have built ourselves in such a way that devolving is in fact biologically possible.  In nature devolving wouldn't occur because it would end in the extinction of the species. 
Click to expand...
We built ourselves outside of nature?

 
killface said:
The dumb died earlier though.  They didn't have the protection they have now.  They were also the minority in terms of driving policy.  
Click to expand...
Good point, and I was thinking of asking Maurile his opinion on this.  Does less emphasis on survival slow down evolution or just point it in a different direction?

 
killface said:
You don't think that's possible?  That we have come to a point that the rules of nature no longer apply in some of the more traditional forms? 
Click to expand...
No.  That's why they're called the rules of nature.  We may understand them differently or interpret them differently, but, we don't exclude ourselves from them.  

 
killface said:
The dumb died earlier though.  They didn't have the protection they have now.  They were also the minority in terms of driving policy.  
Click to expand...
They still are the minority. You think the idiot masses are making policy these days? 

Also, people died fairly proportionate back then. Cancer and other diseases of the time didn't care if you were poor or rich.

 
tonydead said:
No.  That's why they're called the rules of nature.  We may understand them differently or interpret them differently, but, we don't exclude ourselves from them.  
Click to expand...
Evolution isn't a rule of a nature.  It is a 'human-centric' view of the rules of nature based on our limited view and experience.  I'm not saying it doesn't exist (just to keep the creationists at bay) just saying that our limited understanding of what it looks like is just that....limited.

 
Insein said:
They still are the minority. You think the idiot masses are making policy these days? 

Also, people died fairly proportionate back then. Cancer and other diseases of the time didn't care if you were poor or rich.
Click to expand...
I don't have time to look this up but i think the lack of clean water and sewer led to massive plagues in poor sections of society that didn't impact the rich much back in the day.  

 
tonydead said:
We built ourselves outside of nature?
Click to expand...
In a lot of ways, yes.  Modern medicine being the largest example.  I myself was born nearly 2 months early, with very underdeveloped lungs (aka IRDS).  Same idea, but I've since been told worse than that of Patrick Kennedy (son of a sitting President), who died two days after birth.  Less than 2 decades later, I was able to survive it in a podunk hospital in the country, something that killed the son of the most powerful man in the world died of.

In "nature", I'd be dead - and my son born last year....well, obviously, wouldn't have been born.

 
killface said:
I don't have time to look this up but i think the lack of clean water and sewer led to massive plagues in poor sections of society that didn't impact the rich much back in the day.  
Click to expand...
And the rich didn't spend much time fighting and dying on battlefield either (well, some things don't change much, I guess).

 
Humans are devolving... but it's politically incorrect to say it outloud. But the truth is, the way our modern society functions, humans with weaker genes are more likely to reproduce than humans with stronger genes. This is because humans with stronger genes know what a pain in the ### it is to have kids and have the means to avoid having them. Whereas those with weaker genes are clueless as to what they are getting into by having kids, are more likely to buy cigarettes than they are birth control, and qualify for bigger tax breaks after having them. You think society is dumb now?... wait another 50 years and see what we will become.  

 
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Politician Spock said:
Humans are devolving... but it's politically incorrect to say it outloud. But the truth is, the way our modern society functions, humans with weaker genes are more likely to reproduce than humans with stronger genes. This is because humans with stronger genes know what a pain in the ### it is to have kids and have the means to avoid having them. Whereas those with weaker genes are clueless as to what they are getting into by having kids, are more likely to buy cigarettes than they are birth control, and qualify for bigger tax breaks after having them. You think society is dumb now?... wait another 50 years and see what we will become.  
Click to expand...
And that's just two generation cycles. 

 
matttyl said:
I'm a huge fan of nature shows like "Life" and "Earth."  Recently started watching a new one on Netflix called "Life Stories", which apparently follows a creature from birth (or hatching) until adulthood.  A line from it really struck me, and got me thinking - it was something like "the goal of life for these creatures is to produce offspring, the closest thing to immortality." 

That got me thinking if that's the case for humans as well - and for a long, long time in the "hunter/gatherer" days I'm sure it was.  Don't get eaten or killed long enough to procreate and produce offspring, and raise them to the age where they could do the same.  In modern society, though - we as humans don't have to worry so much about being eaten by the sabertooth tiger or other predator, or (at least on a percentage basis) being killed by other potentially stronger/smarter humans for whatever reason.  You know, survival of the fittest type stuff.  Over the entire timeline of "humans", that change has actually been somewhat recently - maybe a few hundred years (roughly only 20 generations from the "old world's" discovery of the "new world").   Through modern medicine and modern society, there is a far, far, far greater chance for a human to survive long enough to produce offspring - so "evolution" in the Darwin sense of the word doesn't really apply any more.

With that in mind (assuming any basis for that thought process), are we as humans evolving - or considering there is no longer any "survival of the fittest" situation, are we devolving?
Click to expand...
It does seem like the top of the economic food chain is having fewer children while the bottom is not. I wonder if this is a built-in instinct. Maybe the top feels their genes are more likely to survive even with fewer offspring while those at the bottom still are in have more kids to increase probability mode. Stree this is instinctual level, not something people think about consciously.

 
Tolstoy said:
what genetic traits are still being acted on by natural selection?
Click to expand...
Lactose tolerance is a particularly well-studied one. The article Gary Coal Man linked to above makes the case for a few more culturally relevant ones: non-violence, literacy (or, more generally, abstract thinking), willingness to delay gratification, and ability to withstand monotony.

 
bueno said:
It does seem like the top of the economic food chain is having fewer children while the bottom is not. I wonder if this is a built-in instinct. Maybe the top feels their genes are more likely to survive even with fewer offspring while those at the bottom still are in have more kids to increase probability mode. Stree this is instinctual level, not something people think about consciously.
Click to expand...
Highly educated people are intentionally not having children.  It is absolutely a conscious decision.  Note they aren't not having sex, just not having children.  The natural process of childbirth would be happening but for the conscious decision to prevent that from happening.

 
tonydead said:
Good point, and I was thinking of asking Maurile his opinion on this.  Does less emphasis on survival slow down evolution or just point it in a different direction?
Click to expand...
I would argue that survival is still an instinct - whether we talk about a person trying to survive (or help others survive) through socializing survival (health care, foods banks, etc.) or through working their asses off to give their children a better life, we are still in survival mode. Just without predators from other species getting into the act.

 
bueno said:
It does seem like the top of the economic food chain is having fewer children while the bottom is not. I wonder if this is a built-in instinct. Maybe the top feels their genes are more likely to survive even with fewer offspring while those at the bottom still are in have more kids to increase probability mode. Stree this is instinctual level, not something people think about consciously.
Click to expand...
Economic =/= evolutionary, though.  I'm only using him as an example due to the recent championship - but look at Lebron James as an example.  Nearly bottom of the barrel of the economic food chain at birth, but physically (aka evolutionary) extremely gifted as well as a pretty smart guy (or so says the NBA stat guys), leading to his recent success.  Now his success has lead to a complete flip in his place on the economic food chain for his children.

 
killface said:
Evolution isn't a rule of a nature.  It is a 'human-centric' view of the rules of nature based on our limited view and experience.  I'm not saying it doesn't exist (just to keep the creationists at bay) just saying that our limited understanding of what it looks like is just that....limited.
Click to expand...


matttyl said:
In a lot of ways, yes.  Modern medicine being the largest example.  I myself was born nearly 2 months early, with very underdeveloped lungs (aka IRDS).  Same idea, but I've since been told worse than that of Patrick Kennedy (son of a sitting President), who died two days after birth.  Less than 2 decades later, I was able to survive it in a podunk hospital in the country, something that killed the son of the most powerful man in the world died of.

In "nature", I'd be dead - and my son born last year....well, obviously, wouldn't have been born.
Click to expand...
I think we have a different definition of nature.

And just because you happened to survive doesn't mean you can't or won't pass those genetic traits onto your offspring.  You didn't develop yourself in spite of nature, it's still there.   

 
Jayrod said:
Highly educated people are intentionally not having children.  It is absolutely a conscious decision.  Note they aren't not having sex, just not having children.  The natural process of childbirth would be happening but for the conscious decision to prevent that from happening.
Click to expand...
Which is yet another example of humans "evolving" outside of nature.  We're the only species that does this.

 
Jayrod said:
Highly educated people are intentionally not having children.  It is absolutely a conscious decision.  Note they aren't not having sex, just not having children.  The natural process of childbirth would be happening but for the conscious decision to prevent that from happening.
Click to expand...
But the underlying motivation is still instinctual. They aren't thinking "I don't need as many children to pass on my genes."

 
I feel like the question is assuming that evolution is a positive. I think it is possible for a species to "evolve" but end up in a worse place in its existence.

 
killface said:
Maurile Tremblay said:
Devolving isn't a biologically coherent concept.

Humans are evolving, and are doing so at a faster pace than at any time in human history.



 




 
Click to expand...
It's not a biological concept because it's never been encountered before.  I think it's possible that we have built ourselves in such a way that devolving is in fact biologically possible.  In nature devolving wouldn't occur because it would end in the extinction of the species. 




 




 
Click to expand...
No, it isn't biologically coherent because it is biologically incoherent. I'm not even sure what it's supposed to mean. From the context of this thread (and the reference to Idiocracy), it appears to mean something along the lines of a reduction in IQ over time? First, I think the evidence for that is terrible, and I strongly suspect that IQ among humans will keep increasing over time. But that's kind of a separate discussion. Let's assume for the sake of argument that IQ will start decreasing. That wouldn't be unheard of -- the degradation of some formerly more useful trait has occurred numerous times in nature. But that's still evolution, not devolution.

The ancestors of whales used to have perfectly functional legs. Current whales do not. There are blind fish living in dark caves whose ancestors used to have perfectly functional eyes, but that function has been lost. That's evolution, not devolution, because the loss of those traits was naturally selected for. Legs aren't as useful to sea-dwelling creatures, and eyes aren't as useful to creatures who live in complete darkness. So the cost of building legs and eyes is no longer worthwhile for some creatures. In the same way, if humans start to get genetically dumber, it will be because the (rather substantial) cost of building big, energy-hogging brains may no longer be worthwhile when other traits become more important instead. That's evolution, not devolution. There's no such thing as biological devolution because the very concept fails to make sense.

 
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tonydead said:
I think we have a different definition of nature.

And just because you happened to survive doesn't mean you can't or won't pass those genetic traits onto your offspring.  You didn't develop yourself in spite of nature, it's still there.   
Click to expand...
But I did pass that trait on, that's my point.  My son was born 6 weeks early (though further along in development than I was at birth).  In "nature" (the absence of human developed modern medicine) I wouldn't have survived, and thus couldn't have passed on that trait.  That would have led to the remaining human race not having that (poor) genetic trait, and thus on average being a "stronger" group due to survival of the fittest/evolution. 

I get what MT said above about human still evolving, obviously we are.  I'm asking in what direct that evolutionary process taking us?  In many ways we are evolving outside of the laws of nature (at least the laws found in all other species) such as modern medicine, choosing not to reproduce when you are more than capable of doing so, man made genocides and wars.....

 
Funkley said:
I feel like the question is assuming that evolution is a positive. I think it is possible for a species to "evolve" but end up in a worse place in its existence.
Click to expand...
Evolution also includes speciation. As a smaller and smaller percentage of humankind evolves, it will probably lead to human speciation.

 
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