RE: Technology's effect on evolution
April 18, 2012 at 9:53 am
(This post was last modified: April 18, 2012 at 9:59 am by The Grand Nudger.)
I think that's what Tib was trying to express, that technology has the effect of subverting the process. If we can come up with a technological solution to an environmental pressure then there is no survival benefit conferred solely to those with an adaptational solution. Sexual selection seems to have become the major driving force for human beings, and if chicks start digging the 6 fingered man then we might see that become the norm. Suppose that having 6 fingers was a survival benefit though, us 5 fingered types would just come up with a better keyboard wouldn't we? Biological evolution would be hard-pressed to outpace technology.
Technology is not an environmental pressure, it is a tool to alleviate environmental pressures.
No, it's unlikely that we would stop evolving (unless we can start making exact copies of ourselves genetically(and if we could pull that off, what would stop us from making "improvements"?), but we don't evolve in in some directed process to better suit a specific thing (like technology), and we never have. This is not some steady march towards a goal or improvement. It's just the weight of what remains against what does not.
Technology is not an environmental pressure, it is a tool to alleviate environmental pressures.
No, it's unlikely that we would stop evolving (unless we can start making exact copies of ourselves genetically(and if we could pull that off, what would stop us from making "improvements"?), but we don't evolve in in some directed process to better suit a specific thing (like technology), and we never have. This is not some steady march towards a goal or improvement. It's just the weight of what remains against what does not.
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