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From: longrich@princeton.edu (Nick Longrich)
Subject: Re: Computers--Next stage in evolution? Hmmmmmm.....
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Date: Sat, 25 Feb 1995 10:03:17 GMT
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In article <1995Feb24.164046.48361@ucl.ac.uk>, Chris Harris
<charris@cs.ucl.ac.uk> wrote:

> Surely the point here is that humans change the environment rather
> than conform to it. I do think we can be set apart from the rest
> of nature in this respect, because a) we don't think in evolutionary
> timescales, but in those of a single lifetime b) things we do and
> create can last much longer than we ourselves do c) we don't play
> by the rules that natural selection uses for other species. Our
> species changes the environment, so we are 'cheating' in that respect.
> 
> Chris Harris

   There are a few examples of human evolution in recent history. Jared
Diamond wrote some neat articles on how certain genetic disorders were
actually selected for. When the Jews were confined to ghettoes (during the
Middle Ages, I think), they were subjected to a high risk of tuberculosis.
It so happened that there was a gene that would vastly reduce the risk of
dying for TB. The catch: two copies of this gene were lethal. The disease
it caused (Tay-Sachs syndrome) was not as high a risk as TB, so the gene
became very common. Something similar happened with cystic fibrosis, which
is a genetic adaptation against diarrhea (sounds silly, but cholera and
influenza were, and still can be, deadly). The classic example of all this
is the sickle-cell anemia gene. 
   Andean and Tibetan peoples have also been selected for traits of the
lung, heart, and vascular systems that improve their survival at high
altitudes, it turns out. We're all subject to natural selection. Of
course, we now have genetic engineering, which is evolution with all the
inconvenience of Natural Selection taken out of the way... 

   I think that changing the environment is pretty common for life. This
oxygen we're breathing was pumped into the air over the eons by the
actions of blue-green algae and plants. Coral reefs build huge structures
with their skeletons that can last for millions of years. The action of
grazing animals on the environment (grazing action is lethal to trees and
shrubs, manure fertilizes the soil) actually promotes the spread of
grasslands. 
   As for using nature to our own benefit, ants perfected farming millions
of years ago with the fungi, as well as herding, with aphids. It is, of
course, not conscious (well- I doubt it- but that's another debate), but
they use other species of plant and animal for their own benefit, just as
we do.
   Granted, I think that, for a vertebrate, we do an awful lot of stuff to
the environment- we've altered countless acres to feed our cows and plant
our crops, cleared forests, burrowed into the earth in search of ores,
etc. This has, at least in the short term, been pretty good for us. The
consequences of our large-scale environmental engineering (deliberate and
not-so-deliberate) we are just beginning to guess at. But we shouldn't
forget that we get our rain, our oxygen, and our sunlight from the
environment, and as of yet, we humans haven't proved ourselves capable of
creating our own environment completely independent of the existing one,
though we're probably reasonably close. 
   I'm curious... when (if ever) do you think we really will be masters of
an self-sufficient environment?
