Human Species May Split In Two 1000
gEvil (beta) writes "According to an article at the BBC, an evolutionary theorist in London suggests that humanity may split into two sub-species within the next 100,000 years. From the article: 'The descendants of the genetic upper class would be tall, slim, healthy, attractive, intelligent, and creative and a far cry from the "underclass" humans who would have evolved into dim-witted, ugly, squat goblin-like creatures.'" No missing link here, we already have the troll-like humans to prove it.
Re:Confounding factors (Score:2, Informative)
This is why you check out other members of the family. You get an idea what their mom and aunts grandmas look like. You can easily get an idea whether they've augmented and if they'll age "gracefully".
if i recall my "time machine" properly (Score:5, Informative)
but why anyone would seek sustenance by eating a bag of antlers like lindsay lohan is beyond me. utter science fiction, on that point alone
Sauna-loving Swedes? (Score:4, Informative)
I just HAD to clarify this, since I love sauna and I am Finnish. And I am not even sure swedes love their bastu.
Other than that, yaaar!
Bush Family Trees (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Confounding factors (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7242649/site/newsweek
Re:Morlocks and Eloi, anyone? (Score:4, Informative)
and the course work offered at the London School of Economics: here [lse.ac.uk]
He is apparently a researcher for the Evolutionary Moral Psychology Group [empg.org] at LSE. The group doesn't seem too keen on actual biology or evolutionary research, just extrapolating biological theory into philosophical concepts so his prediction should be taken with a rather large grain of salt.
Re:It's already happening (Score:2, Informative)
Of course, such a mutation could still cause something serious to a human, but insects can, to put it in street language, "evolve faster" than humans. A couple moths with a mutation for a whole new wing colour could hit the reproductive jackpot if the environment was right.
Not to mention that five to ten human generations during some period of time corresponds to two hundred or so moth generations (if they live a year).
So, in the end, tall athletes = nutrition, practice, and often, drugs. Not evolution.
Re:So to be clear... (Score:5, Informative)
Time Machine by HG Wells, anyone?
Did you read the article you linked to? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Sauna-loving Swedes? (Score:3, Informative)
"Bastu" is a perfectly good and quite old Swedish word, originally coming from "bad stuga", which basically means "bath house".
The word is around 500 years old, for crying out loud.
Re:It's already happening (Score:3, Informative)
There would have been a number of moths in the population that were naturally dark prior to the industrial revolution. Those moths would have suffered higher predation than the lighter colored moths which blended in more easily. This would have kept their numbers very low. During the IR the darker colored moths would have blended in more easily and the roles been reversed, allowing the already naturally occuring dark moths to increase in number while the lighter colored moths were kept down by predation. The mutations existed pre-IR. Natural variation allowed that type of moth to survive through different environmental changes. They didn't split into two species.
There's no such environmental change and no predator to enforce that level of natural selection on humans. Plus for the fact that there's no motivation for pretty people to only select other pretty people to procreate with. I've seen plenty of cavemen with beautiful mates.
Re:Bush Family Trees (Score:3, Informative)
So your strawman argument, that I somehow made any "argument" about Bush Jr, let alone an "ad hominem" argument, is specious. Useless. "Absolutely nothing", it's sometimes called.
Except commentary on Bush worshippers like you. So scared of your own shadow that you jump out of your skin when your worst fear, the skeletons in Bush Jr's closet, rattle you into defending from arguments that weren't even presented.
Time to fall on your lightsaber.
Re:Generally, yes. (Score:1, Informative)
Life expectancy has nothing to do with reproductive success. As long as you reach the age of sexual maturity and successfully produce fertile offspring, your job is done as far as passing your genes on to the next generation is concerned.
Re:Bush Family Trees (Score:2, Informative)
I say you're a Bush worshipper because you invented an "argument" that you said I was making about Bush Jr, when I mentioned him for context. You can take all the inferences you want about any Bush Jr racism - I certainly do - but there's no implication in my words. Your jumping to defend Bush Jr from a nonexistent argument speaks of an irrational defensiveness about Bush Jr. That's what worship is like, despite your protestations about your disapproval of him. Don't flatter yourself into thinking I looked up some Facebook profile, or care about whether you're a "Christian". Though people as insecure as you are about your Christianity have a conflicted relationship to worship, government, and their combination.
So I admit that your kind mixed messages about Bush is confusing. And that you're confused about the source of your ideas about how Prescott Bush reflects on George Jr. Pointing out the big part his family has played in American racism isn't so much "digging up dirt" as it is telling the truth. Like "George Bush doesn't care about Black people". He doesn't care about White people who don't vote for him, either. And apparently, according to new stories, he doesn't care about White Christians like you, either, even when they do vote for him. So get straight about Bush, and stop defending him from arguments that you have in your mind at least as much as I have in mine.
Poor (Score:5, Informative)
Are you kidding me?
India has seen the end of a caste system and has moved into a knowledge-based economy. Their poor are becoming literate, and taking "our" IT jobs. The prospects for the average Indian are getting better as the days go on.
Ditto for China. The front page article of the Oct. 17 Investor's Business Daily is "Chinese Wage Growth Surging, But Hasn't Fueled Higher Prices." Although the focus of the article is on urban China (where unskilled/semiskilled workers have been seeing wage increases between 5 and 20 percent each year since 2000), it also mentions how efforts to "exploit" rural farmers for labor have also driven up their wages.
Although the "Cultural Revolution" was definitely a setback for the Chinese economy, things have been going wonderfully for them since. Consider that in the 80s, Proctor and Gamble researched expanding into the Chinese shampoo market - only to realize that there wasn't any. The average peasant could only afford a bottle the size you find complimentary with your hotel room; and even then, only once a year, for a special occaision. McDonalds and other fast food places ha da little more success, but mostly with the wealthy and tourists - as in Russia, peasants would make pilgrimages of sorts to a fast-food restaurant that they could only afford to eat at once a year.
Now, the standard of living in China is rising rapidly - people can not only feed themselves, but they have cars and consumer electronics! They have computers and internet - remember that big firewall China has? Their standard of living is rapidly approaching western standards - a far cry from when Mao Zedung encouraged peasants to smelt steel in their backyards.
Re:So to be clear... (Score:5, Informative)
There's this book called The Bible (author; disputed, age; roughly 2500 years?) that tells the story of an ancient nomadic race of goat-herders called the Hebrews. One of their laws was to discourage marriage outside their own race. Only the Hebrews were the Creator's favored race, and the rest were damned.
Re:So to be clear... (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Correction to Last Sentence (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Poor (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Poor (Score:3, Informative)
Only one third of rural homes have electricty.
10% live under the "poverty line", as set by the Indian government.
40% are illiterate
Caste system ended ? Not so. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Poor (Score:5, Informative)
Maybe officially, but I know a whole lot of people would call bullshit on that.
and has moved into a knowledge-based economy.
Sort of. Aside from a very small minority of extremely intelligent and motivated people who are doing some damn impressive work, most indians don't work in a knowledge based economy. Unless you count reading from a script... And those are the lucky ones. There are still lots of farmers....
Their poor are becoming literate, and taking "our" IT jobs.
Their "poor" are in villages in very remote areas where not even the Army dares to enter because it is controlled by warlords and they get massacred every time they go in (look it up). These are the same places where you hear of village elders who sentence the offender's daughter to be gang raped, wives being burned alive, etc.
Yes, there are a good number of educated Indians, however keep in mind that India also has a lot of people. A whole lot of those people live in some pretty shitty places and don't even have power 24 hours a day.
The prospects for the average Indian are getting better as the days go on.
Maybe, but they still have a ways to go.
Re:Correction to Last Sentence (Score:5, Informative)
I grew up in a poor area, and my family made less than $25k take-home per year, with both my parents working full-time, living in a state with one of the highest COL's in the US. I made it to Harvard on a scholarship by studying so much in HS that I only slept around 4 hours each weekday (and most weekends) from the beginning of my sophomore year up until graduation. People with backgrounds like mine were the vast minority there, and they tended to be far less ambitious than kids born into power.
Given that I went to a high school where over 85% children came from families who were below the poverty level, you would expect them to be the most motivated people in the state. Instead, that school is among the worst in the state by all metrics (from graduation rates and standardized test scores to teen pregnancies).
While poverty can be a strong motivator for a vanishingly small minority, all measurable data indicates that the exact opposite is true for the majority. The poor are far less likely to pursue higher education, more likely to struggle economically throughout the entirety of their lives, and their children are more likely to maintain or drop below their parents' economic status.
When was the last time that you saw news coverage about a millionaire's son being accepted to Harvard? How about a homeless man getting drunk and saying stupid things? Rags-to-riches success stories (e.g., Liz Murray) and lurid pieces on the boorish behavior of the wealthy (e.g., Mel Gibson) are newsworthy because they're exceptional, unlike those two everyday scenarios. Unfortunately, because the exceptions to the norm get a disproportionate amount of media coverage—including in school textbooks—many people tend to get the two terribly confused.
Being poor is, statistically speaking, a massive demotivator, while starting rich has the opposite effect.
The assertion that capitalism must be eliminating the 'rich caste' because the standard of living has been improving assumes a false dichotomy. Even a casual analysis of the economic trends in, say, the US, will show a steadily increasing stratification of society between the rich and everyone else, even as the standard of living has been improving.
The change that capitalism brings is that intelligence becomes the strongest correlation to potential wealth. This actually increases the selection pressure towards divergence of the species along social lines because the social division correlates to a genetically heritable trait and reinforces the tendency for that trait's 'carriers' (for lack of a better term) to select other 'carriers' as mates. In other words, given that, in a western capitalist society:
- People tend to marry people within the same socioeconomic class.
- People tend to marry people with similar educational backgrounds and levels of intelligence.
- Wealthy people tend to be smart.
- Smart people tend to be educated.
- Educated people tend to be relatively wealthy.
You have a perfect recipe for the eventual divergence of a subspecies of smart rich humans.Re:Poor (Score:5, Informative)
It is a highly controversial topic. There is bias in all directions. Certainly, the western media (oddly, the liberals most of all) love to portray India exclusively as a country of beggars and untouchables. It certainly makes them feel secure in their hatred of Indians.
However, there is no doubt that the human development index of India has risen remarkably over the last few decades (certainly a lot more than other countries in the subcontinent, where the poverty situation is worse).
There is an ongoing controversy over poverty statistics and figures made during the nineties, with some economists, banks, sociologists siding with the figures that indicate reduced poverty and others siding with
the "India is a country of beggars and untouchables" polemic.
The world bank's assessment is below:
http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/COUNTRIES
The Indian debate has run parallel to, and is itself a large part of, the wider debate about globalization and poverty. The economic reforms of the early 1990s were followed by rates of economic growth that were high by Indian historical standards. The effects on poverty remain controversial, and the official numbers published by the Government of India,showing a reduction of poverty from 36 percent of the population in 1993 - 94 to 26 percent of the population in 1999 - 00, have been challenged both for allegedly showing too little and too much poverty reduction
Issues over "data and dogma" in a paper published by a Princeton Univ prof and a world bank guy:
http://poverty2.forumone.com/files/15168_deaton_ko zel_2004.pdf [forumone.com]
There has been a consensus on the fact that liberalization has led to a reduction of income poverty. The picture, however, is not so clear if one considers other factors (such as health, education, crime and access to infrastructure). Some have criticozed the stats as too one-dimensional.However, they only criticize, and do not offer any ways to objectively gauge all the criteria for poverty in India, suggesting that they are simply whining.
With the rapid economic growth that India is experiencing, it is likely that a significant fraction of the rural population will continue to migrate toward cities, making the issue of urban poverty more significant in the long run
http://www.csh-delhi.com/events/downloads/Backgrou ndNote67102006.pdf [csh-delhi.com]
Although there is no full consensus on what happened to Indian poverty in the 1990s, it is claimed that the official estimates of poverty reduction are too optimistic, particularly for rural India. This alleged overoptimism was amplified by statistical uncertainty that created space for commentators to argue that poverty had been virtually eliminated in India in the wake of the economic reforms.
On the other side, well-known economits Pravin Visaria have defended the validity of many of the statistics that demonstrated the reduction in overall poverty in India, as well as the declration made by India's Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha that poverty in India has reduced significantly.
He asserts that the state surveys were well designed and supervised and felt that just because they did not appear to fit preconceived notions about poverty in India,they should not be dismissed outright
http://www.india-today.com/itoday/20010319/jairam. shtml [india-today.com]
Also, Nicholas Stern, vi
Re:On a serious note, .... (Score:2, Informative)
Exactly which part of present-day Palestine are you talking about? Israel? Gaza? The West Bank? I assume you speak of the Palestinian territories.. Have you ever been there? I think you'd be surprised at the fairly high standards of living in, say, Ramallah, Nablus or even Jenin. People have homes with running water and electricity. There are no people living in tents on the streets (as opposed to, say, India - see discussion above). The situation in Gaza may not be amazing, but this is because the leadership is devoting all its resources into developing an army capable of fighting Israel, rather than improving living standards for its civilians. It's just a question of priorities.
Sorry to be changing the subject, but I really don't get why of all choices you had to use Palestine as an example of a really hopeless and terrible place.
Re:Poor (Score:5, Informative)
Caste is still alive and kicking in India.
Having said that there are major initiatives to help the suppressed castes to come up in life. Reservations for the most backward castes (classified as scheduled castes) and tribal populations (scheduled tribes) are in vogue for decades in all central and state government employment and higher education institutions.
Many states have gone further and implemented reservations for other categories of backward castes too. There is a raging debate about this issue. There are proposals to extend the reservation concept to the private sector too.
In short, yes, the caste system is still alive as thousands of years of practices are hard to kick in decades. But, there are definite efforts to get rid of the stigma attached to the so called lower castes and help everyone to have a decent life.
Those who live on the pavements are not necessarily of lower caste. They could be migrant farmers from the villages. The caste system operates with all its tragedies in villages, not in big cities.
Re:Poor (Score:3, Informative)
His position on castes was likened to that of the American founding fathers on the separation of religion and state. In addition, Amebedkar frequently cited the reforms of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in Turkey as precedent for abolishing untouchability.
He absolutely loathed the Varnas among Hindus and the Ashraf/Ajlaf divide + the Quomiyat/Beradari system among Muslims. His criticism was so aggressive that he became rather unpopular among orthodox Hindu Brahmins and orthodox Muslim Mullahs, particularly among the Muslim League people in Pakistan, which was formed during Ambedkar's time (all this despite that fact that Ambedkar supported the segregation of Pakistan).
Plus, the president and commander-in-chief of India's armed forces from 1997-2002 was K.R. Narayanan, a Dalit "untouchable". The current president of India, Abdul Kalam, is an "Ajlaf" (low caste) Muslim.
Also, Abdus Salaam, a famous physicist known for his work on the Glashow Weinberg Salaam electroweak theory that earned him a Nobel Prize, was a low-caste "Mojahir" Muslim by birth.
Reservation in India (a more drastic version of affirmative action) is a horrible idea as it completely removes all concept of position by merit. The argument that "my granddaddy was forced to carry night soil from one end of my village to another so please give me a seat in IIT despite the fact that I don't know how to integrate x*e^(x) and have never heard of complex variables" only goes so far. It goes far enough to warrant, say a 20% quota, but 50%??? That's pushing it.
Btw I say this as a low caste guy myself so am not partisan at all. Putting reservation in primary/secondary schools is ok as it gives the SC/ST/OBC's the boost they need to get into the education system. But it needs to end there. Admission to colleges and higher education should be largely on merit with a small quota for political correctedness. Same for IAS and other job appointments. I personally know several SC's who were my co-students in IIT who got in by virtue of merit and did well by virtue of merit. They did not need any quota to get in as they did well on their own abilities.
The 50% quota thing is just a votebank move by politicians based on the fraudulent data inspired by the fraudulent Mandal Commission of the 70s. It is merely a ploy to get votes from the SC/ST blocs who have been polarized by sectarian "activists", themselves the most communal bastards of the lot.
Re:On a serious note, .... (Score:2, Informative)
Like other posters have noted, the last few hundred years have seen a population explosion because of the industrial revolution, not because of cheap oil. And as for your estimate that in the last hundred years, the poor have gotten past "cultural brainwashing like military 'service',
Re:Poor (Score:2, Informative)
Among Muslims, the Ashraf are regarded as those descended from Arab stock and are mandated by Fatwas to be "superior" to those converted from Hinduism, called "Ajlaf". even among the Ajlaf we have the "Arzal" who are treated as untouchable. To quote a scholarly paper Arzals are those:
"with whom no other Muhammadan would associate, and who are forbidden to enter the mosque or to use the public burial ground"
http://www.indianexpress.com/story/12109.html [indianexpress.com]
http://stateless.freehosting.net/Caste%20in%20Indi an%20Muslim%20Society.htm [freehosting.net]
Read this famous book by Ambedkar (I already spoke about him in a thread earlier), a Buddhist by the way, who exposes the entire Muslim Caste System in South Asia:
http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00amb edkar/ambedkar_partition/410.html [columbia.edu]
Also, read:
Aggarwal, Patrap. Caste and Social Stratification Among Muslims in India.
Social Stratification Among Muslims in India by Zarina Bhatty
and "Political theory in the Delhi Sultanate by Mohamed Habib" when the Muslim Castes of Ashraf/Ajlaf/Arzal was established by religious sancation through the Fatwa-i-Jahandari.
Convert to Christianity? Dalit Christians are the among the most persecuted people in India right now. Read about Bama Faustina, a Dalit Christian, who has exposed the atrocities committed on Dalit Christians by the Christian clergy
http://www.hinduonnet.com/2001/09/16/stories/13160 17m.htm [hinduonnet.com]
http://www.womenswriting.com/writerdetails.asp?wri terid=116 [womenswriting.com]
In the book "Sangati":
http://www.us.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/L iteratureEnglish/WorldLiterature/India/~~/dmlldz11 c2EmY2k9OTc4MDE5NTY3MDg4Mg== [oup.com]
Christian churches in India are largely controlled by upper caste Christian Priests and nuns. Low-caste Dalit Christians are discriminated against by the upper-caste Christians. The extent and practice of untouchability within the Indian Christian community have been researched. Chapels for Dalit Christians are often segregated from Christians of a higher caste. Other churches admit Dalit Christians, but keep separate pews for them. Dalit Christians are buried in separate cemeteries. In addition, Dalit boys are not allowed to be altar boys or lectors.In addition, there are various instances of economic discrimination where Dalit Christians are not allowed to own arable land by upper caste Christian clergy. In many Christian communities in India, bonded labor is still practiced. As a consequence of the discrimination, Dalit Christians tend to be very poor and undernourished. Dalit Christians are denied education by the Upper Caste Priests and nuns. Very few Dalit Christians are involved in administrative services, except for the few who reconverted back to Hinduism.
http://indianhope.free.fr/site_eng/article_5.php3 [indianhope.free.fr]
The only realistic religion to convert to would be Buddhism, which is no biggie because Buddhism originated in India only. However, the movement is being taken over by violent extremists and anti-Hindu bigots who have even gone so far as to side with Islamist terrorists in Kashmir who ethnically cleansed millions of Hindu
Re:Poor (Score:3, Informative)
1. Corruption is hardly the argument to justify quotas. You are using straw man arguments to deflect from the issue at hand. The issue at hand is merit vs. quota. Quotas are not given on the basis of merit and that is morally and academically wrong no matter what the motivation of the opposer is (btw I am also critical of affirmative action in the USA on the same grounds even though I am intellectually sympathetic to the discrimination faced by the African Americans and Hispanics).
2. I was a "college student" and I was neither idealistic nor liberal. I was always a conservative Hindu from a low-caste (but urban middle class) background and I was not alone. I opposed reservation on the grounds that non-meritorious students would get in and professors would be forced to lower standards to accomodate them, which is precisely what is happening in my alma mater with this 50% quota crap.
3. The IAS (Indian Administrative Service) is corrupt because it is bottom heavy and hindered by quota entries with no real merit. Corruption is the effect, not the cause. Don't conflate cause and effect.
I agree with the claim that "Economic freedom does not thrive when the government gets in the way". I am a conservative as Americans would say, not a liberal "moonbat". I advocate for small decentralized government, which the present leftist UPA government in India is not doing.
Note that the so-called "Right-Wing" NDA coalition government of the last election term did precisely that, tried not to get in the way. They enacted the "Prasaar Bharati" bill which freed media from government regulation, they favored small businesses, encouraged investment, tried to reverse the isolationist policies and the horrid 5-year plans of the Congress party Government of before etc. They lost because of their disastrous election campaign and the votebank hatemongering of the liberal leftists. Their only major flaws were that they focussed too much on the small businesses which looke bad to the rurals in the short run (which the left wing propagandists exploited to the hilt), and they scared some minorities with their rhetoric (though bear in mind that President Kalam, a Muslim minority, as well as several Muslim constituencies in the state of Uttar Pradesh were and still are pro-NDA), another thing which the left-wing exaggerated and propagandized assiduously.
Re:Why would you not want to live in the USA? (Score:1, Informative)
Please stop calling us Yanks. We are not all Yankees. It is offensive to a lot of us to be called Yankee/Yank.
So please stop. The correct word is "American". (And yes, I do realise that "America" does not refer only to the USA; but there is no other valid adjective for our specific countrymen, unlike all other American countries. Canadian, Mexican, etc..United Statesian?)
Thanks.