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AvatarForm wrote:
My true concern is are we still evolving?

Has the media and commercialism changed what would once be considered an 'ideal' mate to he extent that we are breeding weak genes over strong?

Eg. Fat, bald, increased genetic chance of heart conditions... over tall, well-muscled, strong bones... heck, even some argue intelligence is genetic.

Tall and well muscled is great...if you have an abundant food supply to sustain you're tall, well-muscled physique. You're making the mitstake that there is some sort of empirical direction to evolution, there isn't. Whether or not a trait is beneficial or not is determined by the environment, and the ability of the creature possessing the trait to survive within it. Everything else about "strong traits" and "weak traits" or directional evolution is nothing more than the result of the sort of normative forces you're describing.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

SilverMK2 wrote:
What I would like to see is something similar to what I suggested above, where agencies such as the NHS give out alterations to people who wish for them as a normal part of the pre-birth healthcare treatment, with advances being worked into the modifications as and when they come about.

That will last until the unmodified minority become a liability to the modified majority, either as a result of behavioral differences, or simple environmental ones. Really, its difficult to envision a future in which genetic modification doesn't cause some significant conflict or atrocity, though it isn't as if you can simple say "no genetic modification" either. As with things like weapons of mass destruction, once the cat is out of the bag you aren't getting it back in (this is a particularly determined cat).

Frazzled wrote:
Why do you think we have poor eyesight? We live longer now than ever in history.

We also watch too much god-damn television

dogma wrote:

AvatarForm wrote:
My true concern is are we still evolving?

Has the media and commercialism changed what would once be considered an 'ideal' mate to he extent that we are breeding weak genes over strong?

Eg. Fat, bald, increased genetic chance of heart conditions... over tall, well-muscled, strong bones... heck, even some argue intelligence is genetic.

Tall and well muscled is great...if you have an abundant food supply to sustain you're tall, well-muscled physique. You're making the mitstake that there is some sort of empirical direction to evolution, there isn't. Whether or not a trait is beneficial or not is determined by the environment, and the ability of the creature possessing the trait to survive within it. Everything else about "strong traits" and "weak traits" or directional evolution is nothing more than the result of the sort of normative forces you're describing.

And your point, other than expanding upon my own, is?

AvatarForm wrote:
And your point, other than expanding upon my own, is?

That if evolution exists, it doesn't stop. Even conforming to social norms is evolution as those norms affect the survivability of any given organism that requires social interaction for survival.

I'm not expanding on your point, I'm outright disagreeing with the idea that we might not be evolving, at least in the sense that we're assuming we ever evolved at all.

AvatarForm wrote:Fair enough. Got those links so we can have a read? Im genuinely interested.

I'll try to find the article it was in. I've been reading too much Cracked lately to just glance through my history... Aha, here it is. This was the Cracked article, and this is what they linked to support the claim.

The study being talked about was just about facial preference between women on or off birth control pills. Women off birth control considered more masculine faces more attractive, while women on birth control considered more feminine faces more attractive. I suppose it's a bit of a leap to say it's causing a selective pressure on effeminate males, but that bit was meant more as a bit of interesting trivia to go alongside my main theme of the timescales we're looking at with modern culture being too short to really select for any large changes, and culture/technology playing a much larger role than genetic capability in most cases.

Kilkrazy wrote:
a) There's apparently some evidence that birth control pills have led to weak, effeminate males being slightly selected for (something to do with the hormone changes they induce mimicking pregnancy, which shifts the emphasis of "who I want to be near" from "strong, viable mate" to "caring supportive family"; of course, I got this off cracked, but they totally linked to news articles or abstracts or something that I didn't bother reading...), but other than that no, not really, or not more than any form of civilization has.

I slightly doubt that given that almost no-one in Japan uses the pill, but they have come to be plagued with "herbivore" men.

Popular culture probably has more of an impact. It might have affected western popular culture, however, which has been exported to Japan in no small quantities over the past half century, the timeframe in which the effect is alleged to have occured.

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:

AvatarForm wrote:Fair enough. Got those links so we can have a read? Im genuinely interested.

I'll try to find the article it was in. I've been reading too much Cracked lately to just glance through my history... Aha, here it is. This was the Cracked article, and this is what they linked to support the claim.

The study being talked about was just about facial preference between women on or off birth control pills. Women off birth control considered more masculine faces more attractive, while women on birth control considered more feminine faces more attractive. I suppose it's a bit of a leap to say it's causing a selective pressure on effeminate males, but that bit was meant more as a bit of interesting trivia to go alongside my main theme of the timescales we're looking at with modern culture being too short to really select for any large changes, and culture/technology playing a much larger role than genetic capability in most cases.

Thanks for those mate.

Gonna have a read, discuss with friends then get back to this thread.

Stop fighting it, get with the transhumanist wave!