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chaloobi
SFN Regular
1620 Posts |
 Posted - 12/11/2007 : 09:17:08
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This is pretty interesting.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071210/sc_nm/evolution_human_dc_1
Rapid acceleration in human evolution described
By Will Dunham
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Human evolution has been moving at breakneck speed in the past several thousand years, far from plodding along as some scientists had thought, researchers said on Monday.
In fact, people today are genetically more different from people living 5,000 years ago than those humans were different from the Neanderthals who vanished 30,000 years ago, according to anthropologist John Hawks of the University of Wisconsin.
The genetic changes have related to numerous different human characteristics, the researchers said.
Many of the recent genetic changes reflect differences in the human diet brought on by agriculture, as well as resistance to epidemic diseases that became mass killers following the growth of human civilizations, the researchers said.
For example, Africans have new genes providing resistance to malaria. In Europeans, there is a gene that makes them better able to digest milk as adults. In Asians, there is a gene that makes ear wax more dry.
The changes have been driven by the colossal growth in the human population -- from a few million to 6.5 billion in the past 10,000 years -- with people moving into new environments to which they needed to adapt, added Henry Harpending, a University of Utah anthropologist.
"The central finding is that human evolution is happening very fast -- faster than any of us thought," Harpending said in a telephone interview.
"Most of the acceleration is in the last 10,000 years, basically corresponding to population growth after agriculture is invented," Hawks said in a telephone interview.
The research appears in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
FAVORABLE GENE MUTATIONS
The researchers looked for the appearance of favorable gene mutations over the past 80,000 years of human history by analyzing voluminous DNA information on 270 people from different populations worldwide.
Data from this International HapMap Project, short for haplotype mapping, offered essentially a catalogue of genetic differences and similarities in people alive today.
Looking at such data, scientists can ascertain how recently a given genetic change appeared in the genome and then can plot the pace of such change into the distant past.
Beneficial genetic changes have appeared at a rate roughly 100 times higher in the past 5,000 years than at any previous period of human evolution, the researchers determined. They added that about 7 percent of human genes are undergoing rapid, relatively recent evolution.
Even with these changes, however, human DNA remains more than 99 percent identical, the researchers noted.
Harpending said the genetic evidence shows that people worldwide have been getting less similar rather than more similar due to the relatively recent genetic changes.
Genes have evolved relatively quickly in Africa, Asia and Europe but almost all of the changes have been unique to their corner of the world. This is the case, he said, because since humans dispersed from Africa to other parts of the world about 40,000 years ago, there has not been much flow of genes between the regions.
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-Chaloobi
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Bill scott
SFN Addict
USA
2103 Posts |
Posted - 12/11/2007 : 09:48:05 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by chaloobi
This is pretty interesting. |
Awesome. With the acceleration we should be hitting utopia right around 2012 give or take a few years.
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"Lets get one thing clear, Bill. Science does make some assumptions." -perrodetokio-
"In the end as skeptics we must realize that there is no real knowledge, there is only what is most reasonable to believe." -Coelacanth-
The fact that humans do science is what causes errors in science. -Dave W.-
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pleco
SFN Addict
USA
2998 Posts |
Posted - 12/11/2007 : 10:04:59 [Permalink]
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| Nah, too many running around spreading their invisible sky daddy genes around at a greater rate. Idiocracy. |
by Filthy
The neo-con methane machine will soon be running at full fart. |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 12/11/2007 : 10:24:09 [Permalink]
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VntFEWF8I8A
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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chaloobi
SFN Regular
1620 Posts |
Posted - 12/11/2007 : 10:49:51 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Bill scott
Originally posted by chaloobi
This is pretty interesting. |
Awesome. With the acceleration we should be hitting utopia right around 2012 give or take a few years.
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Except that utopia for humanity has nothing whatever to do with the factors that drive our evolution. |
-Chaloobi
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Bill scott
SFN Addict
USA
2103 Posts |
Posted - 12/11/2007 : 13:45:01 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by pleco
Nah, too many running around spreading their invisible sky daddy genes around at a greater rate. Idiocracy.
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Sky Daddy? That is retarted. What are you 11? |
"Lets get one thing clear, Bill. Science does make some assumptions." -perrodetokio-
"In the end as skeptics we must realize that there is no real knowledge, there is only what is most reasonable to believe." -Coelacanth-
The fact that humans do science is what causes errors in science. -Dave W.-
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Bill scott
SFN Addict
USA
2103 Posts |
Posted - 12/11/2007 : 13:46:05 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by chaloobi
Originally posted by Bill scott
Originally posted by chaloobi
This is pretty interesting. |
Awesome. With the acceleration we should be hitting utopia right around 2012 give or take a few years.
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Except that utopia for humanity has nothing whatever to do with the factors that drive our evolution.
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Nonsense. Once the accelerated evolution or hyperevolution cures cancer, lazy eyes, greed, hate, envy, lust, heart failure etc... we will be well on our way. This was merrily a fantasy for us to be able to witness it in our life time. But with the discovery of hyperevolution utopia is just around the next bend. |
"Lets get one thing clear, Bill. Science does make some assumptions." -perrodetokio-
"In the end as skeptics we must realize that there is no real knowledge, there is only what is most reasonable to believe." -Coelacanth-
The fact that humans do science is what causes errors in science. -Dave W.-
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 12/11/2007 : 15:44:47 [Permalink]
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| Nonsense. Once the accelerated evolution or hyperevolution cures cancer, lazy eyes, greed, hate, envy, lust, heart failure etc... we will be well on our way. This was merrily a fantasy for us to be able to witness it in our life time. But with the discovery of hyperevolution utopia is just around the next bend. |
You are joking, yes?
Evolution doesn't "cure" anything, although it may provide a resistance to microbal parasites such as malaria. But lest we forget, these too evolve and a lot faster than ourselves ever could due to a very high, generational turnover.
Malaria Defenses
The complex nature of the malaria parasite life cycle in the human host presents several points at which the organism could be targeted for destruction. The sporozoites injected into the blood stream with the initial mosquito bite are attacked there by components of the immune system. These include antibodies, lymphocytes called "natural killer cells" as well as lymphocytes that attack the malarial parasites because of prior exposure to the organisms (conditioned lymphocytes).
Host immunity is crucial to survival of people infected with the malaria parasite. This is particularly true with respect to the nocuous falciparum parasite. The immune system works best when it has been primed against the invader. Children who suffer their first or second bout of malaria have not developed the immune response needed to provide adequate defense against the parasite. This explains in part the high mortality seen in children infected with P. falciparum. Vaccines are a common way of achieving host immunity prior to pathogen exposure. Polio immunization is a well-known example. Unfortunately, the malarial parasite constantly changes its immune makeup, thereby frustrating efforts to produce an effective vaccine.
The intrahepatic phase of malarial parasite growth presents another potential point at which to attack the organism. No mutation in the structure or function of hepatic cells that kills the malarial parasite or retards its growth is known.
The last point at which life cycle of the malarial parasite can be frustrated in humans is at the phase of red cell invasion and multiplication. Red cells are constantly created and destroyed as part of their life cycle. A mutation that somehow destroys both the infected red cells and the parasite could therefore eliminate the malaria parasite. The destroyed infected cells would be replaced by new, healthy cells.
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As has been stated here to the point of traumatic laryngitis, evolution does no more than adapt a species to it's environment. This can be seen all around us; for example, certain ungulates that have lived in swampy areas for milinia will be seen to have widely splayed hooves.
Bill, the only true utopias on earth are found in the grave or the sanatorium amongst the comatose. Off earth utopias are postulated, but are without empirical support.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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| Edited by - filthy on 12/11/2007 15:55:03 |
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chaloobi
SFN Regular
1620 Posts |
Posted - 12/12/2007 : 05:56:48 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Bill scott
Originally posted by chaloobi
Originally posted by Bill scott
Originally posted by chaloobi
This is pretty interesting. |
Awesome. With the acceleration we should be hitting utopia right around 2012 give or take a few years.
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Except that utopia for humanity has nothing whatever to do with the factors that drive our evolution.
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Nonsense. Once the accelerated evolution or hyperevolution cures cancer, lazy eyes, greed, hate, envy, lust, heart failure etc... we will be well on our way. This was merrily a fantasy for us to be able to witness it in our life time. But with the discovery of hyperevolution utopia is just around the next bend.
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Wow. Your ignorance is profound. That and/or you are a troll. Either way you arn't worth the effort. |
-Chaloobi
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
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chaloobi
SFN Regular
1620 Posts |
Posted - 12/12/2007 : 10:53:52 [Permalink]
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| Is that different from trolling? "Trolling Light" perhaps? |
-Chaloobi
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 12/12/2007 : 12:13:05 [Permalink]
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If you are just trying to be funny, its not quite he same as trolling.
Real ignorance, like that displayed by bill in this thread, is also not really trolling, just embarrassing.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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chaloobi
SFN Regular
1620 Posts |
Posted - 12/12/2007 : 12:55:24 [Permalink]
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| He was attempting to ridicule evolution through the use of hyperbole. Even if he was trying to be comical, he was still attacking evolution as though it were a ridiculous idea, which is to say he's ignorant. Embarrassingly so, like you say. |
-Chaloobi
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Rapid acceleration in human evolution described
