Reply #5: If it happened in a closed system, [View All]

[Occulus]

OFF this planet, the research could be performed, but actually learning anything useful would take several generations.

I think actually engineering our own genetics intelligently is well beyond our capacity at present- and by that, I mean, we are NOT mature enough as a species to do it in an intelligent fashion. Humans need to further evolve before we can even seriously consider engineering our bodies (and, dare I say it, minds).

edit: despite that, I also believe we ARE unintentionally altering our own evolution. Let's examine a very basic question here:

Evolution takes a great deal of time usually (which is why evolution is the perfect tool for an eternal Deity if that Deity wants life to be able to adapt to long term or short term changes in its environment over time :) ), but it's believed that, at times, it makes jumps forward.

Is the process of learning the mind's equivalent? Furthermore, as we use our fingers more and more and more, our eyes more and more and more (computer screens and typing and looking at monitors- these appear to be permanent fixtures in our modern, developed, Western society at this point).... aren't we altering our own evolution, by the rules within which the process of biological evolution works?

Do we truly understand how our own natural selection works? Do we know what traits are 'better' in a man to attract a woman? Do we know what 'type' of woman gets the most men? Or does that even apply, given we have free will?

(I'm asking those question in a clinical manner. I honestly don't mean to offend. I just don't know how else to put that concept...)

I think the creationist crowd is missing out on the possibility of founding a sound, modern, relevant philosophical debate here- one that transcends religion and philosophy because, if we are altering our own evolution, such concepts regarding what, genetically, makes the human race 'better' (and by whose interpretation that 'better' is defined, biologically) are going to become very important to the mid to long term survival of our own species. That, of course, assumes we don't destroy ourselves first, but it's still a very true 'problem', especially as we learn more and more about human genetics, in a 'hard science' sense.

The RAMA series should be required reading in our schools. Well- some of it. But I digress.

If we are altering our own evolution, I think we need to be either of the following:

a) Intentionally, extremely careful, a single gene a generation at a time at the maximum, starting many, many decades from now, and wait looooooong periods in between. Making humanity genetically immune to cancer would be an extremely good thing for our species from a propagation (or, as you may, a 'go forth and multiply') standpoint, but we already know that the wrong mutations can cause unexpected, horrifying, and ultimately fatal consequences to the organisms resulting from those genes if the mutation is somehow harmful. Think extra, useless limbs and so forth.

Could be a bad idea.

b) Completely ignorant and totally subconscious. That is, in fact, the route we may be taking right now, if our sudden, massive use of (for example) fingers for typing in the long run results in stronger finger joints (an example). Nature selects, but I doubt we fully understand the selection mechanism right now, if we ever will: even animal brains (other, smaller mammals) operate on the same principles ours do. It's wetware, operating in real time. If there's an algorithm that describes that behavior, I wouldn't want to be the one who needs to fully understand it.

However, if our evolution is already happening (and remember, it's a constant process in other species; there's no reason to assume that's untrue for humans), our own behavior will eventually cause the species to evolve in that behavior's direction. There isn't any reason at all to assume that homo sapiens will not naturally divide into something like homo sapiens and homo deductious (the latter being those descendants of people who spent a great deal of time on computers, over hundreds of generations), and that's only one subspecies that could develop. Maybe.

The upshot of this whole long ramble is this: if God exists, why isn't evolution that Deity's perfect tool for guaranteeing the continuance of life, including humans? It's built in, a self-altering biological system that, in the end, is almost impossible to extinguish short of the complete destruction of its environment once it starts.

Cockroaches. Yeah.

This is why I love the concept of evolution: nobody can deny that it happens as long as life happens. It's a perfect mechanism, which is why I don't understand the creationist objections.

Why don't these people see it as simply Godly, and leave it at that?