Genome Deterioration and Humans Getting Dumber

Originally posted by FormerSkeptic

Originally posted by HairlessApe
reply to post by FormerSkeptic

 

The "damage" is causing mutation.
Mutation is the driving force behind evolution.

The quickest way to reply to your post would be "study evolution."

The quickest way to reply to YOUR post would be "explain evolution."

[for the sudden big brain some 20,000 years ago]

I could explain evolution in detail [I believe I've already explained the big brain] if you would acknowledge my post. I won't bother otherwise.

reply to post by FormerSkeptic


May I ask where you got the figure of 30,000 years ago?

Anatomically modern humans have been around for about 200,000 years:

Anatomically modern humans evolved from archaic Homo sapiens in the Middle Paleolithic, about 200,000 years ago.[15] The transition to behavioral modernity with the development of symbolic culture, language, and specialized lithic technology happened around 50,000 years ago according to many anthropologists[16] although some suggest a gradual change in behavior over a longer time span.[17]

Source

The 900cc you are using as an example was at 2 million years ago, not 30,000.



Source

Originally posted by FormerSkeptic

Originally posted by HairlessApe
reply to post by FormerSkeptic

 

The "damage" is causing mutation.
Mutation is the driving force behind evolution.

The quickest way to reply to your post would be "study evolution."

The quickest way to reply to YOUR post would be "explain evolution."

[for the sudden big brain some 20,000 years ago]

I'll give a specific example of how evolution in the neo-Darwinian sense would explain rapid brain growth.

Random mutation occured in a single newborn homo sapien, in this case the mutation was the ability to grow a larger brain than what was then normal. The increased intelligence assossiated with having a larger brain allowed the person who mutated to have a very long life, because he/she was able to solve his/her problems more efficiently than people with smaller brains. Because he/she lived longer than his/her peers because of this mutation, he/she therefore had a higher chance in his/her life to have more than one offspring with either one or several mates. These offspring inherited their mother/father's larger brain, and thus gained an advantage over the smaller-brained homo sapiens. Over a long period of time, more large brained people survived than small-brained people because they survive longer and have more mates on average until the large brained people become the majority of the species.

It's the same reason we don't have the very basic brains we did when we were much simpler multi-cellular organisms. Before we were primates, or if you want to go even further back, before we were mammals.

There is literally no evidence whatsoever that human intellectual capacity has de-evolved over the past 2000 years. Our social structures are much MORE forgiving of human stupidity, but that's a whole 'nuther can-o-worms, entirely, and has nothing to do with our base intellectual capacity.

The problem here is: where is the testable hypothesis?

We have no way to accurately measure the "intelligence" of our distant human ancestors. Barring the invention of time travel, or super-advanced ancestor simulations, we simply can't know.

And now for today's quote: "We deal in hard, quantifiable science. And you -- well you are the liberal arts."

Originally posted by eriktheawful
reply to post by FormerSkeptic

 

May I ask where you got the figure of 30,000 years ago?

Anatomically modern humans have been around for about 200,000 years:

I believe the "anatomically modern" (or similar wording) refers to possessing all the same organs, absence of tail, etc.

It's known through science that brain size, for example, grew dramatically from about 900cc to today's 1350cc at the 20,000-25,000 years ago juncture, defining the Homo Sapiens species (as opposed to Homo Erectus, etc.). And it wasn't just brain size. All the skull features changed, shape and size of jaw, etc.

So it's either some global impact that caused the incredible mutation — or genetic breeding.

The side note about brain size is that concurrent Neanderthal man had 1400cc brain. Weird science, huh?

Originally posted by 0zzymand0s
There is literally no evidence whatsoever that human intellectual capacity has de-evolved over the past 2000 years. Our social structures are much MORE forgiving of human stupidity, but that's a whole 'nuther can-o-worms, entirely, and has nothing to do with our base intellectual capacity.

The problem here is: where is the testable hypothesis?

We have no way to accurately measure the "intelligence" of our distant human ancestors. Barring the invention of time travel, or super-advanced ancestor simulations, we simply can't know.

And now for today's quote: "We deal in hard, quantifiable science. And you -- well you are the liberal arts."

While I agree with you 100% on the fact that there is 0 evidence that our intellectual capacity has devolved in the past 2000 years, I do sometimes wonder about the last 30 or 40. I'm not blaming evolution, but there may be something in the water. ...Or the milk.

Please don't hurt me, Monsanto.

reply to post by FormerSkeptic


In short, our ancestor's brain developed so dramatically in such a short period because of the development of cooking - boiling meat in straw made it easier to digest, meaning we retained more calories from it. All this extra energy went to the development of our brain.

The reason we're "smarter" than Neanderthals is that we have a greater brain size:physical size ratio.

reply to post by HairlessApe


Right?

I'm thinking TV.

(Kidding! Sorta)

You know what else happened (about / roughly) 30K years ago? Humans began to domesticate "dogs."

There is some speculation that our keeping of dogs allowed us to develop agriculture, and -- by extension -- civilization as we know it. How cool is that?

Originally posted by HairlessApe
I'll give a specific example of how evolution in the neo-Darwinian sense would explain rapid brain growth.

Random mutation occured in a single newborn homo sapien, in this case the mutation was the ability to grow a larger brain than what was then normal. The increased intelligence assossiated with having a larger brain allowed the person who mutated to have a very long life, because he/she was able to solve his/her problems more efficiently than people with smaller brains. Because he/she lived longer than his/her peers because of this mutation, he/she therefore had a higher chance in his/her life to have more than one offspring with either one or several mates. These offspring inherited their mother/father's larger brain, and thus gained an advantage over the smaller-brained homo sapiens. Over a long period of time, more large brained people survived than small-brained people because they survive longer and have more mates on average until the large brained people become the majority of the species.

It's the same reason we don't have the very basic brains we did when we were much simpler multi-cellular organisms. Before we were primates, or if you want to go even further back, before we were mammals.

But you haven't explained how or why the first mutation occurred to produce such a huge jump in brain size going from 900cc to 1350cc.

Then if you're talking about gradual mutational jumps (like in 10cc increments repeated 45 times or so), why wouldn't the mutations just keep continuing until the brain is 2000cc or 3000cc or more? What starts it and stops it? And whey then at that particular time? And what about the new evidence of Genome Deterioration?

Keep in mind we're talking about a mutated brain. Not something like a strengthen fin that turns into an amphibian leg.

reply to post by FormerSkeptic


Cooked meat. Boiled. In stone troughs. In straw to prevent swelling. Read a book.

Originally posted by FormerSkeptic

Originally posted by eriktheawful
reply to post by FormerSkeptic

 

May I ask where you got the figure of 30,000 years ago?

Anatomically modern humans have been around for about 200,000 years:

I believe the "anatomically modern" (or similar wording) refers to possessing all the same organs, absence of tail, etc.

It's known through science that brain size, for example, grew dramatically from about 900cc to today's 1350cc at the 20,000-25,000 years ago juncture, defining the Homo Sapiens species (as opposed to Homo Erectus, etc.). And it wasn't just brain size. All the skull features changed, shape and size of jaw, etc.

So it's either some global impact that caused the incredible mutation — or genetic breeding.

The side note about brain size is that concurrent Neanderthal man had 1400cc brain. Weird science, huh?

The shapes changed over time. The members of a species are constantly evolving from generation to generation. There is no "first homo sapien." Homo Sapiens did not just spring up suddenly, they were the product of the thousands of years of mutation and adaptation, which in essense is natural selection, of a previous more primitive bipedal species. We still -are- the previous homonid bipedal species, we've just changed so much since then that we classify ourselves with another name. The only reason we name new specieis is BECAUSE the morphological differences (i.e. jaw structure/size, brow size, skull shape) have become noticably different.

So evolution -does- explain how all of this happened.

If you're claiming something happened INSTANTANEOUSLY thoughout the entire speicies that would be amazing, but it doesn't exist. At least not to my knowledge. And since you're claiming it does, the burden of proof is on you.

Originally posted by FormerSkeptic

Originally posted by HairlessApe
I'll give a specific example of how evolution in the neo-Darwinian sense would explain rapid brain growth.

Random mutation occured in a single newborn homo sapien, in this case the mutation was the ability to grow a larger brain than what was then normal. The increased intelligence assossiated with having a larger brain allowed the person who mutated to have a very long life, because he/she was able to solve his/her problems more efficiently than people with smaller brains. Because he/she lived longer than his/her peers because of this mutation, he/she therefore had a higher chance in his/her life to have more than one offspring with either one or several mates. These offspring inherited their mother/father's larger brain, and thus gained an advantage over the smaller-brained homo sapiens. Over a long period of time, more large brained people survived than small-brained people because they survive longer and have more mates on average until the large brained people become the majority of the species.

It's the same reason we don't have the very basic brains we did when we were much simpler multi-cellular organisms. Before we were primates, or if you want to go even further back, before we were mammals.

But you haven't explained how or why the first mutation occurred to produce such a huge jump in brain size going from 900cc to 1350cc.

Then if you're talking about gradual mutational jumps (like in 10cc increments repeated 45 times or so), why wouldn't the mutations just keep continuing until the brain is 2000cc or 3000cc or more? What starts it and stops it? And whey then at that particular time? And what about the new evidence of Genome Deterioration?

Keep in mind we're talking about a mutated brain. Not something like a strengthen fin that turns into an amphibian leg.

There is no unbelievable 450 year growth in all of humanity's brain size.

Prove it.

Originally posted by 0zzymand0s
reply to post by HairlessApe

 

Right?

I'm thinking TV.

(Kidding! Sorta)

I was thinking TV was where the OP came from.
Specifically Ancient Aliens.

reply to post by FormerSkeptic


But how gradual is gradual?

There is considerable evidence that humans developed a tolerance to lactose (in general) thanks to the domestication of milk producing animals only 5 - 9K years ago. That's lightning fast on an evolutionary scale. There is also the Tibetan adaptation to high altitudes, which is thought to have occurred over the last 3K years.

IF human brains stopped "evolving" 30K years ago, than perhaps it is because there was no need to evolve further until the industrial revolution, about 200 years ago. But that's not even the biggest change. I can theorize that the most recent impetus to human-brain evolution occurred only 25 years ago -- with the rise of a "public Internet." In other words, we don't know how fast human beings actually evolve or adapt to external stimuli, because we are in the nascent stages of what is arguably the greatest augmentation-to-human-intelligence in tens of thousands of years: the ability to "know" novel things in (near) real-time.

Originally posted by HairlessApe
The shapes changed over time. The members of a species are constantly evolving from generation to generation. There is no "first homo sapien." Homo Sapiens did not just spring up suddenly, they were the product of the thousands of years of mutation and adaptation, which in essense is natural selection, of a previous more primitive bipedal species. We still -are- the previous homonid bipedal species, we've just changed so much since then that we classify ourselves with another name. The only reason we name new specieis is BECAUSE the morphological differences (i.e. jaw structure/size, brow size, skull shape) have become noticably different.

So evolution -does- explain how all of this happened.

If you're claiming something happened INSTANTANEOUSLY thoughout the entire speicies that would be amazing, but it doesn't exist. At least not to my knowledge. And since you're claiming it does, the burden of proof is on you.

It's the evolutionary changes COMBINED WITH the short time line that's troubling.

So if they (Homo Erectus or cousins) were constantly evolving from generation to generation for whatever environmental reasons, and with an amazing tally ho leap at the 20,000 to 25,000 period for a nice big brain, why would there be no evidence of similar "constantly evolving" changes from 20,000 years ago to today, especially considering all the diseases and plagues that have killed countless advanced civilizations?

Originally posted by HairlessApe
There is no unbelievable 450 year growth in all of humanity's brain size.

Prove it.

Since I have absolutely no idea what type of gibberish reasoning you're trying to pull with such meaningless words that refer to who knows what, I'm at a loss. There. I've proven it.

Originally posted by HairlessApe
I was thinking TV was where the OP came from.
Specifically Ancient Aliens.

And I'm thinking closed minded idiots who can't identify their own problems will always continue to be closed minded idiots no matter how much effort is taken to engage them in intelligent discussion. They slide so quickly down the toilet.

This forum is so sadly infested with such fools.

reply to post by FormerSkeptic


If you can't provide evidence to prove your point, and if by your own admission you don't understand the point you're trying to make, you are the fool, not us.

Originally posted by FormerSkeptic

Originally posted by HairlessApe
I was thinking TV was where the OP came from.
Specifically Ancient Aliens.

And I'm thinking closed minded idiots who can't identify their own problems will always continue to be closed minded idiots no matter how much effort is taken to engage them in intelligent discussion. They slide so quickly down the toilet.

This forum is so sadly infested with such fools.

I'm entirely willing to support the idea of an ET intervention in mankind's evolution in the face of evidence supporting it. Unfortunately there is no evidence.

I asked you to provide something in the way of proof, and instead you called me a idiot.

I tried to explain to you how a scientifically accepted process explains something that occured naturally, and I'm "closed-minded" for not taking your word that it was ET with again, zero evidence.

You sir, are the closed-minded one.