[FRIAM] semi-idle question

Sun Apr 25 08:42:50 EDT 2021

I wonder how birth control methods play into this.  Are the strong (e.g.
affluent) more likely to use them?

---
Frank C. Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
Santa Fe, NM 87505

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Sat, Apr 24, 2021, 11:15 PM Pieter Steenekamp <pieters at randcontrols.co.za>
wrote:

> Let me rephrase it so that the point I wanted to make is maybe more clear.
>
> I conjure that today in the developed world evolution by means of natural
> selection is at most very weak.  Although I don't think it's zero I only
> argue for the case that it is at least significantly weaker than a long
> time ago.
>
> Why?
> In the developed world today the conditions are not very conducive for
> natural selection. If there is a mutation making an individual slightly
> more fit for the environment, there is no mechanism for that person to have
> more descendents, so a crucial component of natural selection is missing.
> There is no correlation between having genes making you more fit for the
> environment and the number of descendants you have, so the genes making a
> person more fit for the environment do not spread through the population.
> I'm excluding the harm we do to the environment, but humanity is kind
> towards those with traits making them less fit for the environment. We care
> for the weak, we allow them to have as many descendents as the strong. I
> think this is unique for all species since life began.
>
>
> On Sat, 24 Apr 2021 at 23:46, Steve Smith <sasmyth at swcp.com> wrote:
>
>> 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> 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.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/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> 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
>>>>
>>>> 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 wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Well, it’s obviously both/and with trade-offs between.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Please see attached.  It’s short.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Nick
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Nick Thompson
>>>>
>>>> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com
>>>>
>>>> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> *From:* Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> <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> <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>
>>>> 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
>>>>
>>>> Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> mobile:  (303) 859-5609
>>>> skype:  merle.lelfkoff2
>>>>
>>>> twitter: @merle110
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
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>>>
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