I also have a funny question for y'all.

[SwimModSponges]

37 minutes ago, scoobdog said:

Brain shrinkage is de-evolution.

There's no such thing as "de-evolution" because again evolution isn't a linear process of progression. It's the semi-random propagation of genes resulting in traits that facilitate reproduction/survival to the point of reproduction.

 Humans aren't particularly big creatures to begin with, so the likelihood they would shrink to the size of, say a rat, is practically impossible in an evolutionary sense.  Same goes for becoming much larger; that would involve not just building a bigger structure but building a significantly larger brain.

10 million years ago sloths were the size of horses and swam in the oceans scraping algae off rocks. Millions of years do millions of things man. 

It's not bragging to suggest that humans are unique animals; we rely more heavily on our tool creating abilities than any other species by far.  It's a feature that allows us to have an outsized ability to manipulate and adapt to our environment without altering our physiological traits.  Humans are the only animals that can adapt to every single environment on the planet in some form exclusively because we have an ability to create assistant devices to enable that adaption.  At the same time, in a physiological sense, animals of any species of any order evolve specifically in order to survive either in a home environment that becomes inhospitable to their old trait set or in an expanded range because of population density.  Our tool making ability makes the need to physically evolve immaterial: either we build an apparatus to adapt ourselves to a new and inhospitable environment or we go extinct.

So your position is that humanity has taken itself out of evolution and will no longer change biologically in order to better fit the changes of environment which occur over millions of years?

You can facepalm all you want, but your premise is fundamentally preposterous.

Your argument is arrogant and homocentric.

 

 

Edited March 27, 2021 by SwimModSponges

[scoobdog]

32 minutes ago, SwimModSponges said:

Brain shrinkage is de-evolution.

There's no such thing as "de-evolution" because again evolution isn't a linear process of progression. It's the semi-random propagation of genes resulting in traits that facilitate reproduction/survival to the point of reproduction.

And brain shrinkage, being "de-evolution" , is thus impossible.  We're not talking a relatively small changes or loss of unnecessary functions.  We're talking a wholesale shedding of brain function.  The process, as you describe it, is incremental and specific.

 Humans aren't particularly big creatures to begin with, so the likelihood they would shrink to the size of, say a rat, is practically impossible in an evolutionary sense.  Same goes for becoming much larger; that would involve not just building a bigger structure but building a significantly larger brain.

10 million years ago sloths were the size of horses and swam in the oceans scraping algae off rocks. Millions of years do millions of things man. 

That happened within the parameters of sloths changing their home environemnt. 

It's not bragging to suggest that humans are unique animals; we rely more heavily on our tool creating abilities than any other species by far.  It's a feature that allows us to have an outsized ability to manipulate and adapt to our environment without altering our physiological traits.  Humans are the only animals that can adapt to every single environment on the planet in some form exclusively because we have an ability to create assistant devices to enable that adaption.  At the same time, in a physiological sense, animals of any species of any order evolve specifically in order to survive either in a home environment that becomes inhospitable to their old trait set or in an expanded range because of population density.  Our tool making ability makes the need to physically evolve immaterial: either we build an apparatus to adapt ourselves to a new and inhospitable environment or we go extinct.

So your position is that humanity has taken itself out of evolution and will no longer change biologically in order to better fit the changes of environment which occur over millions of years?

 

No.  That is not the implication.  Humans have short circuited the process on the way to becoming proficient tool makers, but that doesn't mean they can adapt to every environmental constraint.  It just means that they are by far the most adaptable and, as such, are the least likely to either need or have the opportunity to adapt to long term environmental pressures.  For the same reason we can manipulate environments fast enough to cause other species to go extinct, we also manipulate them too fast to allow our own species to evolve physiologically.   The end result of this is that we're both more likely to destroy the environments we inhabit and less likely to adapt when they are destroyed.

You can facepalm all you want, but your premise is fundamentally preposterous.

Your argument is arrogant and homocentric.

No, it is not

 

 

Edited March 27, 2021 by scoobdog

[SwimModSponges]

1 hour ago, scoobdog said:

 

And brain shrinkage, being "de-evolution" , is thus impossible.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/41464021?seq=1

Quote

Increase in the size of the braincase, so characteristic for human evolution, stopped by the end of Pleistocene. Several authors have noticed a decrease since then, while others at least agree there has been no further increase. Craniometric data collected in a uniform way on 241 series of male crania (approx. 9,500 individuals) and on 101 series of female ones (approx. 3,300 indiv.) originating from the NW quadrant of the Old World (Europe, N. Africa, etc.) and dated from Upper Paleolithic to modern times were used to evaluate the trend. Vault thickness and skull shape were accounted for when calculating cranial capacity (CC) from craniometric data. Among male samples the peak CC occurred in Mesolithic (1593 cc), the lowest value falls in modern times (1436 cc); in female samples timing is the same: Mesolithic maximum of 1502 ccm and modern minimum of 1241 cc. For both males and females the decrease through time is smooth, statistically significant and inversely exponential. A decrease of 157 cc (9.9% of the larger value) in males and of 261 cc (17.4%) in females is a considerable one, of the order of magnitude comparable to the difference between aver ages for H. erectas and H. sapiens sapiens.

 

[scoobdog]

1 hour ago, SwimModSponges said:

https://www.jstor.org/stable/41464021?seq=1

 

We're not talking a relatively small changes or loss of unnecessary functions.  We're talking a wholesale shedding of brain function.  The process, as you describe it, is incremental and specific.