Evolution - Food for thought for a Saturday morning..

Interesting reading isn't it? One of my daughter's friends has two sons whose appearance would support the theory!

Pennysue

Recent studies would indicate that Neanderthals may not have died out completely.

The PDF accessible via the following link is interesting - looking at a certain England Rugby player/coach I think it is more than feasible.

journals.sfu.ca/hypot/index.php/main/article/view/215

Love your work (and your logic) Bags. Evolution is like economics... you're looking out the back window of the car commenting on where you've been rather than trying to predict where you're going. Remember also that we're looking at things like the agricultural revolution, anthropogenic climate change etc.

After millions of years of evolution our closest cousin, the Neaderthal, failed to adapt to the changing environment and competition from us and became extinct. Take away any other competing peak organisms and all you're left with is evolutionary changes due to mutation (and of course even if we presume that mutation is spreads through breeding over many many generations and proves to be an "improvement") or species extinction due to a pathogen. However, I think we've weakened the genome through our advances in medical science. Perhaps we should declare that human evolution ihas been replaced by artificial treatment of trauma or disease process. I had a lazy eye as a kid... not much good as a hunter. I had tonsilitus as a kid... pre antibiotics it would have killed me. I used to get kidney stones so my screams in pain would have been a threat to the tribe and I would have been silenced. Then I went on to reproduce, so I've passed on my flawed genome to my daughter. By the Darwinian model I should have been an evolutionary dead end.

Yes then I get, MOTHER!

Yeah, well, they know and I know you're fluffy underneath that SMO exterior jeni

That was me!

Senior Medical Officer?? That's the only thing I can come up with.

SMO? Translate please

My children call it, my SMO look!

I can just imagine you with that disapproving look on your face, jeni!

Anyway, language evolves too.

Yeah! innit. Why not, once in a while? I don't say it because I can't do the right accent. It's only an abbreviation of isn't it, innit? Lightens the tone, doncha fink?

Innit?

That's about it. 'Course if a bloody great meteorite or a supervolcano interferes with your best laid efforts, you're buggered anyway! 'S life, innit?

Adapt and survive then.

Or, to put it another way (jerky thinking again! I'm prone to that!), narrowing down your diet, your habitat, and your reproductive urge and success rate doesn't seem like a good idea if you, as a species, want to survive.

Variety, spice of life, and all that.

People who are poorer tend to have larger families. This is well known throughout the world, so it clearly isn't a matter of being able to 'afford' children until you want to maintain the high standard of living that you already have. Traditionally (and in evolutionary terms) it makes sense to have as many offspring as you can because, again traditionally, most of them wouldn't survive to reproductive age. Nowadays in developed countries, and more and more so in developing countries, there are more survivors because of easier access to clean water, food and medical care, so the need for many offspring is removed.

The main drivers of evolution (selection pressure) in any animal are usually predators and food availability. With the coming of agriculture, human beings more or less solved those problems.

However, as Morris says, there are still other areas of less urgent selection pressure at work. The faster any environment changes (whether it's internal (parasites, disease, etc) or external), the faster animals have to adapt in order for the species to survive.

One of the reasons pandas, for example, are a in danger of extinction is because they have evolved themselves, so to speak, into an ecological niche from which it is very difficult for them to adapt — their evolutionary trajectory has, in effect, closed down their options.

Absolutely, Elegran!

The resistant bacteria bit is already happening, due to haphazard use of antibiotics.

Not sure large families are happier and healthier than small ones if there are only resources to raise a small one.

Until then there is always contraception......

Wondering if what he had to say about evolution and the increase in urban living might hold water. What he had to say about 'personal' selection (my word, not his) in terms of being able to decide whether to have children, or not, and how that will impact on the reproductive system of humans light years ahead.
The impact of stress
His concept of larger families being happier, therefore healthier (?) than smaller, less healthy [?] ones.
Also what he had to say about viruses and bacteria possibly becoming more invasive and immune to modern medicine.

Still mentally dowloading it - just thinking about what he wrote whilst I do the ironing....

Set me thinking of the invisibility of evolution in process because it is so slow in humans, and if one can't experience it happening, then is it a matter of acceptance that it will happen, or would one want to try to divert the process ? Thinking about the adaptability of humans.

...back to the ironing

Wondering what, butty?