We are all Aliens anyway...

[RED-DOG]

In the last 10,000 years the pace of evolution has sped up 100 times so what's triggered this?

Eh?

How has 'the pace of evolution sped up 100 times'?

[BangBang]

In the last 10,000 years the pace of evolution has sped up 100 times so what's triggered this?

Eh?

How has 'the pace of evolution sped up 100 times'?

Digestion, teeth, hair, our brains are now smaller... We've evolved more in the last 10 thousand years then we have in the million+ years before that..

[kinboshi]

If anyone questions why we have evolved the way we have (and that includes other species on earth as well), I'd suggest they read this: http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Selfish-Gene-Richard-Dawkins/dp/0192860925

nearly £40? is it written on gold leaf?

You can get it for about a fiver.  Did I link to a hardback copy or something?

[Jon MW]

In the last 10,000 years the pace of evolution has sped up 100 times so what's triggered this?

Eh?

How has 'the pace of evolution sped up 100 times'?

Digestion, teeth, hair, our brains are now smaller... We've evolved more in the last 10 thousand years then we have in the million+ years before that..

I've only really got a recent trip to the American Natural History Museum to go on - but have you got any respectable source for this? Because I don't think there's been any notable evolution at all in the last 10 thousand years (IIRC).

[kinboshi]

In the last 10,000 years the pace of evolution has sped up 100 times so what's triggered this?

Eh?

How has 'the pace of evolution sped up 100 times'?

Digestion, teeth, hair, our brains are now smaller... We've evolved more in the last 10 thousand years then we have in the million+ years before that..

Call.

Would like to see any evidence that shows we've "evolved" more in any specific period of time.  What does "evolve more" mean?  Evolution is not moving towards a goal, it doesn't 'improve' species. Stick a 21st century human in the conditions our early ancestors lived say 500,000 years ago, and the current humans could well struggle to survive.

We evolved from fish. We're not 'better' than fish, we just evolved to fill an evolutionary niche in a particular time and place.  Throw us back in the ocean, and the fish will appear to be 'better'.

[technolog]

Also, how does 'Dr' Ellis explain the DNA of humans being so close to every other species of life on the planet if it's just humans that 'arrived' separately on the planet already populated with all the other life?  Comparing our genes with our closest relatives (chimps and other great apes), we have a 95% 'match'.  In fact we share a 50% 'match' to bananas!  This is a hell of a coincidence if we didn't evolve here (along with everything else) and were dumped here by an alien taxi relatively recently.

Frankly disappointed that the dna argument came so late.

I think you should re-consider your position as forum bs-findergeneral.

TBF he's only filling in during Gatso's blonde sabbatical.

[youthnkzR]

Boshi nothing was on earth when the aliens brought us here on noahs ark 

Don't think this post got the credit it deserved. I was almost crying.

[BangBang]

I'm not claiming to be an expert on evolution or that these theories are true, I'm just posing questions to trigger debate on the subject. 

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=culture-speeds-up-human-evolution

Plenty of info around on the acceleration of human evolution on the net, just google human evolution..

[BangBang]

Boshi nothing was on earth when the aliens brought us here on noahs ark 

Don't think this post got the credit it deserved. I was almost crying.

Am I missing something here? Was this a "I like Turtles moment"?

[Jon MW]

I'm not claiming to be an expert on evolution or that these theories are true, I'm just posing questions to trigger debate on the subject. 

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=culture-speeds-up-human-evolution

Plenty of info around on the acceleration of human evolution on the net, just google human evolution..

Well yes, there are plenty of google results for this sped up evolution theory.

But having looked at it I can't see any of them that don't ultimately derive from this single source


It's fairly notable that this was research by a team of anthropologists rather than experts in biology, palaeontology or any of the most rigorous sciences who might be better placed to comment on such matters - and that basically nobody agrees with them. Going to Boshi's point regarding the definition of evolution they have based their theory on the rather sketchy notion that the development of immunity to some diseases or the ability to digest milk represents evolutionary progress - whereas a more standard approach suggests that when evolution occurs  it results on what can be seen as identifiably different sub-species; fighting disease and being able to drink milk really don't come close. And the implication in that article that the development of humans with blue eyes represents evolution is just bizarre; coupled with the inclusion of such subjective conditions as the development of IQ their study could even be construed as borderline racist.

Basically it demonstrates the whole point of why I included the word 'respectable' in questioning a source for your assertion.

If you do google Human evolution for example there's a handy link to pages such as the BBC or the New Scientist with no mention of this theory at all. The New Scientist for example has a link on a timeline for human evolution. In the last 10,000 years it includes things like the development of agriculture and the formation of villages; but previously to that there are obviously the extremely significant biological changes but also articles relating to the development of symbolic usage and beginnings of 'culture'; profoundly more significant leaps then minor genetic mutations related to disease and digestion, for example.

[BangBang]

Great response Mr Woodfield... Like I said I'm not claiming to be an expert in evolution and I agree that my sources need to carry more weight, I'm just putting these topics forward as they're topics I'm interested in and would like to trigger debate on them.  I'm yet to form my own opinion and debating helps with that.

When talking about evolution do you not think that cultural changes play a big part? The significant biological changes that you’re talking about are the visible changes in our form which has evolved over millions of years, DNA changes in many different ways and our ability to survive and reproduce are effected when things like teeth, and digestion and we culturally evolve.  We evolve to survive and these play a significant part as does technology and our willingness to learn.

When talking about Science and evolution, you have to remember we can’t ever prove anything with science, you can only refute false theories and replace them with better ones.   Science in the process of forming hypotheses and then falsifying them through experimentation and then replacing them with new hypotheses and then attempting to falsify those etc etc

So today we have popular take on evolution but tomorrow our take may change.   Lamark spoke about adaption before Darwin and the Greeks spoke about it before that, over the years it changed with Darwin rejected aspects of Lamarks theory and gave credence to other parts. 

Back onto the topic at hand, can we disprove or falsify that alien beings changed our DNA or that we are descendants of space travellers not from this planet. 

[RED-DOG]

Boshi nothing was on earth when the aliens brought us here on noahs ark 

Don't think this post got the credit it deserved. I was almost crying.

+ 1

[theprawnidentity]

Back onto the topic at hand, can we disprove or falsify that alien beings changed our DNA or that we are descendants of space travellers not from this planet.

I'm pretty sure you could turn this question round and the answer would be the same?

Although I don't claim to be an expert on this topic, far from it in fact, I would trust that theories offered by science that are generally accepted by the masses would offer more testable predictions than aliens landing and 'fucking our shit up'.

Then again, if there's anything that can't currently be explained, then blame the aliens.

[BangBang]

Back onto the topic at hand, can we disprove or falsify that alien beings changed our DNA or that we are descendants of space travellers not from this planet.

I'm pretty sure you could turn this question round and the answer would be the same?

Although I don't claim to be an expert on this topic, far from it in fact, I would trust that theories offered by science that are generally accepted by the masses would offer more testable predictions than aliens landing and 'fucking our shit up'.

Then again, if there's anything that can't currently be explained, then blame the aliens.

Love this 

[kinboshi]

Whenever an outrageous or "ridiculous" idea is brought forward as an explanation for something, with no evidence to support it please refer to Occam's Razor. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_razor

Science doesn't try to prove anything. It makes a best guess at a model or hypothesis based on existing evidence, tries to disprove the theory through experiment and observation, and constantly challenges and questions.

Saying "aliens done it" or "goddidit" might be impossible to disprove, but neither is it based on any real evidence and neither is it useful. These wild and unsubstantiated ideas don't actually predict anything or achieve anything tangible.

As for talking about society and civilisation "evolving" - that's not the same thing as evolution in terms of the biological term. One is a very specific thing in a scientific discipline, the term is also used in general practice, but the definitions are not interchangeable. There is the same confusion with the word "theory" which means one thing in scientific use and another in general conversation when I could say something like "I have a theory about why celtic is so bad at poker". There are terms in finance and law (for example) that have very specific definitions, but also have definitions outside those fields that are used in everyday conversation, and again the two uses shouldn't be confused.

Creationists often introduce an argument where they try to interchange the uses of the words "theory " and "evolution" to win an argument. It just tends to highlight their lack of logic and reason.

Anyway, were we discussing evolution in terms of the effects from natural selection on random mutations on individuals and species, or something else?