[FRIAM] semi-idle question
Steve Smith
sasmyth at swcp.com
Sat Apr 24 17:45:36 EDT 2021
I'm not sure I did much better in finding (with trivial effort) relevant
data but:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1033027/fertility-rate-us-1800-2020/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_and_fertility
provide some framing. It seems in the present/industrial societies, the
correlation is inverse
/"Development is the best //contraceptive
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contraceptive>//." - /Karan Singh/
/
I was shocked that our (USA) Rnaught had dropped to 2.06 in 1940. My
father was 1 of 2 but my mother was 1 of 5 (all born in the 20s). I
was skooled by my betters in the equal rights movement that it was not
until oral contraception (circa 1960) that fertility/reproduction rates
dropped. The chart above suggests (acutely) otherwise. I'm assuming my
grandparents must have relied on (male) barrier methods *or* they had
just enough Calvinist in them (which they did by my 60's ideals) to rely
on abstinence?
In all cases, I think the number of generations implied even by the last
2000 years might not be enough to obtain significant change? Or is
speciation more of a punctuated equilibrium event with abrupt
environmental changes (including migration to new landscapes) are what
drive rapid change by selection? Or gradualism? Or both:
https://necsi.edu/gradualism-and-punctuated-equilibrium
- Steve
//
On 4/24/21 3:10 PM, Pieter Steenekamp wrote:
> /" Why would a poor man sire significantly fewer children than a rich
> man? "
> /
> Good question, maybe my assumption is wrong?
>
> It's not so much about the siring of the children as about the
> successful raising of many children in the past.
> My assumption is based on the fact that food was scarce and relatively
> expensive. Poor families' children were malnutritioned and died more
> easily from many types of illnesses. I'd love to find numbers to see
> if this is true or false. I did a quick google search and found nothing.
>
>
> On Sat, 24 Apr 2021 at 21:43, Steve Smith <sasmyth at swcp.com
> <mailto:sasmyth at swcp.com>> wrote:
>
>
> On 4/24/21 12:37 PM, Pieter Steenekamp wrote:
>> Up to maybe hundred years ago, a rich man could sire and raise
>> ten children or more and many poor men none or at the most a few.
>
> Why would a poor man sire significantly fewer children than a rich
> man? Polygamy might have tipped the balance of available mates in
> favor of the rich and powerful, but otherwise war and other
> violence was tipping the balance toward every man having an
> opportunity to mate (assuming significant levels of monogamy).
> Nutrition and health care (and stressors) might reduce the number
> of children a woman could (live) birth and raise to reproductive
> age, but I don't think the bias is less than 2:1 on average?
>
>> The key point is that genetic differences influenced the number
>> of descendants a person had with the result that the conditions
>> were there for natural selection and undoubtedly human beings
>> evolved.
>
> Does this mean you believe that wealth was a direct correlation to
> some genetic feature? Within strict class and even more acutely,
> blue-blood nobility/caste reproductive contexts, there is *some*
> correlation, but I think the unrecognized effects of
> over-inbreeding did more harm than good?
>
> I am willing to believe that high aggression may still have been
> selected for reproductively up into the industrial age, but I
> think that got sublimated into wealth and power collection more
> than reproductive fecundity (though I grant up to 2:1 advantage
> *through* acquired wealth). e.g Genghis hisself
> <http://malyarchuk-bor.narod.ru/olderfiles/1/RJG_3_07.pdf>
>
>> Today however, genetic differences between people have very
>> small influence on the number of their descendants so the
>> conditions are very weak for natural selection. I conjure that if
>> natural selection is happening today it is very small, maybe
>> negligible?
>> But if you look beyond natural selection and include gene
>> editing, humans can of course evolve. I would be very surprised
>> if there are not already some filthy rich people doing it in
>> secret.
>
> With the ?8.6B? people on this planet, I suspect "if we can,
> someone is/has/will". The previously linked article on Texas
> Ranchers cloning prize Bucks suggests to me that up to the
> practical challenges imposed by broad ethical concerns that human
> cloning has to be (nearly) as easy.
>
> https://www.deerassociation.com/action-alert-texas-captive-deer-cloning-h-b-1781/
> <https://www.deerassociation.com/action-alert-texas-captive-deer-cloning-h-b-1781/>
>
> https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/Deer-Clone-4542735.php
> <https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/Deer-Clone-4542735.php>
>
> and we DO have the Raëlians
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ra%C3%ABlism> and Clonaid.
> <http://www.clonaid.com/>
>
> https://www.statnews.com/2016/07/05/dolly-cloning-sheep-anniversary/
> <https://www.statnews.com/2016/07/05/dolly-cloning-sheep-anniversary/>
>
> https://www.statnews.com/2020/02/21/human-reproductive-cloning-curious-incident-of-the-dog-in-the-night-time/
> <https://www.statnews.com/2020/02/21/human-reproductive-cloning-curious-incident-of-the-dog-in-the-night-time/>
>
> my kids are too much like me already, we can barely get along as
> it is!
>
>
>
>
>
>>
>> On Sat, 24 Apr 2021 at 20:32, Steve Smith <sasmyth at swcp.com
>> <mailto:sasmyth at swcp.com>> wrote:
>>
>> DaveW -
>>
>> I think the eugenics movement(s) of the last century as well
>> as the many clan structures in indigenous peoples and royal
>> bloodlines throughout history have been structured with the
>> aspiration of either inducing genetic drift in a desired
>> direction, or (in the case of clan structures and incest
>> taboos) perhaps mute it's worst outcomes.
>>
>> The divergence of Neandertalis/Devonisis/Sapiens presumed to
>> have happened hundreds of thousands of years ago and the
>> reconvergence/subsumption roughly 40,000 years ago seem to
>> represent the most *significant* evolution we know of among
>> "modern" humans... The time-scales I consider in your
>> questoin are on the order of hundreds of years, not tens or
>> hundreds of thousands. That alone suggests to me that we
>> will not see anything we can measure as "evolution". The
>> divergence of traits we identify as "race" seem to have
>> happened over tens of thousands of years as well. >From our
>> experience with domestic animal breeding, we probably have
>> (refer to Eugenics literature) some sense of how many
>> generations it would take us to "breed in" or "breed out"
>> various traits.
>>
>> As Marcus and other technophile/posthumanist proponents have
>> indicated, it seems that germline modification (e.g. CRISPR)
>> is likely to become acutely more significant (for the first
>> world?) than any natural "drift", much less evolution by
>> natural selection.
>>
>>
>> And then all the ways we might entirely stunt/block evolution:
>>
>>
>> https://www.huffpost.com/entry/texas-rancher-cloned-deer-lawmakers-want-legalize_n_607ef3e0e4b03c18bc29fdd2
>> <https://www.huffpost.com/entry/texas-rancher-cloned-deer-lawmakers-want-legalize_n_607ef3e0e4b03c18bc29fdd2>
>>
>> Who knew we had come this far from Dolly
>> <https://dolly.roslin.ed.ac.uk/facts/the-life-of-dolly/index.html>?
>>
>> Can species NOT involved in deliberate breeding programs
>> (e.g. wild things) evolve quickly enough to stay ahead of the
>> anthropogenic changes afoot? I think the simple answer is
>> "hell yes!" but the more interesting relevant answer is sadly
>> more like "barely" or "probably not hardly" if we are talking
>> about our favorite or photogenic species (large mammals,
>> colorful birds, ... in particular).
>>
>> For better or worse, the large mammal strategies including
>> high mass/surface ratios also yield longer dependency and
>> reproductive lags, so while the bacteria might achieve
>> population doubling in tens of minutes, Whales, Elephants,
>> Polar Bears and Humans have reproductive periods on the order
>> of decades.
>>
>> I think the Big Green Lie thread is asking if human
>> *cultural* or *social* evolution can be quick enough to avert
>> the disasters we think (some of us) we see looming on the
>> near horizon. A very specific (engineered?) pandemic might
>> yield a very acute selection pressure.
>>
>> In the wild, maybe in the niche areas where conditions are
>> going out of human survival range (e.g. dewpoint too high for
>> human sweat-cooling to maintain a temperature below the
>> threshold for breakdown of enzymes (and other metabolic
>> macromolecules) will uncover/select-out those with
>> metabolisms more able to skirt that hairy edge... but how
>> many generations of that kind of selection (without
>> significant mixing with other populations) would be required
>> to see a coherent gene pool reflecting that survival trait?
>> And with modern knowledge/travel/technology, the chances of
>> humans staying put and enduring those conditions and NOT
>> creating/importing some form of mechanical/chemical
>> refrigeration (or just moving into pit-houses coupled to the
>> much lower temperature earth?)
>>
>> I'm definitely not going to depend on it!
>>
>> - Steve
>>
>> On 4/24/21 10:50 AM, thompnickson2 at gmail.com
>> <mailto:thompnickson2 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> Well, it’s obviously both/and with trade-offs between.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Please see attached. It’s short.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Nick
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Nick Thompson
>>>
>>> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com <mailto:ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com>
>>>
>>> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
>>> <https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> *From:* Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com>
>>> <mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com> *On Behalf Of *Merle Lefkoff
>>> *Sent:* Friday, April 23, 2021 9:21 AM
>>> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
>>> <friam at redfish.com> <mailto:friam at redfish.com>
>>> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] semi-idle question
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Dave, I found this in Wikipedia: "The social brain
>>> hypothesis was proposed by British anthropologist Robin
>>> Dunbar <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Dunbar>, who
>>> argues that human intelligence did not evolve primarily as a
>>> means to solve ecological problems, but rather as a means of
>>> surviving and reproducing in large and complex social groups."
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> That might explain why we are now leading our species off
>>> the cliff.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Fri, Apr 23, 2021 at 7:12 AM Prof David West
>>> <profwest at fastmail.fm <mailto:profwest at fastmail.fm>> wrote:
>>>
>>> Can human beings evolve?
>>>
>>> Was reading about Pepper Moths in England during the
>>> Industrial Revolution. (population genetics)
>>>
>>> Population was white with dark spots and the occasional
>>> dark colored moth was easy prey.
>>> Pollution killed lichen and caused the trees (moth's
>>> habitat) to be covered in soot, turning them dark.
>>> Population of black moths went from 2% in 1848 to 95% by
>>> 1895.
>>>
>>> Is is possible for humans to evolve in response to
>>> climate change in a similar way? more general prevalence
>>> of melanin, craving for spicy hot food?
>>>
>>> Of course moths used many generations to achieve their
>>> change and their lifespan is a fraction of a humans, so
>>> extinction is more likely than adaptation. But, is it at
>>> least possible in principle?
>>>
>>> davew
>>>
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>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>>
>>> Merle Lefkoff, Ph.D.
>>> Center for Emergent Diplomacy
>>> emergentdiplomacy.org <http://emergentdiplomacy.org>
>>>
>>> Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
>>>
>>>
>>> mobile: (303) 859-5609
>>> skype: merle.lelfkoff2
>>>
>>> twitter: @merle110
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
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