Re. brain sizes: Einstein's and women's

Jd JDay123 at
Sun Oct 20 22:35:58 EST 2002

Dave Wilson <testaccount2002 at> wrote: 

>Jd wrote:
>> Why they keep on insisting that men sprang from mud via apes and
>> simultaneously reject the notion that human evolution isn't subject
>> to gene dominance rules as are other critters (which would lead
>> eventually to a new and improved species) is puzzeling.  To them
>> there simply can never be a higher human form other than the one
>> which currently occupies the earth.  
>> The logical conclusion to that argument is that evolution is static
>> when it comes to humans, which means that the argument of "one race,
>> forever" contridicts the science of "liberals" themselves.  
>I'm a bit unsure what you mean by 'gene dominance rules' - 
>dominance/recessiveness is entirely unrelated to how 'desirable' the 
>effect of a particular gene is reckoned to be. It's a matter of 
>biochemistry, rather than moral judgement. Also, 'improved' only has 
>evolutionary meaning in relation to the reproductive environment
>Future human evolution is an interesting area for debate. There are 
>maybe two different (though overlapping) areas to consider.
>First, the slow changes to the balance of various genes in the whole 
>species over time. For example, global exposure to infectious diseases 
>(which has become more possible in the last few hundred years due to the 
>amount of travel of people and goods) may influence the prevalence of 
>verious gene variants, particularly in the immune-system areas of the 
>genome. Similarly, the supression or eradication of human diseases, 
>whether by immunisation or other means may reduce the pressure required 
>to maintain the prevalence of a resistance-related gene which has a 
>definite negative side (if it were possible to wipe out malaria, there 
>could be a selective disadvantage everywhere on the planet to carriers 
>of the sickle-cell trait.) Maybe people with a natural resistance to 
>pollutants might be at selective advantage.?
>Secondly, speciation - primarily the (eventual) appearance of two sets 
>of human descendants who have been separated for sufficiently long for 
>interbreeding producing fertile offspring to have become biologically 
>difficult/impossible. Alternatively, rather than slow drift after a long 
>period of mutual separation of two human populations, possibly some kind 
>of 'founder event' (mutation or deliberate genetic intervention) might 
>cause a subpopulation of humans to arise who are sufficiently 
>incompatible with the main human population (but ferile within their own 
>group) to enable them to be considered a separate species.
>Unfortunately for someone desiring actual speciation, it seems that even 
>when human populations have apparently been effectively isolated for 
>thousands of years, matings between populations are still successful in 
>producing fertile offspring, and the amount of modern travel and 
>interbreeding would render slow-drift speciation effectively impossible.
>I guess someone could try and *deliberately* set up a separate species, 
>but even if it were possible, I suspect that most of the types likely to 
>want to do that sort of thing are the kind whose offspring wouldn't be 
>any great loss to the mass of humanity.
> > If the ToE is in fact true, a new human species will eventually
> > evolve, which at the onset might appear to "liberals" as beings
> > claiming "super-race" status (which of course couldn't be
> > tolerated).
>Barring human genetic intervention, the creation of any new species 
>would be so slow and gradual that there wouldn't be any significant 
>point at which anyone could claim to be part of the new species. You can 
>only really define a species with hindsight.
>Dave W.


With humans, I believe there is a tribe of pigmies over in Africa
who have been isolated since the beginning of human history.
Granted, some may have escaped isolation down through the various
milleniums and become non-pigmies or they may have mixed with the
non-pigmy inhabitants of the continent if there were any to mix

Nevertheless and as you mentioned, slow-drift speciation would seem
highly unlikely if only applied to the course of natural events.
Men, having found the ability to speedily alter natural biological
events with respect to immunology, gene splicing etc.. have
simultaeneously altered the clock by which they once measured

When the entire earth is burnt to cinder at the end of the ages, it
won't matter a whole heck of a lot, just as it didn't matter a whole
lot after the days of Noah's flood.

Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water,
judgment and perdition of ungodly men. (2Peter 3:6-7)


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