Text 1310, 255 rader
Skriven 2005-01-03 06:32:00 av Roberto (1:278/230)
Ärende: Re: A New Species of Man?
=================================



"deowll" <deowll@bellsouth.net> escribiķ en el mensaje
news:cr2nlk$25ad$1@darwin.ediacara.org...
>
> "Old Father Time" <null@beyondman.com> wrote in message
> news:cquojb$ugr$1@darwin.ediacara.org...
>> Our conjecture is that a new species of human being is emerging, this
>> time not from some painfully slow Darwinian process, but as the result
>> of our own breakneck progress in science and technology. This species
>> will be as different from ourselves as we were from our line of human
>> predecessors and will challenge us in much the same way as we
>> challenged them. And they did not survive.
>>
>> Before we examine the consequences of this momentous development we
>> must first establish the evidence that it really is taking place.
>>
>> One process by which a new species may emerge is when two groups within
>> the species become separated, traditionally by some form of physical
>> barrier such as, in the case of some plants, a range of hills. Each
>> group then evolves separately through natural selection and eventually
>> become so different that even if the groups are reunited they cannot
>> cross breed, and hence they continue on their separate evolutionary
>> paths. In our case this barrier is not physical, but technological, and
>> the process is not by natural selection but is driven by man himself.
>> Thus we are designing our own successors and sowing the seeds of our
>> own potential extinction, should they not look kindly on us when they
>> assume control.
>>
>> We should not be comforted by the fact that our current species is the
>> result of 100,000 years or so of slow progression. The theory of
>> punctuated equilibrium says that development is static for most of the
>> time and then proceeds suddenly, 'like flashes of evolutionary
>> lightening'. We need look back only 10 years, let alone 100 or 1000
>> years to see that we are in a period of exponential growth of knowledge
>> and technology. We cannot possibly imagine where we will be in another
>> 1000 years, or even 100, if we continue at this ever-accelerating rate.
>>
>> However, back to the evidence. Broadly speaking for two species to be
>> distinct each group must have different characteristics and be able to
>> reproduce within their own group but not to be able to cross breed with
>> the other. In general a new species must then be able to evolve
>> further, gradually changing its characteristics with time but remaining
>> within its own breeding group. So what will be the characteristics of
>> the new species that will differentiate it from us?
>>
>> The first versions will be products of current research and development
>> in the rapidly converging areas of biology, microelectronics, genetics,
>> communications, information processing, neuroscience, and medical
>> science. They will be human bodies and minds augmented by an array of
>> biological and non-biological devices to improve overall performance.
>> This development probably started with the first wooden leg and
>> pirate's hook and has progressed through remedial and preventative
>> medicine and surgery to implanted devices such as heart pacemakers and
>> cochlear implants for the deaf. Increasingly these latter devices have
>> been microelectronics based and with sophisticated interfaces to human
>> organs.
>>
>> For example experiments are taking place on electronic retinal implants
>> for the blind that will convert signals from an external camera and
>> communicate these to the brain. Although these developments are aimed
>> at rectifying deficiencies, there is no reason to think that they will
>> not in the future be designed to make fundamental improvements to human
>> capabilities. A potential application would be the transmission of
>> computer-generated images directly to the brain, thus eliminating the
>> screen and the eyestrain associated with the current computer usage. If
>> this seems far-fetched then think back 20 years and consider what
>> seemed far-fetched then! The fictional bionic man is becoming a
>> practical reality.
>>
>> Advances in genetic engineering now promise measures to deal with some
>> human ailments that are due to genetic defects. This involves modifying
>> human DNA, potentially changing the very basis of how our bodies work
>> and even how we think. Human cloning would merely be the beginning, not
>> the end. We are also learning how to 'seed' our bodies to regenerate
>> cells within defective organs and to 'grow' organs outside of our
>> bodies that contain our own DNA and which can subsequently used as
>> spare parts. The production of organs that are fundamentally better
>> than the current human designs and which are implanted as a matter of
>> course may become a reality. Longevity
>>
>> will increase through the conquering of some existing killer diseases
>> and through increased use of biological and non-biological measures.
>> Indeed the aging process itself may be slowed down in the course of
>> time through genetic and biological engineering.
>>
>> Achieving and maintaining the body beautiful will be aided not only by
>> increasing consciousness of diet and exercise, but by treatments such
>> as genetic muscle building vaccines which will make our tedious
>> existing methods unnecessary. Designer foods with extensive genetic
>> modifications will allow us to complete the transformation from eating
>> to live to living to enjoy taste bud sensations without the attendant
>> bodily consequences.
>>
>> As well as the direct enhancement of their human bodies, our privileged
>> group will have closely integrated external attachments further
>> augmenting their performance. We are already planning for
>> telecommunications, personal computing and Internet applications to be
>> with us at all times, with continuous speech recognition and either
>> pocket book sized reading tablets or direct retinal projection via
>> spectacle-like devices replacing cumbersome keyboards and video
>> screens. No wires, of course. These facilities will be no more
>> obtrusive than the designer sunglasses and personal CD player of
>> today's trendy young things.
>>
>> All these measures will be expensive and initially available only to
>> the to the privileged class who inhabit the wealthy technological world
>> and their rich associates elsewhere. Thus a technological barrier will
>> develop between two groups of humans. This has clearly started, witness
>> the non-availability of many forms of advanced consumer goods as well
>> as advanced health and education services to large sections of the
>> world's population. The 'have nots' have been around a long time and
>> the gap is widening.
>>
>> So the characteristics of the privileged group will include more robust
>> internal organs, more attractive external appearance, bionic
>> enhancements and a greater life expectancy than the rest. In addition
>> the group will develop within the new knowledge-based society, where
>> manual tasks have largely disappeared and many previously cerebral
>> activities have been automated. The concentration will be on life-style
>> rather than survival, with big business being the ideological driving
>> force rather than any moral, ethical or religious direction.
>>
>> The question remains whether this new group is significantly more
>> different from today's standard human than, say a denizen of the City
>> or Wall Street is from a remote South American Indian who has never had
>> access to a telephone let alone seen a laptop computer. To address this
>> we look at the second requirement for a new species: the ability to
>> reproduce within its own group but not to cross breed with others.
>>
>> Increasingly in the wealthy technological world reproduction is a
>> planned process, with prospective parents making the decisions if and
>> when to have a child, and with supporting health care services to
>> ensure that that it is healthy from the point of conception, or even
>> before, through birth and post-natal development. Many identified
>> deficiencies may be rectified during this process and decision points
>> exist to terminate non-viable or unwanted births. In addition
>> reproduction technology has for some years provided intravenous
>> fertilisation, allowing reproduction to take place without the direct
>> involvement of a male sexual partner. Similarly research on artificial
>> wombs promises to alleviate the need for direct involvement of the
>> female. Added to this is the possibility of creating multiple embryos
>> and selecting via genetic testing the one most likely to meet the
>> parents' expectations.
>>
>> It is arguable therefore that we are approaching a stage where
>> reproduction becomes a largely automated process, with the direct
>> involvement of the parents being limited to specifying the timing and,
>> increasingly, some characteristics of the offspring. This will have
>> little to do with the old fashioned pleasures of sexual encounter,
>> which will become increasingly part of the life style profile of
>> members of the new group rather than being fundamental to the survival
>> of the species. Indeed if some of the more fanciful projections for
>> virtual reality sex are realised then the need for traditional sexual
>> contact may be eliminated altogether.
>>
>> Even so, why can this new group of humans not continue to interbreed
>> with the old group, thus disproving that a new species has emerged?
>> After all the two groups will inhabit the same Earth and will have many
>> similar characteristics. Just as we have with chimpanzees.
>>
>> Some established reasons why two populations with the same ancestry may
>> not be able to interbreed are that they live in different habitats,
>> their mating behaviour is different, their sex cells are incompatible,
>> or their offspring do not survive. That the two groups live in
>> different habitats is increasingly the case. Those most likely to
>> develop into the new group inhabit the rich technological world or in
>> small wealthy enclaves elsewhere, with diminishing regular contact with
>> the rest.
>>
>> Mating behaviour is changing rapidly within the new group. The concept
>> of a partner for life, or even a partner at all, is disappearing, as is
>> the need for a known partner for the purposes of reproduction.
>> Reproduction is a choice, not a necessity and decreasingly the result
>> of an unwanted or chance encounter. Conventional fertility is
>> decreasing in the new group, which together with a strong trend towards
>> planned reproduction at a later-than-natural age further widens the
>> division between the groups. Thus reproduction through chance mating
>> between the groups will diminish. Indeed if the automation of the
>> reproduction process within the new group leads to the production of
>> sperm and eggs being possible only on request and under the control of
>> third parties then the possibility of inter breeding disappears. This
>> may appear to be the nightmare of eugenics over again, but it could
>> arise not from some ideological madness but as a natural corollary of
>> our technology-led evolution.
>>
>> Whether a new species is emerging or whether it is merely an
>> ever-increasing gap between the 'have's' and 'have nots', it is
>> incontrovertible that it is happening at an alarming pace. Thus whether
>> we are going to see two species competing for survival on Darwinian
>> principles or merely an internal battle between two groups of homo
>> sapiens trying to impose their wills, remains to be seen. But whatever
>> happens, it's going to be sooner rather than later.
>>
>>
> Unless you have kids don't worry. You are going to die before things
> change
> much. Heck with any luck we may all become extinct. That should clean up
> the
> air and water ending the green house effect making way for a new ice age.
> Wouldn't that be great?*^)
>
>

Hmmm. I would say that science and technology will influence our human
evolution just as it has been doing for centuries. We always feel the
evolution process is accelerating, but if it were not, we would not notice
it. What you seem to term as acceleration seems to me mainly a generational
feeling. Apart from prehistoric times, we have no clue of biological
evolution in the human species in historic times (10000 years). Or have we ?

Some key steps in evolution, as you pointed out, are the possibilities for
any one of finding a mate, and mating, and then raising kids so that they
may in turn repeat the process in the best ways regarding the idea we have
on evolution, consciously or not. In each and every step, science and
technology have continuously brought new possibilities, but though, not
necessarily the ones you mentionned.

For instance, telecommunication and transportation technology now allow us
to find a mate within 1 million or more persons. It all looks like sex
lines, commuter trains, low cost airlines and television, but apart from
adding leisure and practicality to our lives, it allows us to find mates in
a very very refined manner. We can make many tries before mating, mate many
times before having kids, and then we may raise our kids in a variety of
models instead of just our parents' model. What's more: all these
possibilities are now more or less openly discussed - or pair-reviewed, one
could almost say. This is in itself a tremendous evolutionary tool.

As you pointed out, the evolution will probably first benefit to some happy
fews, and propagate to the rest of the population, I would say in a kind of
reptation movement. Although, I think the happy fews will not necessarily be
the ones you mentionned.

First, evolution makes many tries, more or less at random, and you can only
say who won and will remain in a very long run. The next human race, as you
like to term them, may also be an evolutionnary dead end, just as we might
be, too. The next intelligent species on earth may as well not descend from
the humans, after all.
Second, as for today, I would say that the persons that find a mate farther
from their original surroundings are those who make the most of the
evolutionary tool above mentionned. I mean farther in any sense : distance,
culture, language, etc. So in my opinion, the ones that are currently making
the most of this evolutionnary tool are the numbers of migrants and
displaced persons all around the world.

And I'm pretty sure migration was already a major evolutionary tool in the
ages of Lucy.
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