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Originally posted by Pirschjaeger:

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Originally posted by Whirlin_merlin:
It may be but, the African Bushman people are just as much modern humans as everyonelse, those women are no closer related to an early human than you or I. I mean that literally, by the time their family tree went back to an early 'homo' it would have joined with everyones tree. We would be looking at the common ancestor of us all, our shared great great great.......great grand parent!

I'm sure you didn't mean it this way but it sounds like you are saying there's a good chance that they are 'less evolved' which supports my previous point about being PC in science. PC is anti-scientific.

No, no, no and er no!
How can you read that as saying there's 'a good chance that they are less evolved' when I have said exactly the opposite to that!
If you are hanging it on the 'It may be' I meant that for all I know their language is closer to an orginal language, afterall I have no idea what that language was. I then put in 'but' to try to point out that there is no reason to believe it would be based on the false notion of 'primative' or 'less-evolved'. All humans on Earth are modern, they are all of equal distance from our shared anscestors. We are all as evolved.

FF Quite true about TGLF I suppose the word 'sudden' I used was misleading, but it was sudden compared to the apparent period in which little changed. This is what I meant by enigma I feel there is still alot to learn here.

As to selection pressures, there is no doubt that technology has removed or aliviated some selection pressures but I am unsure as to its creation of others.
For a selection pressure 'to work' it has to affect reproductive success. You give the example of physical beauty. Do 'beautiful people' have more reproductive success?
A trip to my local shopping mall will reveal plenty of ugly mingers with multiple kids in tow.
Or the case of vehicles and reaction times. The problem here is who dies, the slow witted driver or the otherwise quick witted pedestrian who had no chance to get out the way?

A last thought on 'are we still evolving' we now breed accross a much larger population than other species. To give an example a Scottish friend of mine and his Nigerian partner recently had their first child. Speciation commonly seems to be a product of small, isolated populations. So as long as we share the love around the world whilst still subject to natural selection a new species Homo futurus is off the cards.

However in general I will conceed that I over stated the idea that our evolution is no longer biological, hence my later edit. I would stand by the notion that any current 'evolution' is more cultural than biological.

And finally back to Pirsch. Don't get hung up on 'the savannah hypothesis' it's one idea out of many that has come and gone. My favorite although I find it improbable is that it's all about our bits! That males are upright to show off their doo-doos (display function and sexual selection by females) and females to hide their cha-chas (not out of modesty but to hide their reproductive status, there are many sound adaptive reasons to adapt such a statergy, infact human females do hide their reproductive status compared to say chimps).
The point is there are many possible adaptive explinations available before you throw out a well understood and tested mechanism (natural selection) and bring in something new. You could answer that the programme doen't throw out natural selection, ok I exagerated abit their. However it does try to add a suspicously 'magic' like mechanism. Oh and BTW natural selection is the explination as to how organisms get 'better adapted to their environment' other things go on in evolution e.g founder effect, gentic drift etc.

BTW FF has it right about how do you define the environment. I have refered to sexual selection above. That is like the case of the peacocks tail where one gender (in this case female) gives reproductive preference to a feature, such as length of the males tail. At first glance you seem to get evolution away from being adapted to the environment, that large tail is a hazard to survival. However for a male peacock, in terms of reproductive success, the females are the most important part of their environment, so their tails are adaptive to their 'environment'.

Edit: A caveat I trained as a marine biologist so human evolution wasn't really my 'bag'. Now I'm a science teacher which is a very different beast to a scientist. Therefore I fully conceed that I may have got things wrong.

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While it is true that larger relative velocities make it more difficult to avoid collisions, I believe that modern safety features along with truly amazing first response trauma teams more than make up for it.

Seeing the world from the pedestrian point of view (I don't own a car), I can say that response-time is still essential for survival (or at least to remain in a any state that will let you reproduce), modern safety features or not.

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The male sex drive and female low self esteem can quickly overcome the "strong selection for physical beauty". Easy access to alcohol doesn't hurt either.

Ah, beer, the great equalizer!

Despite spending my student days in a stupor, the girls I ended up having sex with weren't that ugly, actually most looked fairly nice the day after. The important thing here isn't whom you have sex with, it's whom you have children with. Can any of you father here say you married a butt ugly woman because you never knew a decent looking one?

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HIV is a relative newcomer with dire consequences but that one will be a bit easier to conquer as education can almost completely eliminate its spread.

That's what I thought too. Unfortunately the world isn't that straight forward. In Britain, an educated society by most measures, AIDS is actually on the rise.

You are right in that selection pressure has been low of lately, after all the human population has grown expotensialy, but selection will catch up.

Homo Futurus is here. I'm quite an evolved life-form, with an elegant half-bald cranium, and a prehensile pen¡s.

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Originally posted by DuxCorvan:
Homo Futurus is here. I'm quite an evolved life-form, with an elegant half-bald cranium, and a prehensile pen¡s.

Really? I heard you had a prehensile cranium and a half-bald...never mind.

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Originally posted by Friendly_flyer:
Seeing the world from the pedestrian point of view (I don't own a car), I can say that response-time is still essential for survival (or at least to remain in a any state that will let you reproduce), modern safety features or not.

Wow. How often do you find yourself (and see others) diving out of the way of vehicles to survive? I spent a year and a half working in downtown Houston walking to/from the parking lot/lunch everyday and not once did I place myself in a position where my cat like reflexes were forced to come into play to ensure my survival. I just find it hard to believe that, wherever you are, the population will simply walk into traffic while relying on their peripheral vision and reflexes to save them.

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Originally posted by Friendly_flyer:
That's what I thought too. Unfortunately the world isn't that straight forward. In Britain, an educated society by most measures, AIDS is actually on the rise.

Finally, confirmation of what I always suspected about you Limey's! That would also explain how y'all were able to become such a great naval power. Every other nation's men HATED being on those ships with nothing but other men for company. From what I've read the French were, on occasion, close though (or was that Spain?).

Also, "...an educated society by most measures..." is stretching it quite a bit don't you think?

-----Disclaimer-----
For those that are upset now, I'M JUST KIDDING.

Actually, since 2005 the UK rate of HIV diagnoses has DECREASED...

2005 - 7692 cases
2006 - 7276 cases
2007 - 6393 cases



--Outlaw.

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Originally posted by Outlaw---:
Wow. How often do you find yourself (and see others) diving out of the way of vehicles to survive?

It has happened, but most of the time I take great care to make sure I don't need to rely on my reflexes, which sorry to say aren't really that cat-like. More like cow-like...

(Man, I'm so up for selection...)

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Also, "...an educated society by most measures..." is stretching it quite a bit don't you think?

Ah, yes, those pesky Brits. Barbarians whose only aspiration to being an educated society is drinking tea. Thank gods for the Scandinavians

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Originally posted by Outlaw---:
Actually, since 2005 the UK rate of HIV diagnoses has DECREASED...

2005 - 7692 cases
2006 - 7276 cases
2007 - 6393 cases

--Outlaw.

That's not linked to education, but to the level of sexual activity...

(Kidding. Well, I hope.)