Re: Necessity to monitor current and future trends in human evolution



The Current Human Condition

In the past human technology was primitive and this ensured some level
of isolation among the settlements. However now technology has
progressed and it is no longer possible to have pockets of isolation
that could lead to speciation. This means that from now on human
evolution is a mass movement. Re-absorption of mutated entities will
average out the kind of evolution that occurred in the human journey so
far. The new round of human evolution will be depended on the condition
of the entire population.

Although a layman, I feel pretty sure that speciation is no more a thing of
the
past than ever before but, as I have maintained all along, what any one of
us
may mean when we use the term "speciation" can be understood by others
ONLY after, and to the extent, the speaker/writer defines what HE (or she)
means by it when HE (or she) uses it. When I think of "speciation," it is
with full understanding that some applications of the term are quite clear
and obvious, while some are not.

For example, if we apply the "rule" that two kinds of animal are of two
different species if they can not successfully reproduce offspring which,
also
can reproduce. With a cat and a dog, no problem. With a horse and a
jackass,
however, a slight wrinkle occurs. Once in a while (one in a thousand,
perhaps)
the offspring of a horse and an ass CAN breed with one or the other and
produce offspring.

I have to admit that, while I read this, on good authority, whoever (in good
faith and authority) SAID it neglected to clear up a lot of questions,
including
but not limited to:

1. Was the "mule" offspring which could reproduce able to do so only with
a horse,
only with an ass, or with either?
2. Was the "mule" offspring which could reproduce always a male, always a
female,
or, on one occasion the one and on another occasion the other?
3. Did they "mule" offspring which could reproduce look more like a
horse, more
like an ass, or more like most any mule?
4. When the "mule" got impregnated by a horse, or an ass, did the next
generation
offspring look more like a half-horse-half-ass, or more like a
half-horse-half-mule?
5. In some ways mules can serve the needs of some humans better than
either a horse
or an ass. It depends on such things as whether speed is of the
essence (such as in
horse racing) or endurance is of the essence (such as in pulling a
plow). But, when
a non-sterile mule comes along, does it differ in its highest and
best use no differently
from most mules?
6. Can two of these non-sterile mules (if there can be a male and a
female) successfully
breed and reproduce?
7. Is the DNA of a non-sterile mule nearer to that of a horse, nearer to
that of an ass, or
just typical of mules?
8. (I could go on, but the above seven questions exemplify how lots and
lots of
questions SURELY must occur to ANY scientist who comes across a flat
statement
about the rarity of a fertile mule.

But, since I do not know the answer to any of these peripheral questions,
let me just focus
on the simple fact that it is my understanding that a mule is considered by
most people to
be NEITHER horse nor ass, but an infertile hybrid. And please understand
that TO ME
it does not make a tinker's dam which way any scientist or any layman wishes
to go in
naming a mule which is fertile as a species or NOT a species. A fertile
mule is... what a
fertile mule IS.

All I would insist upon is that once we have defined two species as
something that cannot
reproduce fertile offspring, and we discover that an occasional mule is
fertile... then
when someone says "horse" or "jackass" he either needs to ALTER his
definition, or he
must concede that he is calling a single species by two different names.

Again... I DON'T CARE. All I ask is that the speaker/writer who chooses
to use the
term "species" clarify what in blazes HE (or she) means by it, with respect
to the fact that
fertile mules do occur.

And if the speaker/writer wishes to say that a fertile hybrid of horse and
jackass is a
RARE occurrence and say that a fertile horse-ass hybrid is too rare to
count... then we
run into questions of where to draw a line statistically between two classes
of things
we call separate species can produce a fertile offspring .001 % of the time,
or .002 %,
or 10 % or 20%.

In other words, are we going to define terms on the basis of an absolute 100
% rule,
on 99 % rule, on a 50 % of the time rule. And, if we are going to try to
find NATURAL
lines for distinguishing what we call one thing from another, and that rule
is not
an absolute rule, then should we use the term "natural" to describe
something that is
just ARBITRARY lines drawn by humans.

And the confusion does not stop there. Some people like to consider two
groups of birds
as separate and distinct species if they don't WANT to breed with one
another, even if
we humans can artificially inseminate a female of the one so-called bird
species with
the semen of a male of the other.

Again... I DON'T CARE. However, when two or more people who are both
supposed
to be "scientists" argue about what a species IS... as though it were
something other than
an arbitrary definition of something... that strikes me as "unscientific."

I mean... hey... if one scientist wants to call all things fitting
definition A a species, and
scientist number two wants to call all things fitting definition B a
species... neither of
them changes nature. All they do is admit that each has a different choice
of "rules" for
what HE (or she) wants to call a species.

Applying my own idea of species, I can safely say that I don't care what any
scientist
chooses to call one. But I would like to know that when one scientist says
one thing
about a species, or species generally, and another says something
conflicting with that,
I would appreciate it if each person who says something about a species, or
species
in general, would clarify what HE (or she) means, so that I know what in the
hell he or
she is talking about... assuming he or she does.

But, for ME, I am able to think of "A SPECIES" as being something that can
be like
"A TRIP FROM NEW YORK TO PARIS." If I am on an airplane taking off
from
La Guardia Airport, headed for Paris, then I have not yet made the trip, but
I am on the
way. If the aircraft I am on is half way to Paris, I have not made the trip
there. If the
aircraft is descending toward the airport in Parish, have I made the trip?
Or have I not
yet made the trip?

Now bear me out, please; because this is important.

Maybe the fact that out of, say, one thousand breedings between horse and
ass a fertile
offspring occurs. We might say, "Well, they are not YET two species. But
they are
pretty close... as close, for example, as I would be to having made a trip
to Paris, when
I can look out the aircraft window and see the landing strip ahead... but
not quite.

Have I made the trip to Paris? Have I not made the trip to Paris? Have I
somewhat
made the trip to Paris.

Well, hey, what if someone wants to insist that, according to his definition
of a trip from
New York to Paris we are THERE. And suppose the pilot, wishing to
accommodate the
person who says we are THERE, decides to cut power to the engines and the
craft lands
about two blocks short of the beginning of the landing strip.

This (as other things I say about evolution) is not meant to be frivolous.
It is to make a
point. And the point is: EVOLUTION IS NOT A DESTINATION, BUT A
PROCESS.
Granted that as between a dog and a cat we can pretty well agree that we
have two
species whereas, in comparing a horse and an ass, we are looking at pretty
near an
accomplished speciation... and, there is no HARM in calling a horse a
separate species
from an ass. But what's to have a shouting match about, if we are OBSERVERS
of
nature and not trying to shout one another down as to what nature has
determined to
be speciation in terms that we should or should not recognize speciation IN
PROGRESS.

According to the way this layman views speciation, it is ALWAYS IN
PROGRESS.
That is to say, speciation has "made the trip" from some current
morphological reproducers,
and is ENROUTE as between others.

If we do not make (what to me seems quite evidently) the MISTAKE of failing
to view
speciation as going on all the time, in very, very tiny increments which can
get interrupted,
or can proceed in certain directions, and then veer off into other
directions ...etc., then
we are not getting the "real" picture.

But, okay, now that I have laid a background for commenting on the paragraph
copied at
the beginning of this message, let me now proceed to comment on it... and
let me paste
once again a single sentence I want to focus on in doing so (namely this
one):

However now technology has
progressed and it is no longer possible to have pockets of isolation
that could lead to speciation.

Such a statement strikes me as insinuating that the ONLY thing that leads to
speciation
is isolation.

Well, consider this...

Fact to consider, number one: Every species of today is ISOLATED from every
ancestor it had a hundred million years ago... by TIME, if by nothing else.

Fact to consider, number two: Many, many variations have occurred on Earth
in the past hundred million years, and species which were excellently
adapted to life on Earth (anywhere on it) one hundred million years ago
would
NOT necessarily be capable of living on any part of Earth today.

Fact to consider, number three: Contemporary geographical isolation which
would contribute, over a long period of time evolutionarily, is NO MORE A
PRESSURE toward speciation than are the changes in any one location on
Earth, or all places on Earth, as they change over thousands of millennia.

THEREFORE, we cannot say that there is nothing to bring about further
speciation.

If an ancestor of a particular dog of today, was so PROFUSELY different from
a dog of today, then it does not
stand to reason that the two, IF BOTH COULD BE BRED TODAY, would have
sufficient genetic, or morphological similarities to reproduce today.

In considering speciation OVER VAST AMOUNTS OF TIME, as well as between
two geographically separated places at any ONE INSTANT in time, it seems
pretty danged obvious to me that concurrent isolation is not the
ONLY factor in evolutionary change.

What is more... what evolutionary "trips to Paris" have already, as of now,
begun... whether they be barely begun or half way to completion or 99 % of
the way to completion, are not going to LOSE THEIR EVOLUTIONARY
MOMENTUM, as it were, and REVERSE themselves just because there is global
opportunity for species which CAN breed and produce fertile offspring SOME
of the time now will be inclined to, or forced to, by science, industry,
commerce, or what have you.

Now it DOES stand to reason that humans are going to intercede more and more
into bio-manipulation, selective breeding, genetic engineering, etc. But
EVEN THAT can create new species... eventually.

More and more, I perceive it to be likely, we humans are going to gain
control over bio-engineering in ways that will enable us to "harness"
viruses, prions, bacteria. and larger plants and animals to do our bidding.

Unfortunately "our bidding," as with ALL human bidding, consists in
cooperated ventures designed to benefit mankind as a whole AND cooperated
ventures aimed as destroying humans who are (or whom we perceive to be) our
enemies.

Somehow I believe mankind is capable of making Earth uninhabitable by man.
I cannot grasp, however, how mankind would EVER gain sufficient suzerainty
over all of nature to render Earth lifeless. It seems to me that somewhere,
under some rock, or in some cave, or even inside of some deep down rock of
Earth (where life is very actually being found today) life will go on with,
or without, us and our conflicting names and shouting matches.

And... where there is life... there will be THE PROCESS of change, over
time, which is "evolution," and, where enormous periods of time continue,
and gajillions of incremental evolutionary micro-events occur, they will
cumulate to points beyond which breeding back will become as impossible as
for a house tabby cat and a collie.

At least this is what seems obvious to this layman...

g
g



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