tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1867127488416158679.post5470053461665749275..comments2023-09-28T06:33:11.190-07:00Comments on Chariot of Reaction: More things difficult to explain from a Darwinian or a folk animal husbandry frameJehuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16483263667086303029noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1867127488416158679.post-48143089132546757852011-11-09T09:07:16.822-08:002011-11-09T09:07:16.822-08:00Leonard,
I am confident that you're quite corr...Leonard,<br />I am confident that you're quite correct about humans presently being selected for resistance to birth control (i.e., evolving the desire for children distinct from the desire for sex in your language). All of the Darwinian sweepstakes winners (e.g. the Duggars or the guy whose sperm has apparently been used over 150 times as a donor) seem to have it .Jehuhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16483263667086303029noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1867127488416158679.post-30439042185179875652011-11-09T09:01:11.482-08:002011-11-09T09:01:11.482-08:00Sconzey,
Dysgenic is something of a loaded word. ...Sconzey,<br />Dysgenic is something of a loaded word. What homosexuality does do is lower TFR, moreso in an uncloseted society. How much desire you have to reproduce doesn't matter in animal husbandry or natural selection unless you actually go and do it. Presently, homosexuals don't and will probably not do so in ratios comparable to heterosexuals unless artificial wombs become cheap, as another commenter mentioned.<br />Red,<br />All of the examples I've given you are producing children with fairly high IQ levels...from +1 to +4 sigmas, and they're all Caucasians. So appeals to head size trading off birth survivability vs IQ don't seem to apply here---obviously the women of my family seem to have perfected the genetic 'technology' to give birth safely without need for C-section or any such intervention to children with large heads. So why is it that such women haven't become the overwhelming norm?<br />Spandrell,<br />I'm not sure which creationists you hang with, but most of the ones I'm familiar with historically or presently who do science or thought at a high level don't view 'God did it' as a stop sign. Those with an engineering bent look to what they see as His handiwork as among the best possible places to steal ideas. For instance, I know a few young earth creationists who are actually optimistic about SENS (extreme longevity) efforts because of clues and elements in the Old Testament. Most of the greatest scientists in history have been creationists of one stripe or another, so apparently it can't hurt inquiry that badly :-)Jehuhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16483263667086303029noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1867127488416158679.post-68913235251075812362011-11-09T06:49:13.373-08:002011-11-09T06:49:13.373-08:00red, all those things you mention are still natura...red, all those things you mention are still natural selection. Even birth control is natural selection in action. Darwinian theory is almost tautological in this sense: whatever is, selects. The next generation has always been selected by definition, by whatever environment exists in this generation.<br /><br />In the future, assuming current trends continue I expect homosexuality will decline somewhat in frequency because it is highly disgenic. (Scozney points out that its disgenic quality is subject to technology, which is true. But before artificial wombs become cheap, homosexual fertility will remain much lower than hetero fertility.) <br /><br />Another thing we can expect is for people to evolve the desire for children, not just sex. Until recently, the two were equivalent, but now via tech they are quite distinct.Leonardhttp://unruled.blogspot.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1867127488416158679.post-46110594004904140942011-11-09T03:43:54.206-08:002011-11-09T03:43:54.206-08:00It is true that Darwinism doesn't currently an...It is true that Darwinism doesn't currently answer those questions, but Creationism just forbids asking. Using God in biology is cheating, it disincentives further research. At least evolution keeps us asking questions. <br /><br />And well I'm no biologist but there surely must be some drawbacks to fertility. Human reproduction is a very inefficient process. As are many organisms', not wall living species are as fecund as rabbits. <br />Again nature surely knows about Malthusian limits, so low fertility is not necessarily bad for fitness in the long term. Australian aborigenes used to eat their spare children, right?<br /><br />I guess the overall leanness of a species depends on the harshness of selection pressure against them. Most species barely make ends meat, succumbing all too easy to disease, cubs get eaten all too easily, etc. Yet we are all here. Call it natural balance.spandrellhttp://bloodyshovel.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1867127488416158679.post-12082508731464320982011-11-09T02:03:07.260-08:002011-11-09T02:03:07.260-08:00"On the other side, we have women like two of..."On the other side, we have women like two of my sisters in law who have had a great deal of such difficulty, one of whom would not survive a pre-modern childbirth. Similar differences exist in terms of ability to conceive in the first place. "<br /><br />Human child birth is quite bad due to the size of our brains. But if you optimize it by making the heads proportionally smaller you end up with dumb kids and they die off everywhere but Africa.<br /><br />The other issue is that the human race has been under unnatural selection outside of Africa for some 50,000 years or so. Warfare, dealing with harsh climates and limited resources has been the order of the for a long time. Add in civilization and our killing off all natural predators in most places to that mix and you have a lot non natural forces doing the selecting which does not necessarily optimize towards lots of births.<br /><br />And optimizing for high rates of birth still goes on in some populations: Africans. Natural mortality is so high in Africa that Africans pop out kids like crazy and have low parental involvement in them. That's an optimized strategy in area where natural selection is still taking place.rednoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1867127488416158679.post-91182795176746214002011-11-09T00:53:10.124-08:002011-11-09T00:53:10.124-08:00I don't get why people think homosexuality is ...I don't get why people think homosexuality is dysgenic. Homosexual men and women feel the same desire to procreate and propagate their genes that heterosexual men and women feel.<br /><br />Ironically it's probably due to the increased tolerance of modernity that homosexuality will disappear. When gays and lesbians were unable to express their sexuality openly, their only opportunity to have children would have been to marry someone of the opposite sex, then grin and bear it. Today many homosexuals who want kids adopt, rather than selecting the more expensive surrogacy/IVF.sconzeyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01908181786934308463noreply@blogger.com