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An Interesting Intellectual puzzle...

MikeW and Cagey, I agree with you both. Well said....

This is a great thread, I haven't seen a thread in a long time that I look forward to others updates and input as much as this one
 
I think you still have a timing bias. The entirety of known human history has not been nearly long enough to see the formation of a new species of something as complex as a mammal. One of the oldest books we have is primarily the fantasies of a profoundly ignorant people who didn't understand things as basic as lightning.
 
thats fair enough cagey I accept that point. But human beings as we know them now have existed for 200,000 years, thats 1/5 of a million years. Im sure we must see some changes in that time and we haven't as such yet. The Neanderthals died out and whoever else in relation to us.
 
IDK. there sure seem to be some Neanderthals still around  . . .  :icon_jokercolor:
 
elfro89 said:
thats fair enough cagey I accept that point. But human beings as we know them now have existed for 200,000 years, thats 1/5 of a million years. Im sure we must see some changes in that time and we haven't as such yet. The Neanderthals died out and whoever else in relation to us.

Human beings have existed that long, but our history and memory hasn't. Most of our ancient history is drawn from inference more than anything else, with "ancient" only being the last 5,000-6,000 years or so. Prior to that, all we have are fossils and artifacts. 5,000-6,000 years is barely a blink of an eye relative to the overall time frame we're talking about here.
 
Cagey said:
elfro89 said:
thats fair enough cagey I accept that point. But human beings as we know them now have existed for 200,000 years, thats 1/5 of a million years. Im sure we must see some changes in that time and we haven't as such yet. The Neanderthals died out and whoever else in relation to us.

Human beings have existed that long, but our history and memory hasn't. Most of our ancient history is drawn from inference more than anything else, with "ancient" only being the last 5,000-6,000 years or so. Prior to that, all we have are fossils and artifacts. 5,000-6,000 years is barely a blink of an eye relative to the overall time frame we're talking about here.

sure, but if my memory serves me, they have discovered frozen people from thousands and thousands of years ago and the dna is also preserved. Although i can't comment on how much it has changed any im sure there is some significance here.
 
how about our different races of people Elf? Id that not evolution?, We can reintroduce the genes to each race, but does not the specific changes in the Oriental, as opposed to the European show an evolution coning about, and as them being separated till a form of more convenient transportation, Japanese and Chinese  differences. Just look at the difference in Europeans, the Germanic people, or the Celtic, and even the Romans, all different in dominant genes. Was this not evolution that showed up according to isolation?
How we came and branched off the tree I think is not what w are discussing here, but the small changes and how they came about. Not entire new species but instead how one came to be influenced by his society, body type, darkness of skin, even hair color. But these show how one group of people are different, even if these dominant genes can be reintroduced to the whole,, they are what eventually, if kept separated could have new species. I find it interesting that at a Rangers meeting I went to while visiting the Grand Canyon, the Ranger who was speaking that night talked of a type of squirrel that is on both sides of the canyon, they look the same and are very similar.  However they have been separated for so long by the canyon, they do not mate with each other if introduced. They look for a squirrel of their own type, somewhat like a gray and red squirrel would.  So they do not recognize each other as a mate.
This has been a great thread, and I feel I have learned a lot, read some great responses, joked a bit, and am amazed that no arguments have pursued. And to think some stupid musicians, nerds from Band, Guys who would rather close up in their room and run scales for hours, we, those considered the dregs of society who do drugs and think only of sex, are having it. Who knew?
 
Jusatele said:
how about our different races of people Elf? Id that not evolution?, We can reintroduce the genes to each race, but does not the specific changes in the Oriental, as opposed to the European show an evolution coning about, and as them being separated till a form of more convenient transportation, Japanese and Chinese  differences. Just look at the difference in Europeans, the Germanic people, or the Celtic, and even the Romans, all different in dominant genes. Was this not evolution that showed up according to isolation?
How we came and branched off the tree I think is not what w are discussing here, but the small changes and how they came about. Not entire new species but instead how one came to be influenced by his society, body type, darkness of skin, even hair color. But these show how one group of people are different, even if these dominant genes can be reintroduced to the whole,, they are what eventually, if kept separated could have new species. I find it interesting that at a Rangers meeting I went to while visiting the Grand Canyon, the Ranger who was speaking that night talked of a type of squirrel that is on both sides of the canyon, they look the same and are very similar.  However they have been separated for so long by the canyon, they do not mate with each other if introduced. They look for a squirrel of their own type, somewhat like a gray and red squirrel would.  So they do not recognize each other as a mate.
This has been a great thread, and I feel I have learned a lot, read some great responses, joked a bit, and am amazed that no arguments have pursued. And to think some stupid musicians, nerds from Band, Guys who would rather close up in their room and run scales for hours, we, those considered the dregs of society who do drugs and think only of sex, are having it. Who knew?

HA! great post.

I've been reading alot of books intro string theory and i would LOVE to understand the maths behind it, unfortunately even those well versed in the most advanced mathematics struggle to learn what it means. I love the idea of string theory, when put in the way brian green puts it, things just make so much sence. Sure it doesn't answer every question but for me it just fills in so many gaps that appeared during my old chesmistry classes about atoms, totally changed the way i see it.

Whenever someone draws a picture of an atom, its always a circle, with a bunch of circles in the middle as the nucleus and a bunch of other circles as the electrons, it didnt occur to me that they are not inside something, they are that something. and for each of these to exist as strings that vibrate differently, and they exist in a way that makes them intertwined with different dimentions is just extraordinary. that surely should mean that each of our atoms exist in more then one dimention. Its a great idea like, it might not explain evolution but it might explain conciousness in a limited kind of way. Man i love talking about this crap!
 
I don't know if we are more advanced or less advanced than our Earthly co-habitants, just differently advanced.  Like eluded to earlier, maybe had an Earth killer not entered the atmoshere millions of years ago, guitars might look different today.   

Is evolution still going on?  Sure, what do appendixes and wisdom teeth do? 
 
I don't have much to add here, but I just want to say that if you want information on how sexes evolved and why there's only two in most species (interesting fact: some fungi have thousands of different sexes), the book "The Red Queen" details it pretty well.  Basically, two sexes evolved because sexual recombination gives you better resistance to parasites.
 
Jusatele said:
how about our different races of people Elf? Id that not evolution?, We can reintroduce the genes to each race, but does not the specific changes in the Oriental, as opposed to the European show an evolution coning about, and as them being separated till a form of more convenient transportation, Japanese and Chinese  differences. Just look at the difference in Europeans, the Germanic people, or the Celtic, and even the Romans, all different in dominant genes. Was this not evolution that showed up according to isolation?

A large part of this is about sex.

Got your attention? :icon_biggrin: Well, it's been suggested to me (in school I think, or somewhere else, I'll try to find a source if time permits) that a missing component when talking about things like hair colour, skin colour, average height etcetera is also dependent on cultural selection or sexual selection. That is, a certain general appearance or collection of traits are elevated to ideal in a culture, with the consequence that those who fit the ideal are at a sexual advantage (they are more desirable). This allows that type of gene set to become more dominant within that cultural sphere.

Isolation plays a part here, clearly: these days, what with these new fangled magazines with colour photographs and all, ideals are much more diverse and widespread. I would suggest they are more concentrated to within different social contexts rather than cultural spheres: models have one very thin ideal, nerds have maybe another. Biker chicks, anyone?
 
In reverse order of importance - interesting!

=CB= said:
Great Moments in Evolution

Earth Cools
Life Begins
Man gains intellect and self awareness
Bagel is invented
Women shave pits and legs
Telecaster invented

From there its been downhill....
 
kboman said:
Jusatele said:
how about our different races of people Elf? Id that not evolution?, We can reintroduce the genes to each race, but does not the specific changes in the Oriental, as opposed to the European show an evolution coning about, and as them being separated till a form of more convenient transportation, Japanese and Chinese  differences. Just look at the difference in Europeans, the Germanic people, or the Celtic, and even the Romans, all different in dominant genes. Was this not evolution that showed up according to isolation?

A large part of this is about sex.

Got your attention? :icon_biggrin: Well, it's been suggested to me (in school I think, or somewhere else, I'll try to find a source if time permits) that a missing component when talking about things like hair colour, skin colour, average height etcetera is also dependent on cultural selection or sexual selection. That is, a certain general appearance or collection of traits are elevated to ideal in a culture, with the consequence that those who fit the ideal are at a sexual advantage (they are more desirable). This allows that type of gene set to become more dominant within that cultural sphere.

Isolation plays a part here, clearly: these days, what with these new fangled magazines with colour photographs and all, ideals are much more diverse and widespread. I would suggest they are more concentrated to within different social contexts rather than cultural spheres: models have one very thin ideal, nerds have maybe another. Biker chicks, anyone?

None of which mean anything cause everyone dyes the hair to look like they came streight out a comic book. I've yet to see a normal day to day teen who hasn't fallen into the "bitch" catagory, or the "emo/screamo/dyed to look like a comic book" catagory, neither of which is sexually attractive in the slightest.
 
elfro89 said:
None of which mean anything cause everyone dyes the hair to look like they came streight out a comic book. I've yet to see a normal day to day teen who hasn't fallen into the "bitch" catagory, or the "emo/screamo/dyed to look like a comic book" catagory, neither of which is sexually attractive in the slightest.
Well, let me just step off your lawn  :laughing7:
 
Max said:
elfro89 said:
None of which mean anything cause everyone dyes the hair to look like they came streight out a comic book. I've yet to see a normal day to day teen who hasn't fallen into the "bitch" catagory, or the "emo/screamo/dyed to look like a comic book" catagory, neither of which is sexually attractive in the slightest.
Well, let me just step off your lawn  :laughing7:

Appreciated.  :icon_jokercolor:  :evil4:
 
Jusatele said:
This has been a great thread, and I feel I have learned a lot, read some great responses, joked a bit, and am amazed that no arguments have pursued. And to think some stupid musicians, nerds from Band, Guys who would rather close up in their room and run scales for hours, we, those considered the dregs of society who do drugs and think only of sex, are having it. Who knew?

Who knew indeed. I 've watched this thread from the beginning and at first found it somewhat supercilious  "do these people think they are Voltaire?" I've changed my mind and think that there are some incredibly bright people here on subjects other than guitar. Kudos.

btw one point brought up that is very germane - the evolution of swedes into blond and blue vesus middle easterners versus asians has occured in a relatively short amount of time - tens of thousands versus millions or even hundreds of thousands.
 
thats partly attributed to it being a very rare and desirable thing. Blue eyes are a lack of pigment. just as pale skin and hair is. and when it first started evolving (seemingly because Europe receives less light than much of Africa, and we had that pigment to help defend out skin.) it was seen as a sign of great beauty...

pretty people have more sex.

hey look.

people look prettier.

the funny thing is, fair skinned blue eyed people have a greater chance of skin cancer/blindness

so... Evolution or Devolution?
 
AGWAN said:
thats partly attributed to it being a very rare and desirable thing. Blue eyes are a lack of pigment. just as pale skin and hair is. and when it first started evolving (seemingly because Europe receives less light than much of Africa, and we had that pigment to help defend out skin.) it was seen as a sign of great beauty...

pretty people have more sex.

hey look.

people look prettier.

the funny thing is, fair skinned blue eyed people have a greater chance of skin cancer/blindness

so... Evolution or Devolution?

See? It's all about sex! :D

I'd rather call the above adaption, or a slanting of the gene pool towards a certain type of appearance. It's not devolution as the blonde and blue eyed look has proven a successful way of passing on your genes up here. The higher risk of skin cancer is not high enough to outweigh the advantages of getting laid, basically.

I have dark brown hair and green eyes by the way, hehe!
 
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