• Are we Killing Natural Selection in Humans?
    45 replies, posted
[QUOTE=Rangergxi;40108582]Well it seem's that the stupidest people breed the most[/quote] If this was true, iq scores would have been in decline, or at least stalling, in nations with the most extensive welfare systems. Do you have something to back this up with?
[QUOTE=Sobotnik;40108141]Good thing the exact opposite is happening: [url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect[/url] I mostly put it down to advances in nutrition and the removal of poisonous things from the environment (such as lead paint).[/QUOTE] IQ != intelligence Sure, it's the best measure we have, but what about other sorts of intelligence, like creative intelligence or emotional intelligence? How do we know those haven't declined or are declining?
[QUOTE=Ledivad;40108707]IQ != intelligence Sure, it's the best measure we have, but what about other sorts of intelligence, like creative intelligence or emotional intelligence? How do we know those haven't declined or are declining?[/QUOTE] Firstly, IQ is a pretty good measure for populations (which is one of the reasons behind it in the first place). If IQ isn't declining in any way at all (in fact it's rising), can you offer something to refute that?
[QUOTE=Sobotnik;40108793] If IQ isn't declining in any way at all (in fact it's rising), can you offer something to refute that?[/QUOTE] These are growing because more and more people are getting educated. This is because of schools and the internet. He's talking about emotional and creative intelligence. I'm not sure what these are but I see alot of innovation and new art everyday.
[QUOTE=Rangergxi;40108687]I apologize for that but genetics do play a part in intelligence. I still think how people are raised and their education matters more but still, we can't ignore genetics. [url]http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/intelligence.html[/url] I was reading this interesting page early, it's pretty interesting. Wikipedia also has some pretty interesting stuff on Nature v Nurture.[/QUOTE] They do play a part but not in the form of intelligence people discuss when they say the less intelligent are reproducing more.
[QUOTE=Rangergxi;40108867]These are growing because more and more people are getting educated.[/QUOTE] Not really. The tests are with children already in school usually. Education can't really change IQ. Nutrition has a much bigger impact imo (physiologically, we are bigger, stronger, have better immune systems, etc). It is not a far stretch to say that psychologically there has been change. [editline]31st March 2013[/editline] [QUOTE=Rangergxi;40108687]Nature v Nurture.[/QUOTE] I've always seen this as a false dilemma. Only a fool weds himself to one of those.
To put it simply, absolutely. We most definitely are.
Due to the vastly improved methods of transportation, higher population density and greater population diversity, natural selection probably won't cause as much genetic divergence as it used to. Recessive traits such as blue eyes and red hair are going to become more rare, and such mutations probably won't appear in entire populations again
[QUOTE=ThePuska;40109173]Due to the vastly improved methods of transportation, higher population density and greater population diversity, natural selection probably won't cause as much genetic divergence as it used to. Recessive traits such as blue eyes and red hair are going to become more rare, and such mutations probably won't appear in entire populations again[/QUOTE] What about Wisdom teeth?
[QUOTE=Sobotnik;40108913]Not really. The tests are with children already in school usually. Education can't really change IQ. Nutrition has a much bigger impact imo (physiologically, we are bigger, stronger, have better immune systems, etc). It is not a far stretch to say that psychologically there has been change.[/quote] [editline]31st March 2013[/editline] IQ has been growing since the removal of lead from gas and household products, along with the wider range of study and collective databases, so its hard to say if IQ has increased because of natural selection or because of a larger survey size, still no definitive link between stupid parents and intelligence, and I doubt there really is one, unless someone possessed a very large mutation in their braincells, the brain can't really get more efficient at what it does, I don't think natural selection is dead though, look at some of the nasty diseases such as HIV, there have been people identified with mutations that make them immune to the disease all because of natural selection
[QUOTE=Sableye;40114624][editline]31st March 2013[/editline]IQ has been growing since the removal of lead from gas and household products[/quote] This is what I forget to mention along with nutrition. [quote]along with the wider range of study and collective databases, so its hard to say if IQ has increased because of natural selection or because of a larger survey size, still no definitive link between stupid parents and intelligence, and I doubt there really is one, unless someone possessed a very large mutation in their braincells, the brain can't really get more efficient at what it does, I don't think natural selection is dead though, look at some of the nasty diseases such as HIV, there have been people identified with mutations that make them immune to the disease all because of natural selection[/QUOTE] Well if natural selection causing IQ to increase were true, we would probably see people with higher iqs breeding more and outcompeting those with lower iqs.
[QUOTE=Sobotnik;40114672]This is what I forget to mention along with nutrition. Well if natural selection causing IQ to increase were true, we would probably see people with higher iqs breeding more and outcompeting those with lower iqs.[/QUOTE] There's a difference between education and IQ. Most people whom live in Ghetto's are dumb as fuck not because of their IQ, but because of the miniature culture and society they grow up in. If you were to take them out of said place and put them in a well-off household, where they're not shown such detrimental factors as they would in a ghetto, they would most likely become a success than those whom are raised in a ghetto.
[QUOTE=Keyblockor;40114737]There's a difference between education and IQ. Most people whom live in Ghetto's are dumb as fuck not because of their IQ, but because of the miniature culture and society they grow up in. If you were to take them out of said place and put them in a well-off household, where they're not shown such detrimental factors as they would in a ghetto, they would most likely become a success than those whom are raised in a ghetto.[/QUOTE] Except the IQ increase has been observed amongst schoolchildren. Your explanation fails to take into account that the scores are measured amongst people already receiving education. The uneducated we don't know much about because those aren't the people recorded by iq testing.
Natural selection is just that, "nature". Whomever attains the most reward valued by whatever currency will most certainly lead, whatever it may be. That is evolution -- it manifests via reproduction, however long it may take. Evolution has quite obviously been taking its time for the most recent of species while those at the very back, at its very tail -- those bare on the fringes of being defined as multi-cellular organisms by the "intelligent" of this "contemporary" species. It invariably produces something quite tantamount to a golden ratio (admittedly, I'm incompetent and illiterate of Math so correct me if I'm wrong -- but from what I've seen and what I know/think, this outputs true). Therefore, those with the most value -- whatever that currency may be, however proactive (i.e. however it may predict whatever steps ahead of itself in the context if its very own success -- whether in Bitcoins, or in several thousand years ahead of the Euro) it may be -- the very member that reigns is the one that directs evolution at that time (unless of course it becomes schizophrenic ;) )
Much like how sharks has remained relatively unchanged in thousands of years as the king of the sea, I believe it is possible that our evolution will stagnate at some point, duo to sheer success.
[QUOTE=prooboo;40108329]So we agree that humanity is part of nature, and artificial selection an expression of natural selection. Then if we are, through medicine and agriculture, only expressing a part of natural selection, then humanity is incapable of killing natural selection, instead only [I]causing[/I] it.[/QUOTE] The major difference between standard selection and human influenced selection are the traits that are favoured as well as a certain element of chance that is removed from the process. It's also a distinctly different process to co-selection, where once again the main difference is that some elements are favoured over others, as opposed to what we as humans do - removing some elements from the process completely. In which case you'd need something different than IQ, as IQ is always in a sense an average value - with the average value being 100. It doesn't really show if one generation is smarter than another, as the median is always the same, no matter where the actual top and bottom end lies. It's very likely a person with an average of 100 would be able to get into a mensa a century ago.
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