Re: Further Evolution beyond the Human?
David L Evens (devens@uoguelph.ca)
10 Oct 1996 22:55:32 GMT
czar@freenet.edmonton.ab.ca wrote:
: Adam Hibbert (a.hibbert@ucl.ac.uk) wrote:
: : Evolution ain't finished out there in the Naturally-determined world
: : (wherever that might be these days), but when was the last time *you*
: : assessed a mate on his/her apparent reproductive potential? Humans aren't
: : evolving genetically because we have all latched on to a much faster and
: : more competitive level of evolution; cultural-scientific evolution. Genes
: : are just not an issue. There is *no* systematic pressure on a gene strain
: : from reproductive competition in human culture.
: Unless blatant stupidity is something that can (or can't) be weeded out
: of the gene pool. What springs immediately to mind: the kids that died
: whilst they imitated a scene in some movie (it might have been called
: "The Program") wherein characters in the movie lay along the center-line
: of a busy high-speed roadway for some sort of kicks. The stupidity of
: such actions ensured that neither their specific arrangements of genes,
: nor their specific arrangements of memes (if it were their memes that
: made them so foolish), would get passed on to any children they might
: have had.
As Heinlein said: "Stupidity is a capital offense."
--
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Ring around the neutron, | "OK, so he's not terribly fearsome.
A pocket full of positrons,| But he certainly took us by surprise!"
A fission, a fusion, +--------------------------------------------------
We all fall down! | "Was anybody in the Maquis working for me?"
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"I'd cut down ever Law in England to get at the Devil!"
"And what man could stand up in the wind that would blow once you'd cut
down all the laws?"
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