Science Human evolution at the crossroads

[phyrex1an]

Survival of the fittest means those who SURVIVE out of a given group, regardless of time.

If we only wait long enought everything will be dead.
Conclusion: No one is the fittiest

Evolution has been greatly thrown off even by environmentalists trying to help.

Nope, the environmentalists is a part of evulution and a part of the envirement. If the bat survieves and pass it bad genes to other bats it is only becuse the race was not adapted to survive. ( the best thing for the bats should have been that the injured bat died instantly ) and becuse of years of evulution and surviving skills bats dont die instantly when the break a bone. To bad for them, they was no adapted.


Actualy no living race can be called the best, becuse we dont know how big a event must be to kill it.

 

[Shadowy Fear]

SURE we do (and I meant survival of the fittest in reproduction terms - whether they live to spread their genes. They will all die regardless, of course, but I meant in a cetain generation of organisms)

Fish - evaporate all water off of Earth. If anything at ALL survived this, it certainly wouldn't be fish.

[Humor]Bugs - huge can of Raid P)[/Humor]

Humans - we aren't dying as a species already? Nevermind, its ALIUMS!

Dinosaurs - meteor

Plants - blot out the sun (you might be able to give them artifical sunlight, but it is doubtful whether you could make a lasting impact if you could) worldwide; a meteor hitting land and sending up massive amounts of dust, Yellowstone eruption sending huge clouds of ash up into the sky, etc.

 

[DM Cross]

You see a bat with a broken wing (due to a DNA issue that made it's bones fragile), and of course try to help it, as it is just flying around in circles.

So, you take it back to your lab/house/Death Ray and fix it and release it back into the wild.

Now, it can pass along its deffective genes to other bats, which will lead to more problems, especially if the environmentalist moves away.

Broken bones aren't part of your genetic coding. Unless you're talking about the fragility of it's bones?

-Edit-

What's this talk of time relating to whose considered the 'fittest'? Um, time has nothing to do with it. Bugs survived after a meteor turned the earth into a dustball, but I wouldn't call them the 'fittest'. Maybe the most durable, though

Survival is your position on the food chain. If you're at the top, you're the most fit. You do the best, out of everyone, at surviving. Time doesn't matter a damn.

 

[Sargon]

Guys, survival of the fittest means which species can survive and reproduce, thus passing down their legacy. That's all it means. It's only concerned with the survival of the species. The food chain has nothing to do with it. After all, all kinds of things eat minnows, but are minnows dying out? No! They're doing great, because they reproduce fast enough that they don't get all eaten up.

 

[Cognitor]

Guys, survival of the fittest means which species can survive and reproduce, thus passing down their legacy. That's all it means. It's only concerned with the survival of the species...

Well, not really. Survival of the fittest applies to those within a species, not any species in general. Yes it's about passing down a genetic "legacy" but only to pass down that legacy within your own kind. What "survival of the fittest" generally refers to is not humans outlived animal X during a disaster therefore they are more fit, rather, survival of the fittest means that Bob, the Homosapian from 10,000 years ago, was able to kill Tod and thus get laid.

Getting to the topic at hand, I just finished reading through the thread and I keep seeing stuff villianizing technology. I would venture to say that technology is not as "unnatural" as you all say it is. Why not consider technology to be the harnassing of natural elements on earth to form more complex things (things is the best I could do ). If we as a human race can harness worldly elements -iron, steel (made from a chemical reaction), rubber, etc)- to create a car, why is it evil. We call harming the ozone destroying Earth, I think I see it more as destroying OUR environment. If the ozone is one day damaged to the extent that people cannot live outside, then some other species will exist that can, and in that case have we acctually destroyed the Earth - no.

Ok, I went off on a tangent, but I have to go right now anyway. I hope that was somewhat enlightening, if not...then...umm... :banghead:

 

[XXXconanXXX]

Cognitor returns with a vengeance.

Time to hear some more professional theories about science, technology, and what makes the world go round.

 

[Shadowy Fear]

About the ozone part -

Did you know that the atmosphere of Earth, in the whatsitcalled Era or Period or whatever (before land animals) had very little oxygen content? The plants and few animals that existed there were adapted to thrive in that environment. But, when plants began replacing carbon dioxide with oxygen, the atmosphere completly shifted in its make-up, with the oxygen content a lot higher than before. Quite a few plants and animals died from this, of course. But \/\/E wouldn't have existed if it hadn't been for this lethal reverse in the gases of the sky.

This is just further reinforcing his point, really

 

[Cognitor]

Thanks for the welcome conan. It's fun to come back and pretend I know about things.