Evolution

Spinoza

Spinoza

Active member
So last semester we covered an article that considered how/why evolution may have given us the moral values that people have today, and it got me thinking. What other cool things has evolution given us?

Some ideas:

- Babies are cute / we find the way babies look to be attractive because if we didnt they would get abandoned.

- Fingernails? Ive heard theyre to protect nerve endings but if we still have them in 200 years itll definitely be so we can open up bottles of ketchup.

Lets hear some other good ones.

/notascientist
 
haha we will definitely have fingernails in 200 years. how many people do you know who don't have fingernails?

that is if humans still exist in 200 years. most likely but not guaranteed.
 
Maybe we formed from dust, maybe aliens put us here, maybe a god put us here, maybe we were always here our universe is somehow perpetual in ways we can't comprehend, maybe we're all just pieces of the dream from some asian kid that fell down skateboarding and hit his head, maybe it's the matrix and we're all just living in a computer program.

 
its all about genetics. you'll likely pass 100% of your genes on if you reproduce. your sibling likely has at least 50% of similar genes, so therefore you love your brother/sister because if it came down to it, in a life or death situation if you died to save your sibling you'd at least pass on some of your genes... at least thats some explanation iv heard for being attached to family members etc.
 
sort of related topic: last time (and one of the only times) i went to the church youth group called younglife, the lady that was preaching said that the earth was made 6000 years ago by god. i wutted kinda hard. also she was telling a story like 5 mins before saying how her mom was schizophrenic. so, i guess the schizophrenia hadnt completely evolved from her genes. or whatever.

also the ad to the top of me is asking me to get a legal us green card. i live in colorado.
 
we're going to evolve so that we have 50 fingers and a giant brain with eyes.

all we need to know is how to type shit into a computer and think. more fingers will facilitate that, and as long as we can think, we can just get our mind to power robots and computer devices and shit.

we're going to be all brain jar with tentacle limbs and many, many digits. MARK MY WORDS
 
You pass on 50% of your genes, not 100. And you are getting at the Kin Selection with the idea of protecting a sibling over someone/ something else that is more distantly related... the (unconscious) idea behind it is that it is in your evolutionary interest to protect your own genes/traits (which you share with your relatives) against a competitor's traits.

a weird evolutionary trait is the ability to sweat, not many animals do it
 
My mother told me when I was just a wee lad that they are of great stature due to slavery being do rigorous and physically demanding.
 
What about hair, i guess hair has stayed on top of our heads because it shields from the sun and stores warmth. A NS thread has explained the importance of butthole hair, i bet pits work the same way.

But why do we have pubes?
 
I thought it was because slave-drivers wanted the biggest and the strongest to work the farms. This essentially had the biggest and strongest make families with bigger and stronger children. Slavery wasn't that long ago, pretty fucked.
 
Its like, say i had to catch my own food, but i only ate really fast animals: my feet would eventually evolve into rockets
 
Not a valid point.

Monkeys are a different species. For example, humans didn't evolve from Chimpanzees. Comparing humans to chimpanzees is as irrelevant as comparing humans to fish, and then asking why there are still fish living today. Obviously fish took a different path through history compared to humans. This is the same model when comparing humans to any other species including all apes.

When homo sapiens(humans) were evolving a long time ago, there were also other very similar species that were evolving in a very similar way. The only difference between homo sapiens and the rest is that our species was the only one that didn't die off.

Using DNA from bones all theories have been proven factual.

Only ignorance can win over science.

I do believe in God; however, I am not ignorant, blinded by religion, constricted by culture, or influenced by what makes sense.

 
babies cry so they don't get abandoned.

Them being 'cute' has nothing to do with it. Most human babies look freakish in my opinion.

-we have thumbs to hold things and build.

-our vocal cords are complex enough to have a in depth language

-we walk on two legs instead of four

-we are able to not only adapt to our environment quickly, but have the ability to make our environment adapt to us.

-problem solving skills (kind of the same point as the environment one I guess)

Off that top of my head, those are some of the keys in human evolution that allowed us to become 'who' and 'what' we are today.

 
my father was born without fingernails and toenails. he's lived his whole life without them.

and yes, I am serious.
 
A big question I always ask myself is what comes next? While humans are still on this planet, will we allow another species to evolve to the point it becomes 'self aware'? In the last few thousands of years (lets say 10000 for arguments sake) have we done anything (knowingly or inadvertently) to prevent another species of taking that final step in evolution to become self aware?

Also, just because there is no evidence that we know if, is there a chance that an animal in the past has reached this stage of evolution before? If we go extinct, what are the odds of it happening again in the future? Hell - what are the odds of another class of animal to come to fruition or are we in the end game of evolution?

Sadly, I don't think we will ever know the answers to these questions, but it's ok I guess, because as humans we ask more questions that will never have answers than those that do.
 
I would strongly say that no other species will come anywhere close to the intelligence and dominance of humans until humans go extinct.

And you said 1000 years. Evolution takes millions and millions of years to fully change species. Humans will unlikely be around that far ahead in the future. There's also no denying that homosapians have the upper hand (no pun intended) on every other species, so if humans were to bite the dust some other homosapians would likely take our place, but only after a long time of course.

You do bring up some great questions though. I've never really thought of "what's next" after humans.

Sorry for the confusing structure, I'm on mobile.
 
10 000 not 1000. About the time that humans really grew into themselves, creating agriculture, societies and whatnot. We've been homo's (hahaha) for something like a million years, and had Neanderthals around as somewhat of competition for most of that time (as to whether we actually lived amongst them is still under debate right now I do believe, but don't quote me on it).

Also - self awareness doens't necessarily mean smart in the human sense, just self aware - which would eventually lead to amazing problem solving which is what really separates humans from other animals in the end. Ravens and Chimps aren't too far off when you really think about it. They have complex language, good at problem solving, etc...

It's when a Raven, Chimp, or other intelligent animal sits on top of a mountain and thinks "this is pretty". That will be the game changer on this planet if we are still around (and if humans allow that to happen). Who knows, maybe in the evolution model of life there are certain laws that won't allow two truly self aware species to co-exist on a planet at the same time. I doubt that though considering pretty much all great apes, orcas, bottlenose dolphins, elephants, and magpies have a certain level of self awareness already.
 
... And that rubbing pubes when you have sex is an important part of the sexual experience(according to my science teacher.
 
The thing is that ravens, orcas and elephants are physically unable to "dominate" like humans do. Humans are pretty much the perfect animal, which makes sense. Opposable thumbs, walks on two legs, etc. Other animals simply cannot make the world their own like humans are able to. Like it was said before in this thread I think, humans can both adapt to their environment and adapt their environment to them.

And the "evolution model of life" does in fact say that two truly self aware (more so dominating) species can't co-exist on a planet on the same time. It's called niches, where it is said that two like species cannot occupy the same niche at the same time over time. Humans' niche is nearly the whole Earth which makes it impossible for other species to evolve to become a similar, dominating species as humans.
 
Read a research paper today that studies elephants that live in highly poached areas are losing and being born without tusks altogether. #'s of elephants born without tusks in said region has gone up by 15% since the 1980's, as if they are evolving to protect themselves from what the poachers want most, Ivory. While elephants under protection in safe animal reserves have had no change and are born normal with tusks. So the next time someone says evolution isn't real because we can't see it today, tell them about elephants.
 
I sometimes wonder if humans are near the end of our natural evolution. I mean we are not too far from having a computer capable of simulating a human brain. Next step could be mind uploading/ true AI. Then you get into all the philosophical arguments about what is consciousness and what is life. The brain simulation is something that could happen in our lifetimes.

What is we figure out quantum computing? Computers the size of our brains could be more powerful than our brains!

This sounds like science fiction, and it is right now, but really there is no law of nature we know of that says we couldn't do this. If we developed this technology for "immortality", I bet that a lot of people would choose it. How far away are we from this technology? I have no idea. It could be in the next couple hundred years or it could be thousands of years away.

I really think humans will might one day transcend biology.
 
my dad was born without fingernails and toenails, never had 'em, never will. Only one in the family though, so the 'mutation' didn't really go anywhere (unless it's just sitting dormant in me and my (or my sisters) kids/their kids will be born without nails.
 
look into anthropological evolution, specifically neanderthalean evolution. some people believe that neanderthals were one of the first hominid species to have burial ceremonies for the dead. theyre also believe to have been the first hominid species to self-medicate. look into the whole male/female hunting/gathering social patterns too if you need more to talk about i guess
 
i dont, there's no need for it. twist the cap off it's very simple simple.

something interesting that i just thought of is are your habits specified by genes? i have a nasty habit of biting my nails and have never been able to kick it. are certain habits conducive to the advancement of evolution? i dunno
 
gatorade.jpg

 
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