You are assuming Chronos is assigning some sort of value to the word ‘defect’. It is simply being used in its literally defined form. An average human being with average abilities will not be deaf.
The use of the word ‘defect’ is no value judgment on deaf people. It’s simply a statement of literal fact.
If you want to choose to take it as a value judgment, that’s your prerogative, but it doesn’t make you factually correct at all.
i looked up defect in the dictionary and it doesnt apply to me. I do not desire it, or feel I need it to be completed or anything like that
Well eugenics implies modifying a population of people for some prescribed aim.
I meant more that we’ll likely go through a period of “customization”.
But either way natural selection will become virtually irrelevant in the blink of an evolutionary eye.
The appendix is a structure with non-trivial complexity and most likely there are multiple genes that all have to function correctly for it to develop. Assuming that the presence or absence of an appendix has no effect of reproductive success, it will most probably be lost over time. When selection is removed, entropy takes over: the relevant genes will be lost or made non-functional by accumulated mutations.
If I’m wrong about this - that is, if there is just one, simple, “appendix count” gene - then, sure: zero, one, two, fifteen appendices are all equally likely in the future.
:rolleyes: What makes you think that being lower class has anything to do with genetics? Or that they need to be “watered and fed”; it’s the lower classes who do most of the work that keeps society functioning; the upper classes are far more parasitic.
It probably is not as simple as a single gene. But the loss of features over time is not a sure thing. It’s important to remember that with humans, there is a vast gene pool, and minimal restriction of gene flow. Unless some great genetic or environmental change occurs in the next million years, humans may remain largely the same. Even if someone is born with a genetic structure that does not produce an appendix, and gives some reproductive advantage, that new genetic structure has to be able to push out the genes carried by 7 billion other people. So on top of the complexity of the change, it has to be a very selfish one which will prevent the existing genetic structure that produces an appendix from taking hold again.
There is some percentage of appendix-less people. I don’t know if there’s enough data to evaluate, but I would be surprised to see a change in that rate due to entropy.
As far as appendix counts not equal to 1, that was just an illustration of the range of possibilities. I would expect either 0,1, or 2, to be likely counts. I include 2 because I’m not sure of the bi-symetrical structure of the appendix. I assume it has two halfs in development, and the possibility of that becoming 2 appendices exists, although I can’t think of another similar organ splitting into two that didn’t occur very far in the past at much earlier stages of evolution.
So what? If those people had died w/o medicine (what you call the “normal” condition), they wouldn’t be here in the first place.
You have a fundamental misunderstanding of genetics and evolution. None of the genes you think of as being “good genes” are being eliminated because of the “bad” ones. They’re all still with us. No matter how you look at, the more genetic diversity there is, the better chance a species has for survival. You don’t know if those “bad” genes might come in handy if the environment changes radically.
Yes humans are still evolving we are always evolving. why are some people reistant to AIDS? Why do some people die of the Flu and others don’t. We are evolving a stronger immune system. The appendix may be needed actually. Research suggests that the appendex houses bacteria so that they can thrive in our intestines and break down food that our body can’t.
In 10000 years there will no blue eyes left as it is a regressive gene. We will be a lot more black due to rising tempretures. You wouldn’t understand a word anyone says due to the change in Language.
Please define “regressive gene.” (I tried Googling, but it seemed to insist that regressive was a typo for recessive. :smack: )
the number of people that have the gene is declining.
You can get bad genes. In my opinion a bad gene is a gene that a human has that well isn’t human. If you are from european descent then you are about 3% neandathall (spelling might be wrong) and this gene mutates and causes problems.
:dubious:
What no one seems to have taken into account yet is the effect of these genetic “defects” etc on the environmental factors that eventually shape us. A person whose immune system is weak may be frequently bedridden in a society with little or no healthcare, but live; and in that case they are likely to develop some areas of the brain more than their healthier counterparts. Then we’d have two different advantages present in the same group, and hence a benefit to that entire group overall. This, for one, might be why the “smart but fragile” archetype has been with us since medieval times or longer. Note that generally the people filling societal roles equivalent to a shaman were often those who were frequently ill but survived, or recovered from a near-fatal illness, and in some places deafness/blindness or a limp were considered possible indicators of great power. And as much as we might balk at attributing any truth to a belief in such things, we can’t deny that the belief itself, true or otherwise, had evolutionary uses during its heyday- bringing people together, preserving knowledge, etc.
This is an example of how different thinking styles survived to be passed on, which in itself is a form of diversity and nearly indispensable from an evolutionary standpoint (in a species as focused on the brain as we humans are).
The immune system is a chemical prcess that allows us to kill living organisims that are perceived as threats to the human body. The immune system of someone who is weak my have long lasting damage or die. They may not think any better than you or me. A person who survives and can fight off infections is always without fail a better option.
That’s exactly the kind of “overlooking this factor” I just mentioned. I never said the immune system physiologically hindered thinking in any way. But someone who spends a lot of time lying sick on the floor of a tent covered in, say, bearskins will use, say, their imagination (which has a use for survival!) more than the kids who can run around and play will need to.
Thje kids who run around and play use their imagination more. the person who is sick feels rubbish tired and sleeps a lot
Didn’t Lenny Bruce once say “Men will fuck mud” [if necessary]?
Ummm… If you read the last part of my post, it simply said - we don’t know if it’s genetic or environmental. And the welfare cases are probably more parasitic than the upper class, who at least are living off the success of earlier genetic manifestations (unless they actually have the chauffeur’s genes instead.)
Genetic diversity is good; but… A gene that is basically a death sentence becomes more prevalent due to technical assistance. Remove that assistance, even temporarily, and a substantial part of the population dies. So the debate question is - is it better to be fit for many contingencies or dependent on a narrow set of conditions for survival?
“Good genes” are not being eliminated except as either (a) they are being crowded out or (b) the contribute to LESS reproduction in the situation. The middle class in first world countries is choosing to have significantly less children than before, and than the poor. OTOH, to be fair to the gist of your comment, I have not seen any analysis of birth rates for the working poor vs. the non-working; but I suspect the same financial issues that limit middle class birth rates also limit those of the working poor.
Og course, the $64,000 question still is - are people in social classes largely for genetic or environmental reasons in these days of “equal opportunity”? My totally unscientific opinion is that environmental plays a very large part.
There was a joke email going around many years ago, of a gorgeously hot, partially clad model sillhouetted against the light with semitransparent clothes and the tag line “No matter how good she looks, someone, somewhere is tired of putting up with her shit.” Looks ain’t all. (Or as one wag suggested “maybe she swallows”).
OTOH, Ms. Hook’s friend was quite correct.
False and false. Recessive (not “regressive”) genes aren’t destroyed by dominant genes. I’m not sure why people keep posting nonsense in this thread.
Possibly, but since time travel is not available to us, what will it matter? The people living then will understand it. Language change is completely independent of genetic change, btw, so it has nothing to do with the topic of this thread.
So what?
Define “better”. And this isn’t a debate. This is an attempt to answer questions factually. And how can you eliminate medical knowledge without changing who we are as a species? We’re smart. We discover things. If you eliminate the ability to develop medical knowledge, then we might as well just be Australopethicines.
Well, as has already been pointed out to you, socioeconomic class is not genetic, so that argument is completely irrelevant.