Humans evolving into The Blob is evolution, certainly, but not all evolution is necessarily "progressive", and there's no such thing as an "evolutionary ladder", either. Knowing that, however, doesn't make one any less disgusted at human evolution's current trajectory.
Thankfully, freedom of association comes with freedom FROM association, right? Right?
I can't look at a Chihuahua and say, yap that is progress. Although it probably made them a lot more adaptable, I still don't like them.
You just can't compare a Czechoslovakian Wolfdog to a chihuahua and say, yap that rat dog thing is progress.
That's what I mean. It's evolution, but it isn't necessarily "progress". It just works for Chihuahuas for now, because they are human symbionts, and as such, are more likely to be found in human habitats than big ol' wolfdogs (though there is one in my neighbourhood, lovely fellow.)
But take away the humans, and chihuahuas will have to compete with actual rats in order to survive, and will probably lose.
You also have mental evolution, but that's pretty much invisible unless you see the behavioural changes happening (see the difference between urban and rural raccoons.)
Yep, they were huge where I'm from (city used to have a rat problem, before the skunks moved in; at which time the city decided it was best to just live-trap and rabies-shot the skunks and let them handle the rats. They're territorial, so would keep out unvaxxed rural skunks.)
And rats are smarter than chihuahuas. Hell, I'm not entirely sure that NYC rats haven't figured out how to use electrical fires for to herd humans. It would be interesting to see if rat-caused fires don't happen more often in places with lots of food. But then, you'd expect rats to be where the food is, so. The point is, it's a way to clear out the humans while they collect what they can. Kind of like hunter-gatherer humans setting fires to the woods to flush out whatever they can catch.
The cognitive dissonance of dog mommies is staggering. They can clearly see the heritability of behaviors, physical characteristics, and IQ, all in a carefully controlled long term experiment we call dog breeding. And yet these people refuse to acknowledge any such dynamic in human evolution.
One of my professors once said that it's a huge mistake to believe that evolution is progress or that evolution produces a "better" creature. Evolution is simply the process by which living things become more adapted at living in their particular environment. See the example of the naked molerat that has basically lost its vision. Does that make it a "better" creature? No, it's just highly adapted to its environment.
So what does it say about our environment that we're evolving into sickly blobfish with mental health issues?
In the past, smarter people had better odds at keeping their legs closed to avoid deadly STDs ( monogamy ), and a stable couple keeps enough of their kids alive to help around the farm to have happy, balanced lives.
They had a big medium term incentive ( help on the farm ) and a long term one to have people care for them in old age, often the one or two kids that stayed single among the 4+ kids who survived infancy.
I saw this in many families in my grandparents generation. The forever single ones ( either socially anxious ou closet gays ) maintained the family farm, cared for their old parents and sometimes watched over nieces and nefews, one of which eventually getting the farm.
Now those incentives are long, long gone, so smart people have it in their interest to not have kids, leaving a sense of duty or future fear of loneliness as motivations to reproduce. So 0, 1 or 2 kids, because more gets in the way of all the distractions of modern life people now focus on.
While stupid people who have no sense of delaying gratification are the ones having more kids ( when they don't abort them all ).
Predilictions - including behavioural ones - are evolutionary. It's just that "fat and lazy" has been allowed to express itself better, with less fear of being cast out, physically or sexually, than ever before since the advent of the car.
Humans evolving into The Blob is evolution, certainly, but not all evolution is necessarily "progressive", and there's no such thing as an "evolutionary ladder", either. Knowing that, however, doesn't make one any less disgusted at human evolution's current trajectory.
Thankfully, freedom of association comes with freedom FROM association, right? Right?
I can't look at a Chihuahua and say, yap that is progress. Although it probably made them a lot more adaptable, I still don't like them. You just can't compare a Czechoslovakian Wolfdog to a chihuahua and say, yap that rat dog thing is progress.
That's what I mean. It's evolution, but it isn't necessarily "progress". It just works for Chihuahuas for now, because they are human symbionts, and as such, are more likely to be found in human habitats than big ol' wolfdogs (though there is one in my neighbourhood, lovely fellow.)
But take away the humans, and chihuahuas will have to compete with actual rats in order to survive, and will probably lose.
You also have mental evolution, but that's pretty much invisible unless you see the behavioural changes happening (see the difference between urban and rural raccoons.)
City rats are huge and vicious. They would eat those chihuahuas as snacks
Yep, they were huge where I'm from (city used to have a rat problem, before the skunks moved in; at which time the city decided it was best to just live-trap and rabies-shot the skunks and let them handle the rats. They're territorial, so would keep out unvaxxed rural skunks.)
And rats are smarter than chihuahuas. Hell, I'm not entirely sure that NYC rats haven't figured out how to use electrical fires for to herd humans. It would be interesting to see if rat-caused fires don't happen more often in places with lots of food. But then, you'd expect rats to be where the food is, so. The point is, it's a way to clear out the humans while they collect what they can. Kind of like hunter-gatherer humans setting fires to the woods to flush out whatever they can catch.
The cognitive dissonance of dog mommies is staggering. They can clearly see the heritability of behaviors, physical characteristics, and IQ, all in a carefully controlled long term experiment we call dog breeding. And yet these people refuse to acknowledge any such dynamic in human evolution.
You're just not on the Right Side of History.
One of my professors once said that it's a huge mistake to believe that evolution is progress or that evolution produces a "better" creature. Evolution is simply the process by which living things become more adapted at living in their particular environment. See the example of the naked molerat that has basically lost its vision. Does that make it a "better" creature? No, it's just highly adapted to its environment.
So what does it say about our environment that we're evolving into sickly blobfish with mental health issues?
In the past, smarter people had better odds at keeping their legs closed to avoid deadly STDs ( monogamy ), and a stable couple keeps enough of their kids alive to help around the farm to have happy, balanced lives.
They had a big medium term incentive ( help on the farm ) and a long term one to have people care for them in old age, often the one or two kids that stayed single among the 4+ kids who survived infancy.
I saw this in many families in my grandparents generation. The forever single ones ( either socially anxious ou closet gays ) maintained the family farm, cared for their old parents and sometimes watched over nieces and nefews, one of which eventually getting the farm.
Now those incentives are long, long gone, so smart people have it in their interest to not have kids, leaving a sense of duty or future fear of loneliness as motivations to reproduce. So 0, 1 or 2 kids, because more gets in the way of all the distractions of modern life people now focus on.
While stupid people who have no sense of delaying gratification are the ones having more kids ( when they don't abort them all ).
It's not evolution. If you raised the same people, genetically, in a different environment they wouldn't be obese.
Predilictions - including behavioural ones - are evolutionary. It's just that "fat and lazy" has been allowed to express itself better, with less fear of being cast out, physically or sexually, than ever before since the advent of the car.
I can't tell if you're arguing that behaviors evolve or that the obesity has made it to our genes
That behaviours evolve.