Survival of the fittest has evolved. Try Survival of the Kindest

[Boogs]

That's certainly taking things philosophically. I guess Nietzsche was kinda good at being philosophical.

God: "Nietzsche is dead!"

 

[Boogs]

It's nowhere near enough generations for humans to evolve significantly for city life.

And the critical word is evolve, and what we each mean by it.

I believe (and don't quote me, I've not done much serious reading/thinking on evolution for donkey's years) that more subtle mechanism's that come under the evolution umbrella (change through environmental pressures), but don't necessarily use the same methods (genetic being the obvious one I know of) to enable positive change as described in evolution (adaptation to environment etc.) are also in effect, and instil changes at inter-generational level, or even intra-generational. Of course this stuff spreads across other disciplines than evolution, and more relevantly is still very much under consideration, more research and analysis much needed before more new ideas can be integrated and sustained in the model.

In addition of course, we have what appear to be our own unique and non-genetic (or not directly genetic) generation jumping methods of change, not least by any means, a self-learning prediction & simulation computer installed, along with all the standard bloat-ware (facial recognition, social adaptation, communication mechanisms, blah blah), but with a bunch of external pressures stimulating new neural pathways, especially in (for this example) social adaptation, which I would place very high on the list of critical significant factors in our development.
After all, how much of our adult behaviour comes from environmental development rather than pre-defined (genetic) methods? Probably a contentious statement, but - I think a great deal of research on twins has shown how psychological/physiological differences can appear through their development regardless of apparently similar external (and genetic) conditions still results in great differences between those identical siblings.

We also have factors such as epigenetics (and I really must gen up on) and others. Frankly, evolution, fundamentally interesting as it is, has always been a difficult subject to get my head round, as I think the complexity goes so far it's a subject that requires the isolation and categorisation of so many parts to be able to try and hold the whole thing in my head to be able to pattern match and pull out meaningful answers.

Seems to me, evolution is still in need of much more progress and understanding in it's study and conclusions - we just don't know nearly enough to make solid predictions from some of the data. So to my mind we need to look on the other side of the equation - what comes out of it. What changes, and then backtracking to find the causes. Some will be (partially?) explained by environment, but what can't be becomes a candidate for an evolutionary mechanism? At least we have the data out there, by dint of causality if nothing else, it's a matter of capturing that and determining how much of the narrative it fills. And on actually thinking that explicitly right now, I have the thought - is this not how Darwin first made such stunning insights into things that seemed so well hidden (no knowledge of the mechanisms and no tools capable of filling that gap). He worked back from the evidence he could currently see. I wonder if he was ND?

I can only see the details in small parts - which is not very impressive unfortunately, so you can probably pull all that to pieces.
But give me an interesting argument to join in, and I'll do my best to annoy all concerned! (in the nicest possible way!) and maybe learn something on the way.

 

[Au Naturel]

To be honest, I disagree about the precision of description, in that I personally find your suggested version to be no more (in fact less, as I have the context to my own comments, even if I've not made them clear to others) clear than mine. I think this is really a case of context and common understanding, which in this world seems to be something we are discouraged to do big-time! (sorry, but I have a major bug-bear with lack of common understanding and definitions - ever more so when people deliberately use it to obfuscate (in trw, that is, I don't mean here!).

That's not to say I think you're wrong, I'm only commenting on comms and language use in this msg, not evolution - but, I'd best not continue as I do tend to digress a thread in short measure, not to mention inadvertently insult people when just trying to have fun with words!

How's this?

Evolution is the change in the morphology of living things over time.

The mutations and epigenetics that drive the change are random. The environment (which is chaotic) determines which mutations survive and which don't. What is a perfect mutation today may destroy a species when the environment changes.

We may yet destroy ourselves with the very same intelligence that allowed us to dominate the large mammal niche.

OTOH, every creature that exists today is just as evolved as every other, from the tiniest virus to humans. We've no more evolutionary history behind us than any other current living creature. The notion of evolutionary "progress" is just anthropocentrism.

 

[lovely_darlingprettybaby]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics_in_the_United_States
Pretty horrifying history of how humanity wants to eliminate what is not mainstream.

I don't think I found any theory in psychology to support selfishness or meanness, more so I would say it was being assertive. Crime is ingrained in society and it gains alongside fair civilians, I don't think it will ever stop because of, coincidentally, its ability to evolve.

There's a saying: "you will more likely get what you want in life by doing good than bad." I'm inclined to believe it, and if it doesn't work only through stealing can one get something from an unwilling individual.

There is too much lying going on with celebrities, that's usually what the Holywood is based on. Is lying a good evolving mechanism because it helps you climb the ladder of career life and supposedly provide and eat more, or bad because it destroys relationships (and you're on a diet)? A non-celebrity person has social relations as well.

Because of corruption, sometimes it is necessary to lie, to the corrupt.

You are right as an autistic it is easier to feel like lying so you are not taken advantage of.
I think bad people get what they want more than good but people are happier to see a good person get good things.
I think even if bad people get everything it will eat them alive each day and they will end up very unhappy people
I do believe there are genuine people but people screw over the genuine more.

 

[Boogs]

How's this?

Evolution is the change in the morphology of living things over time.

The mutations and epigenetics that drive the change are random. The environment (which is chaotic) determines which mutations survive and which don't. What is a perfect mutation today may destroy a species when the environment changes.

Well, can't argue with most of that! You've pretty much encapsulated the essence of it (as I see it, although I know that's inadequate from a scientific p.o.v., but then I'm not a scientist!)

We may yet destroy ourselves with the very same intelligence that allowed us to dominate the large mammal niche.

I would be most surprised if we didn't! Our self-vaunted intelligence isn't the be and end all of our evolution. In fact it suggests it's highly prone to extinction and/or significant change.
Unless someone here can explain to me how we have improved our chance of survival over the last few hundred years? (never mind the survival of all the species we're taking down with us!)

OTOH, every creature that exists today is just as evolved as every other, from the tiniest virus to humans. We've no more evolutionary history behind us than any other current living creature. The notion of evolutionary "progress" is just anthropocentrism.

Hmmm, getting a bit tricky now - e.g. define 'evolve'. How do you measure how much something has evolved? Tempting to want to do so, it seems to me, but a contentious thing to do, unless you (one) can determine exactly what the definition is, and pass that on accurately and precisely.

The notion of evolutionary "progress" is just anthropocentrism.

Agreed, but in varying ways depending on the species being studied, and by whom.
Maybe it depends on who's notion it is? And (as above) what the definition of progress is?

FYI: I tend to get rather hung up on word definitions etc. having found mine rarely match other peoples closely enough to accurately work from.

 

[Hypnalis]

Up to a point (fossil records) "species lifetimes" and their evolution can be tracked.

There are species that have lived much longer than homnins (e.g. cockroaches at 300 million years). And there are species that have changed much more than homnins (cetaceans). So we don't have a good case for being the "most evolved".

But we're well ahead on destructiveness, scale of environmental modification, and whatever it is our brains do.

The evidence is very thin for those being positive traits though. We're also in the lead for "most likely to destroy all life on the planet".
OFC there have been surprisingly many mass extinctions, and life has recovered each time. On an evolutionary time scale, things may work out ok.

 

[Au Naturel]

Up to a point (fossil records) "species lifetimes" and their evolution can be tracked.

There are species that have lived much longer than homnins (e.g. cockroaches at 300 million years). And there are species that have changed much more than homnins (cetaceans). So we don't have a good case for being the "most evolved".

But we're well ahead on destructiveness, scale of environmental modification, and whatever it is our brains do.

The evidence is very thin for those being positive traits though. We're also in the lead for "most likely to destroy all life on the planet".
OFC there have been surprisingly many mass extinctions, and life has recovered each time. On an evolutionary time scale, things may work out ok.

There are worse examples than us. Think about cyanobacteria and the great oxidation event. Probably killed off 90% of all existing species. But it did give rise to eukaryotes.

 

[Ronald Zeeman]

An interesting topic. In a way socoieties with cultures where they have pre-arranged marriages or strict rules about who's allowed to marry who take natural selection away from the process. Without natural selection we halt evolution and end up with stagnation.

There have also been many human breeding experiments over the centuries. European royal families bred themselves like race horses, breeding for specific traits.

Watching a number of u-tube videos on indigenous peoples in North America, including mating practices, real eye opener we could learn from them. Each tribe has different practices.

 

[Mary Terry]

How's this?

Evolution is the change in the morphology of living things over time.

The mutations and epigenetics that drive the change are random. The environment (which is chaotic) determines which mutations survive and which don't. What is a perfect mutation today may destroy a species when the environment changes.

We may yet destroy ourselves with the very same intelligence that allowed us to dominate the large mammal niche.

OTOH, every creature that exists today is just as evolved as every other, from the tiniest virus to humans. We've no more evolutionary history behind us than any other current living creature. The notion of evolutionary "progress" is just anthropocentrism.

Your post reminded me of my irritation when people say that someone comes from
"an old family" as an indication of that person's status as higher than others. We ALL come from old families.

 

[Au Naturel]

Your post reminded me of my irritation when people say that someone comes from
"an old family" as an indication of that person's status as higher than others. We ALL come from old families.

That is the sort of thing atheists and religionists ought to agree upon. We come from one family, and that family goes all the way back to the beginning.