Evolution - Keeping it simple.

If man has evolved over time in response to natural changes in our environment then what happens when man changes his environment to meet his own needs?

I could write a long post containing a host of possibilities but at the root of it all one question remains if we are the products of evolution.

Did we evolve naturally or by interference?

Very nice post! This is very intriguing! I never seen it put that way before... Let's see here... what are my thoughts....

Okay, so let's take a look at an average citizen, and not looking into poverty or anything like that. Take the average joe, with decent amounts of money, who has a house, and can go to a nearby store to get food and water and other things. He works, gets paid, and spends most of his time at home. Since this man does not need to go out hunting for food and water, he can spend a lot of his time thinking! So I think when a human's mind isn't focused on hunting food or gathering water etc, he can focus on other stuff, like what is in his mind. So i believe that with the technological advances, A human can focus more on himself and become more self aware. That's what I think.

To answer your question more directly, I think that in earlier times in human history, once a human has a shelter, food and water, he can focus on other stuff, like building and using tools and expanding his mind.

[edit on 25-1-2010 by SolarE-Souljah]

reply to post by SpiritoftheNightSky


We have only began shaping our environment "relatively" recently. In many ways we still suffer from lack of adaptation. Examples include panic attacks and anxiety disorders (fight or flight responses go haywire because our threats are no longer imminent and physical), or our sense of altruism. Dawkins once offered the opinion that our mindset is still one of a hunter-gatherer society and in his book "The Selfish Gene" argued that acts of charity are still hardwired to exact reciprocity at a later stage. Due to the fact that we now live in cities, this makes no evolutionary sense, but we still do it.

Would agree with the posts before mine saying we've eolved through neccesity but this doesnt explain the huge gap between Humans and the next nearest evolved species in the animal kingodom.

Evolution is a process which allows speciation to occur to deal with changes in environment or to expolit new opportunities as they arise.

Why has the animal kingdom on a whole , and with most of these species being around longer than primates, allowed some random monkeys to get so far ahead of them...to the point where man is now directly threatening their exisitence and potentially could cause the extinction of many different groups by the use of technology such as Nuclear war.

Evoloution works fine for most of these animals but our own selfish gentic meme's seem to have completely leap frogged any animal that has ever lived on this planet which suggests to me that there is a fundamental issue about how science sees man's development on Earth.

Dinosaurs had more time than primates to reach an evoloutionary epoch yet their genes ( the same process we use) didnt adapt at anything like the rate we seemed to have developed over a relatviely short period of time.


My only conclusion is that either science got it's dating wrong and primates have been around for alot longer than we think or there must have been some sort of external intervention that only affected our branch of the primate tree ( which in such a bio-diverse environment seems unlikely).

I moan at people for not including any solid in their arguments and this topic is covered widely by people more qualified by me but there is one big hole in the current theory that I cant resolve:

If our current estimates of primate development and earth geology are correct; how did Primates appear in South America???

According to current Geological theory; South America came into being after the break up of various supercontinents but long before Primates are said to have evolved on earth.

It is scientifically agreed that all primates evolved on the continent known as Africa however at this time South America was several hundred miles away across the Atlantic.

The best science can come up with in this area is that "some monkeys in Africa must have got washed into the sea on tress and these trees then floated to south america where the monkeys then set up a new population..)

I kid you not that this is the pre0eminent theory in this area and for me it just sounds too far fetched and whenever anything like this happens; I always think pesky humans had something to do with it ...


[edit on 25-1-2010 by Jukiodone]

reply to post by SpiritoftheNightSky


I find that I lean toward the "both" answer for this question.

I think the human meat sack evolved to a certain stage, then was influenced by some outside force or former civilization (pure speculation of course) as it seems to be the only evidence available at this time (even if purely subjective and circumstantial).

I find it hard to believe that consciousness is a mistake of evolution, but I can not discount the possibility. I think it's far more likely, since there seems to be no evidence of a missing link [so far], that we were interfered with somewhere along the way. EDIT: And not just by our own vanity, materialism and so-called progress as a species (almost laughable at that).

It's the consciousness issue I've always had serious quandary about. What is IT about? Without it, things would be much easier to explain, and more to the point, accept, in my opinion.

EDIT: S&F

Side Note: Does it seem, to anyone else, that we've stalled or even taken a couple of steps back down our ladder of evolution lately? Eh..I'm probably just getting old.

[edit on 25-1-2010 by lagnar]

Originally posted by lagnar

I think the human meat sack evolved to a certain stage, then was influenced by some outside force or former civilization (pure speculation of course) as it seems to be the only evidence available at this time

[edit on 25-1-2010 by lagnar]

I totally believe that. Argh... my brain hurts trying to understand this.

I also believe we were influenced from something outside, but that doesn't mean human beings didn't have to do a lot themselves. Above posters are right in the fact that it really is both factors that made us current humans possible. I will have to ponder this more. expect more input from me in 30 minutes or so.

Modern Scientific Breakthroughs has Allows Intelligent design to Make Theory of Evolution Obsolete

Okay, its been more than 30 minutes and I couldn't think of anything else. I would like to see what people have to say though. Keep em coming!

Darwin or God? .... maybe both?
I don't know if this applies here but, my Son ask asked an hour ago about what is more powerfull, good or bad. I told him to look at it in a perspective of destuction versus creation. How long does it take to create a castle out of Lego? ..... a few hours at least, then I asked him how long does it take for your Brother to destroy it? ..... a second or two!
So it would seem, it is easier and takes less energy to destroy something than to create .... but yet we exist, the Planets, the Universe, all exists even though destruction (collisions, explosions, decay, death etc etc...) reigns supreme.
OK, not a good example but, I can't help but feel that if there was no, shall we say, helping hand of some creator and everything was left to random chance and possibilities, would we ever have had any real hopes of existence?

The fact that us human beings can now communicate quite effortlessly without using our voice is a feat of its own. The fact we can be communicating right now as a species across the world is astounding! The fact that we evolved to this point is pretty damn cool. Know what I mean???

I think maybe we got little bit o help from the sky people.

Originally posted by masonicon
Modern Scientific Breakthroughs has Allows Intelligent design to Make Theory of Evolution Obsolete

Are you saying that man no longer evolves; that he has stopped the evolution process?

Then would that mean that he has reached the end of one process and is now beginning a new one by altering his environment as he desires?

Originally posted by SpiritoftheNightSky

Originally posted by masonicon
Modern Scientific Breakthroughs has Allows Intelligent design to Make Theory of Evolution Obsolete

Are you saying that man no longer evolves; that he has stopped the evolution process?

Then would that mean that he has reached the end of one process and is now beginning a new one by altering his environment as he desires?

Everything is Too Complex to be Created from Nothing by Stupid Trial and Error Process

Originally posted by SpiritoftheNightSky

If man has evolved over time in response to natural changes in our environment then what happens when man changes his environment to meet his own needs?

I could write a long post containing a host of possibilities but at the root of it all one question remains if we are the products of evolution.

Did we evolve naturally or by interference?

I dont really see how you extrapolated the 2nd question from the first. the first question I think is the better of the two. But to answer the 2nd: environmental pressure IS interference.

Even if you think the pressure comes from some unnatural source what would that be? Aliens? Presumably they were subject to their own set of environmental pressures and if they exist and travel here then "interfere" is it not still nature? It leads back to your first question. Aliens manipulating the environment for their own needs. Where is the unnatural?

Originally posted by masonicon
Everything is Too Complex to be Created from Nothing by Stupid Trial and Error Process

And yet we see it happening everyday.

reply to post by watcher73


I think that you misunderstood. The interference I was referring to was the interference of mankind in the natural order of things. With time we gained the ability to no longer accept the world we lived in but to change it.

How different would this world be if we had not taken on this challenge?

reply to post by watcher73


I agree. The trial and error process is not as stupid as it may look on the surface. Every time you attempt something you learn at least two things. What works and what doesn't.

reply to post by SpiritoftheNightSky


After giving this idea a little more thought I decided that if evolution can be halted then maybe we are not products of mutations and natural selection at all.

It would make a strong argument that if man can change the process of evolution by interfering with his environment then maybe he is indeed a product of creation not evolution.

Maybe at the point of true planet domination.... the species will decide to exist in space and allow other organisms and cultures to rise to a recently vacant position.

sounds rather generous and enlightened to me.

reply to post by Wertdagf


What if the planet is the one that is evolving and is making adaptations to protect itself from our manipulations and in turn working to eliminate us as a virus or a threat?