evolution

[kinboshi]

its now a proven fact althogh some people still disagree with it that species all evole
now humans are evoltiong all the time though it takes many thousands of years for it to be noticed

with so many people now choosing (because they can afford too now) to become vegitarians

and many people being vegitarian from birth and decending from vegitarians

in 10,000s of thousands of years will humans be spilt into 2

those that can eat meat and those that cant?

No - the fittest will adapt & survive. Whether that'll be Veggies or Non-Veggies I've no idea.

Actually the welfare state and the advances in medical science means that the human race is no longer in a truly darwinian environment with regards to whether the human race will continue to 'evolve'.  It will take an outside influence on the resources available, or a mass pandemic to change this state in which the weak can survive.  Our physiology is not that far removed from the caveman, as the the genes that enable an individual to survive (and reproduce) in that age are effectively irrelevant in a 'civilised' society.

Interstingly though, there is a parallel to the veggie v non-veggie situation that is apparent in the human race now that doesn't affect survival.  The ability to consume alcohol.  Typically in medieval Europe, water was made safe to drink through the introduction of alcohol.  The lack of the gene that enables the person to cope with alcohol consumption would be a problem - and it would make it harder for this person's descendents to survive (assuming the gene is inherited).  In the far east, the custom was to boil water to make it safe to drink - meaning that the lack of the ability to consume a large amount of alcohol was not a problem, and the descendents of those without the gene (which I believe produces an enzyme that enables the alcohol to be broken down, increasing the ability to drink more) were not at a disadvantage. Therefore it's logical that more people in the Far East will lack the enzyme, and cannot tolerate alcohol as well (in general) as their Western counterparts.

To this day, half of the Japanese population lack the enzyme that helps the body consume large quantities of alcohol - but that's not going to jeopardise the ability for these people to survive in the 'civilised' society we have today.  It just means that for many in Japan, you can have a very cheap night on the town!

[AdamM]

we were never chimps though.
Us and chimps split from a common ancestor.
the chimps of today have change as much as us in the mean time, just in different ways.
Evolution is caused by competition for resources and random genetic mutation (broadly speaking)
remember, survival of the fittest is a newpaper headline and a misquote.
It's survival of the most fit.
Veggies and meat eaters are no more fit for survival than each other. there's no competition for resources

Well I'm not entirely sure of the difference betwwen "fittest" & "most fit" to be honest, but no matter.

"no competition for resources"

Today, no, but in a thousand years.....?

the difference between fittest and most fit is that some times people think fitter means superior/stronger/bigger/etc

the analogy runs something like:
there are two domestic cats with their own territories.
One cat is far bigger and stronger than than the other.
the small cat climbs trees and stalks long grass in his territory. it's only fast enough to catch a couple of mice a week and only a good enough climber to get a bird a fortnight.
the other cat is fast enough to catch every mouse it stalks and climbs trees so well it rarely missed a bird.
The small cat will survive and the large cat will eventually exhaust his food supply.

[kinboshi]

we were never chimps though.
Us and chimps split from a common ancestor.
the chimps of today have change as much as us in the mean time, just in different ways.
Evolution is caused by competition for resources and random genetic mutation (broadly speaking)
remember, survival of the fittest is a newpaper headline and a misquote.
It's survival of the most fit.
Veggies and meat eaters are no more fit for survival than each other. there's no competition for resources

Well I'm not entirely sure of the difference betwwen "fittest" & "most fit" to be honest, but no matter.

"no competition for resources"

Today, no, but in a thousand years.....?

the difference between fittest and most fit is that some times people think fitter means superior/stronger/bigger/etc

the analogy runs something like:
there are two domestic cats with their own territories.
One cat is far bigger and stronger than than the other.
the small cat climbs trees and stalks long grass in his territory. it's only fast enough to catch a couple of mice a week and only a good enough climber to get a bird a fortnight.
the other cat is fast enough to catch every mouse it stalks and climbs trees so well it rarely missed a bird.
The small cat will survive and the large cat will eventually exhaust his food supply.

Not if they're domestic cats and they don't exist in a darwinian environment where these abilities are crucial to their survival.  It matters not which cat can kill the best if they have owners who serve them Whiskas everyday.

[AdamM]

... that for some reason have become homeless

[matt674]

we're going to let you all carry on killing each other then when there's hardly any of you left we're going to take over.

whether there will be anything worth taking over of course remains to be seen - but we shall rule.......

[kinboshi]

... that for some reason have become homeless

I was sort of backing up your post with regards that they aren't fighting over resources so it doesn't matter who can 'survive' best in the wild.

However, thinking about it  - the cats with the genes that give them the prettiest faces and shiniest coats might have an edge over the mingers.  People will want to breed the pretty ones and leave the Gary Neville-like ones to one side.  So I guess there are some evolutionary forces at work, just different ones to cats in the wild.

[kinboshi]

we're going to let you all carry on killing each other then when there's hardly any of you left we're going to take over.

whether there will be anything worth taking over of course remains to be seen - but we shall rule.......

Chimpanzees, although primarily vegetarian are known to eat the brains of other monkeys to obtain fat in their diet.  They are also known to rape, murder, sodomise and generally do unpleasant things to other chimps.  Not that far removed from humans - just not as adept at creating killing machines to do it all more efficiently.

[AdamM]

but while ugly people are allowed to reproduce, the human race will get nowhere

[tikay]

its now a proven fact althogh some people still disagree with it that species all evole
now humans are evoltiong all the time though it takes many thousands of years for it to be noticed

with so many people now choosing (because they can afford too now) to become vegitarians

and many people being vegitarian from birth and decending from vegitarians

in 10,000s of thousands of years will humans be spilt into 2

those that can eat meat and those that cant?

No - the fittest will adapt & survive. Whether that'll be Veggies or Non-Veggies I've no idea.

Actually the welfare state and the advances in medical science means that the human race is no longer in a truly darwinian environment with regards to whether the human race will continue to 'evolve'.  It will take an outside influence on the resources available, or a mass pandemic to change this state in which the weak can survive.  Our physiology is not that far removed from the caveman, as the the genes that enable an individual to survive (and reproduce) in that age are effectively irrelevant in a 'civilised' society.

Interstingly though, there is a parallel to the veggie v non-veggie situation that is apparent in the human race now that doesn't affect survival.  The ability to consume alcohol.  Typically in medieval Europe, water was made safe to drink through the introduction of alcohol.  The lack of the gene that enables the person to cope with alcohol consumption would be a problem - and it would make it harder for this person's descendents to survive (assuming the gene is inherited).  In the far east, the custom was to boil water to make it safe to drink - meaning that the lack of the ability to consume a large amount of alcohol was not a problem, and the descendents of those without the gene (which I believe produces an enzyme that enables the alcohol to be broken down, increasing the ability to drink more) were not at a disadvantage. Therefore it's logical that more people in the Far East will lack the enzyme, and cannot tolerate alcohol as well (in general) as their Western counterparts.

To this day, half of the Japanese population lack the enzyme that helps the body consume large quantities of alcohol - but that's not going to jeopardise the ability for these people to survive in the 'civilised' society we have today.  It just means that for many in Japan, you can have a very cheap night on the town!

Don't rule out a mass pandemic Daniel, in the days of jet travel to all corners of the globe, a killer virus could soon catch hold, & we'd all be very brown bread.

[Geo the Sarge]

Great thread BTW Iron.

geo

[tikay]

but while ugly people are allowed to reproduce, the human race will get nowhere

"ugly people" "allowed to reproduce".......?

Good grief Adam, that's two purlers in one statement!

[kinboshi]

its now a proven fact althogh some people still disagree with it that species all evole
now humans are evoltiong all the time though it takes many thousands of years for it to be noticed

with so many people now choosing (because they can afford too now) to become vegitarians

and many people being vegitarian from birth and decending from vegitarians

in 10,000s of thousands of years will humans be spilt into 2

those that can eat meat and those that cant?

No - the fittest will adapt & survive. Whether that'll be Veggies or Non-Veggies I've no idea.

Actually the welfare state and the advances in medical science means that the human race is no longer in a truly darwinian environment with regards to whether the human race will continue to 'evolve'.  It will take an outside influence on the resources available, or a mass pandemic to change this state in which the weak can survive.  Our physiology is not that far removed from the caveman, as the the genes that enable an individual to survive (and reproduce) in that age are effectively irrelevant in a 'civilised' society.

Interstingly though, there is a parallel to the veggie v non-veggie situation that is apparent in the human race now that doesn't affect survival.  The ability to consume alcohol.  Typically in medieval Europe, water was made safe to drink through the introduction of alcohol.  The lack of the gene that enables the person to cope with alcohol consumption would be a problem - and it would make it harder for this person's descendents to survive (assuming the gene is inherited).  In the far east, the custom was to boil water to make it safe to drink - meaning that the lack of the ability to consume a large amount of alcohol was not a problem, and the descendents of those without the gene (which I believe produces an enzyme that enables the alcohol to be broken down, increasing the ability to drink more) were not at a disadvantage. Therefore it's logical that more people in the Far East will lack the enzyme, and cannot tolerate alcohol as well (in general) as their Western counterparts.

To this day, half of the Japanese population lack the enzyme that helps the body consume large quantities of alcohol - but that's not going to jeopardise the ability for these people to survive in the 'civilised' society we have today.  It just means that for many in Japan, you can have a very cheap night on the town!

Don't rule out a mass pandemic Daniel, in the days of jet travel to all corners of the globe, a killer virus could soon catch hold, & we'd all be very brown bread.

I don't rule it out - it has to happen.  The continiued population growth (due to medical advances reducing infant mortality and increasing life expectancy) is going to place an unnatural strain on the species in terms of resources, and also in terms of the ability for a virus to spread throughout whole populations very easily and with devastating results.

The worry about climate change and the problems it's going to cause the human race is only one threat to human life on earth.  Something will have to happen to reduce the population to a sustainable size, unless we can find a place to migrate to (no, not Cyprus  sofa-king).  Pandemic, climate change, nuclear war, Celine Dion - something will happen.

[fearisthekey]

we were never chimps though.
Us and chimps split from a common ancestor.
the chimps of today have change as much as us in the mean time, just in different ways.
Evolution is caused by competition for resources and random genetic mutation (broadly speaking)
remember, survival of the fittest is a newpaper headline and a misquote.
It's survival of the most fit.
Veggies and meat eaters are no more fit for survival than each other. there's no competition for resources

Well I'm not entirely sure of the difference betwwen "fittest" & "most fit" to be honest, but no matter.

"no competition for resources"

Today, no, but in a thousand years.....?

the difference between fittest and most fit is that some times people think fitter means superior/stronger/bigger/etc

the analogy runs something like:
there are two domestic cats with their own territories.
One cat is far bigger and stronger than than the other.
the small cat climbs trees and stalks long grass in his territory. it's only fast enough to catch a couple of mice a week and only a good enough climber to get a bird a fortnight.
the other cat is fast enough to catch every mouse it stalks and climbs trees so well it rarely missed a bird.
The small cat will survive and the large cat will eventually exhaust his food supply.

Not if they're domestic cats and they don't exist in a darwinian environment where these abilities are crucial to their survival.  It matters not which cat can kill the best if they have owners who serve them Whiskas everyday.

8/10 cats prefer natural selection.

Arguments of human natural selectoin through survival of the fittest don't work so well, like kinboshi points to, in new environments where the less fit can be shielded from nature's harshness. Stoneage man didn't have penicillin, in-vitro fertilization, or the NHS (mostly due to strike action by Homo Neanderthalus).
If a big cat gets all the food and the smaller cat runs out of it, this only matters in an evolutionary sense if the bigger cat can provide better for its offspring. It's all about mating and how well you can bring up your offspring. Vegetarians have such a health advantage over meat eaters that there'll be more of them around to look after their grandkids, and help them have and rear kids of their own, but the direct effects of this are always softened by our culture with its medicine and social caring.
It wasn't like this in the past. You can look at certain features of humans to know that in the hunter-gatherer past (long before poker), life was f***** difficult. 2 examples:

female menopause: the only real adaptive significance of this is that it more or less guarantees that grannie will stop having kids of her own and will be freed up to look after the sprogs of her sprogs. This would only really help enough if the advantage in devotedly looking after grandkids outweighed the advantage in being able to breed into your fifties. And that advantage would only be in place where it was really hard for kids to survive without all the help they could get.

female sexual selection- preference for male face shapes: women who are looking for long term relationships tend to go for men with softer, more feminine faces (ie less testosterone, ie men that are more caring and will probably be around to look after their own sprogs). This would only occur in an environment where it was so hard to rear kids that there was enough incentive to have the bloke still around, to outweigh any advantage for the bloke in spending his whole life bed-hopping and sh***ng anything that moved.

So, life during the majority of human evolutionary history was probably very difficult, and it made us adapt to it, to bring us all here today into a world where life is not very difficult for most people to have and rear kids without a father present and without grandparents present. So because of that, even if vegetarianism makes you a lot healthier, the effect of the natural environment is so soft as to make any difference hard to detect in the medium term.

good question.

[Ironside]

can i migrate to cyprus with celine dion

solve 2 problems in 1 for me

[AdamM]

but while ugly people are allowed to reproduce, the human race will get nowhere

"ugly people" "allowed to reproduce".......?

Good grief Adam, that's two purlers in one statement!

actually it's an out and out joke

whoosh