organisms do not evolve, only populations. yes, evolution has and can can occur due to a change in diet, but only if it poses a necessary change for survival (if the non farmers survive just as well there is no reason to evolve propensity to farm, however this is not the case, the non farmers cannot survive and thus die out, and the smaller ones generally require less food)

It cannot happen in one lifetime because one organism cannot evolve, evolution occurs across a population, you can acrue all sorts of changes but they need to become seeded in the gene pool to be part of "evolution", everything is different, nothing is the same as anything else genetically, evolutionary study is a sort of approximation or generalization to all this variation, we try to label things as species or phyla, families and kingdoms, but in actuality none of it is the same, we just try our best to label things, so you see it would be impossible to classify every organism individually , the tightest label we can give is "species" and for all intents and purposes it just means "if organism A can reproduce with organism B, they are the same species" (it gets blurry in cases where there is no sexual reproduction for example but its a working defenition)

no evolution is: change in allele frequencies across a population over time, i said that before, it is a process guided by natural selection. it doesn't have to take long, nor does it have to pose any change in morphology or diet whatsoever, it is simply a thing, and we do our best to study it and label it in a feeble attempt to make predictions and graph patterns, it is ever changing and unbelievably frustrating when the very act of studying it lends to the unpredictability due to nature of the scientific method and the "closed nature" of scientific experimentation


i think your problem is that you are not looking at the bigger picture, yes if a gene is less likely to be passed on its less likely to be seeded in the gene pool, i am not disagreeing with that point, but what i am saying is that you are looking at small changes in individuals and trying to extrapolate that into evolutionary terms. It does not matter if you have a child that has wings and can fly by some genetic marvel if those wings are unattractive and do not lead to procreation, all you get is an ugly kid capable of making an entire race of flying humans, but with no means due to, well, nobody willing to bang it. And again the "quality" of genes is not the same as "quality of mutation", which is determined environmentally (as i've explained a few times)

This post was edited by dude_927 on Dec 7 2014 01:05am

I think it is more I am getting caught up in the details and complexities of biological function, over what is defined as evolution.

I have seen that saying before, that one organism cannot evolve by itself. What do we call it then, when a single offspring uses intelligence, diet, physical activity to 'transcend' their parents, possibly impacting directly the quality of their genes and passing them on under better circumstances, along with the knowledge and improved environment/nest, to their children? This will all have a direct impact of biological function and quality, that is not some form of evolution? Is it maybe also much more tricky to define this for humans in the past 100 years, due to technology, intelligence, access to resources?

You admit yourself, "evolutionary study is a sort of approximation or generalization to all this variation", and you are just trying your best to label things, but does that mean all the minor details of function are irrelevant? To me they are still what is playing a part in the whole process and transition over time, species change, evolve and or die out due to the varying circumstances in their environment.

I honestly think there is no separating things here, for me at least, it all seems relevant, maybe what I am getting at here is the process of evolution but not the end result.

yes, you are

no, that is not some form of evolution, that is proper healthcar/natal care, i don't know how many times i can restate the exact same sentence, but here goes: your "trancendence" is irrelevant if it is not seeded in the gene pool, 1 fatty , yadda yadda you've heard this all before, what exactly do you not understand about this?

every single scientific "fact" ever discovered in any fiend in the entirety of history is "generalization and approximation" what's your point? No, of course the minor details are what makes it interesting, just because everything does not fit into the neat boxes with the prepackaged labels does not mean we ignore certain aspects, it means we are doing the best we can, remember we chose the boxes and labels in the first place, nobody is against adding, removing or editing to attempt to better encompass a given phylo. well i'm glad you've got it all presupposed, but unfortunately that's not how science works, you opinion is irrelevant if you cannot provide data to back it up, and tbh it really only takes a 10 minute google to discover the environment is varying the circumstance, not the circumstance varying the environment, i really don't know how to argue this point any deeper with you, i'm not using any jargin or complex concepts, what exactly is the confusing part? is it just insistence that you are right and i am mistaken? i am training to do this for a living, i am in college right now for astrobiology and hvac engineering (i want to make biodomes) i don't mean to brag or tout credentials (i really don't have them yet) but i can assure you i understand what i am talking about on this topic.

i don't understand this last sentence, there is no "end result" in evolution, and the only thing you need to worry about when it comes to evolution is "does it get me laid", please just do a small bit of research on the topic before your next post, i feel like you have plenty to say on the whole process of reproduction, but you are not understanding simple evolutionary concepts due to that knowledge. Just look up what evolution is and what it is not and then come back with your findings.

e: if all you want me to say is eating healthy and staying fit is good for you and good for your offspring, i will more than happily admit that, but it is not an evolutionary process and it is not likely to have any major effect on the "direction" of human evolution

This post was edited by dude_927 on Dec 7 2014 07:08am

evolution does not care about the "strong", if you produce viable offspring you win, it does not then try to hone your strengths, it is not even an active process, it has no goals, if you did not die and you reproduced, you're done, if you happen to have a useful trait that is "better than average" and pass that on great, if later on not having that trait kills you then voila everyone alive has that trait, that is how evolution works, if nobody dies the gene pool stays stagnant, it only works by removal of organisms not suited to a given environment, you cannot add (well you can, but it will not take hold unless the ones without said addition cannot survive), stop thinking of a parent and child and think of all the kinds of dogs you know, thats one species, when we speak of evolution(phylogeny) we encompass all of that with two syllables "canine"

All other known intelligent species were human-like and shared a common intelligent ancestor. It seems it is you who don't understand evolution.

Billions of humans would not exist without animal domestication and irrigation. I'd say so far we've manipulated our environment positively. Unless you believe billions of people shouldn't exist.

" the best attribute is environment specific." - Did you read my post? We manipulate our environment to augment our attributes. Thus, the nature of our environment is largely irrelevant. (humans survive in desert, arctic, etc)

This post was edited by PixileDust on Dec 7 2014 06:45pm

"is it just insistence that you are right and i am mistaken?"

Of course it is not, I do not think I have given that impression at all? Funny how hard it seems to just converse online without emotive perception; sorry if it has been agitating at times.

I guess all you are saying is evolution can not happen on a small isolated scale, even if the habits and skills are repeated over many generations; it has to be incorporated into the whole species.

A lot of this has to do with perception of a more general use of the word 'evolution' it seems, it is used all the time to refer to individual factors, technology, or the evolution of Tiger Woods golf swing, or de-evolution of it perhaps.

What I have been trying to understand I guess is the mechanics, mechanisms and factors which cause evolution, in the biology and in the gene code. Then their relation to the environment.

apologies, i was under the impression i was simply repeating the same thing over and over (and perhaps i was simply not explaining well now that i'm rereading)

yes, exactly nail on the head (maybe not the whole species, remember that nothing fits under it's respective label quite as nicely as we may want it to)

yes, the word "evolution" is possibly one of the most misunderstood terms in all of human language (right beside "theory"), which is why i take such stride to speak in a digestible manner on the topic (plus i just like saying things like "get laid" and "bang each other" in scientific pretext.)

your still a little off here because you are still kind of missing that the "cause" of evolution is simply "not dying", for all intents and purposes the genome is simply randomly recombining with each new birth, (i'm sure you already understand the details, so let's not bother with that aspect, but i'm sure you can understand why for the purposes of this example "random" will suffice) evolution merely subtracts what cannot survive in any given environment, everything else continues on, if the climate changes, selective pressure changes

There was a comment made earlier that stated something about humans manipulating the environment, i think adding to his statement may help to clarify, humans can manipulate the environment until the cows come home (with wings), but it will not stop evolution, sexual selection still applies and humanity will still need to attract mates, which unfortunately does not mean smarter, faster, stronger, ect. is "better" anymore, only what gets you laid is better now (since death is no longer a prevalent factor in procreation), which explains why celebrity "airheads" dominate mainstream media, pills and pageants get you laid a whole lot more than protons and protozoa (and for that, we should all worry)
^this was a long winded way of saying evolution doesn't always head in the direction we want it to (and yes physical fitness is desirable sexually, but not universally)

This post was edited by dude_927 on Dec 7 2014 10:38pm

Yes, they were all human like, and that has all of nothing to do with the price of eggs in china. There are plenty of animals set to take our place as the most intelligent species should we die off, and even if all apes died off, and even if all monkeys died off. You just drew an arbitrary line saying "but, we diverged kind of recently!" instead of acknowledging you were wrong. Move them goal posts, move em on back.

We manipulate our environment to some extent, but we haven't terraformed the earth or an unhospitable planet. We've torn down some forests, dug some trenches, and increased the temperature of the earth by a few degrees, but we aren't going to transform the bottom of the ocean to an environment hospitable to humans and if the environment we choose to transform to our own benefit isn't adjascent to, or already rich with resources we can use there's not much survival going on. There's a huge portion of desert where humans don't and cannot live, same for the artic.

Billions of people probably shouldn't exist, a basic biology course will go over carrying capacity and population crashes. When the population goes over the carrying capacity the whole thing can collapse, so the number of humans alive today is also an irrelevant detail.



Really what this comes down to is I'm trying to explain integrals to somebody who doesn't know how to multiply, except change math to biology. Explanations are going straight over your head because you just don't know the facts. I'm not saying anything controvertial, I'm basically parroting what every single biology book will tell you, that there is no pinnacle of evolution.

can we please cut the crap about intelligence? please define intelligence, it is clear you do not even know what the word means.

"All other known intelligent species were human-like and shared a common intelligent ancestor. It seems it is you who don't understand evolution."
^ they would put you in special ed for this comment where i come from (even if they didn't have a special ed program, they would make one with a full staff all devoted to teaching you how idiotic this comment is)

plenty of non human species are "intelligent", crows and dolphins are nearly on par with people when it comes to straight iq, if you mean that we are the only species building planes and flying then say that, don't spout some idiot claims about something you clearly have never even thought about any real way whatsoever, do you wanna know what humans have better than anything else (its not intelligence) EGO, we need to show off how cool we are so we build giant houses we don't need and fly planes around for what? to make money to enhance out status yet again, your average chimpanzee has the brainpower to do anything you can do, you know why they don't? because they have sex in big giant orgies whenever they feel like it, nobody cares how much stuff you have in chimp land, so no humanity is not "better" than anything, for the most part it's worse, now please stop saying patently absurd garbage, it's hurting my head.

e: refer to my previous post for an explanation regarding your "manipulating the environment" theory

This post was edited by dude_927 on Dec 8 2014 05:17pm

uhhhhhh