Opinions - 2. Human Evolution

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Human Evolution
This isn't a rant about whether evolution is real or anything, this is in fact a question of man's ability to initiate human evolution. We are reaching a stage of technological and scientific knowledge that without the objections of certain religions and beliefs, we could purposely introduce our next stage of evolution. An example would be genetic engineering or the integration of the human body with technology. Does anybody have any views on this?

wonder what the "anti evolutionary theory" crowd whould think when presented with actual evolution.or, maybe, this topic has been beaten to death here over the past few years and just won't survive another try... a bit like natural selection, don't you think?

This topic has really been beaten to death.

Related to this topic: Yesterday I started and finished Oryx and Crake, it had some really interesting and scary ideas. Anyone read it?

That particular topic has been beaten to death, but this thread isn't supposed to be about natural evolution. It is about man's ability to initiate unnatural evolution with the use of modern or future science.Joe > I've never heard of Onyx And Crake, whats it about?

A kid watches his dad light a fire with matches for the first time. Does this mean the kid is now qualified to mix dynamite? The point being is that we may be on the doorstep to learning how to manipulate genes, but this in no way means we are qualified to start doing so. We don't know what we're dealing with. Yeah, we can say if we change this gene something will happen...but what about the other ten or one-hundred things we didn't know about? When we begin finding kids with two heads or (more realistically) botched immune systems or something because "we wanted our kid to have blue eyes", don't say you weren't warned. Doctors (and scientists) usually know a lot less than they lead you to believe they do.

Will they be qualified in 1000 years? Surely the human genome will be quite well understood by then.

Well, it has been tried in animals. Selective breeding is somthing like it. All dogs came from the wolf, today there are different dogs with not only different body styles but with breed specific BEHAVIOR..and there was an experiment with foxes that pretty well proved it to me.

They tried breeding foxes, so that the "gentler" ones were all that were reproduced, and ended up with all sorts of color variations and more gentle foxes.

SO if screwing around with the "personality" gene effects color and such in an animal, wtf is going to happen when they start really screwing with the human genes? Are all the redheads (as a rule) going to have not only red hair, but certain REALLY predictable personality traits?

As far at technology being integrated, there is LOTS of that already, hip replacements, pacemakers, DBS, heart valves: the list goes on and on...

I saw THIS video on YouTube a few weeks ago. Its a video of Jesse Sullivan, the first bionic man.

Another example are the so-called "Killer Bees". We thought we were so smart and bred our bees with an African variety that produced a lot of honey per bee so that we could get more honey per bee with our bees as well. What we ended up with is bees that produced more honey but were also extremely aggresive...resulted in some folks beeing (no pun intended) killed. When we start directly messing with the genes themselves we'll REALLY open pandora's box to some, shall we say, "unexpected results". We aren't as smart as some of us like to think we are.

"Killer" Africanized bees were not intentionally released into they wild; they were accidentally released in Brazil in 1957 from a lab.The only way to prevent all possible accidents is not to do anything. No electricity, cars, airplanes, hospitals, antibiotics, vaccines, radio, telephones, computers, Internet, or religious broadcasts. Most people would then spend most of thier time doing backbreaking labor.There are risks in progress. The only way to eliminate risk is through Luddism: eliminate technolical advances, and eliminate progress. Recall, though, that things weren't so great in Western Europe during the Dark Ages.> We aren't as smart as some of us like to think we are.We're also not as dumb as some of us think we are, and our knowledge is growing very rapidly. Even in politically conservative states, most people think we should pursue cures for paralysis and degenerative diseases, even using embryonic stem cells (which I'd wager is the inspiration of your post).

In reply to: Joe > I've never heard of Onyx And Crake, whats it about? http://www.oryxandcrake.co.uk/ It's ideas aren't totally new but Margaret Atwood is a terrific writer.

Only when you know everything are you in a position to say how much somebody else knows. I say we know very little...and don't take the time to do adequate testing of our theories to prove what we think we know. Sometimes all we know is equivalent to "we put this in here, and we get this out the other end"...no knowledge of the actual process and therefor no ability to know any potentially dangerous ramifications. The A-bomb under discussion is a good example.

So....then what? We know very little, depending on the scale you use when you evaluate human knowledge, but were are increasing our knowledge at an exponential rate. How much will we know a thousand years from now? Should we pull the plug on technological development? Or should we just terminate research that disturbs you and your co-religionists?

The A-bomb under discussion is a good examplethe A-bomb was no accident and nuclear fission is very well understood.If you think we're ignorant, why wouldn't you think we should work our way out of the darkness?But you've already made you veiws clear on the evils of science many times in many threads

If you think we're ignorant, why wouldn't you think we should work our way out of the darkness?Because all the enlightenment we need is in a book written a couple of thousand years ago? Adios to vaccines, Internet routers, and imported Belgian chocolates.

oh yeah... I've got a copy of that book. Damned if I could find the trouble shooting guide when my DSL crashed last week.

This topic has been beaten to death. A thousand ugly deaths.What I would really hate to see happen is for Thor to be portrayed as speaking for all of Christianity...or any "religion" for that matter. He doesn't.As for Bob's question about the success of human-initiated evolution. I think only time could answer that question.

Thor speaks for the Luddites, Christian or otherwise.But the subject is not natural selection and Darwinian evolution.

well, back on topic...
I think that through things like genetic engineering, stem cell research etc etc, the cure to all desease is within our grasp. The problem is now it's a race. Humanity faces possible extinction at the hands of various possible pandemics. We've just got to keep a step ahead of them.