From: Jacques Du Pasquier (jacques@dtext.com)
Date: Wed Apr 03 2002 - 15:17:58 MST
CurtAdams@aol.com wrote (3.4.2002/13:30) :
>
> Going to agriculture is not the relevant shift, although I expect that has
> changed human nature too, albeit less significantly. The shift is that
> there's no limit on reproduction, which is quite recent. Freedom from
> famine is only 300 years old even in England (Holland might be longer,
> I don't have data; certainly nowhere else) and in most of the world it's
> only
> this generation. The demographic transition is more recent than that
> and so alleles which permit the transition have been shielded from
> detrimental selection.
I may not be perceptive enough tonight, but I didn't find very obvious
connections between my post and your answer.
What I understand is you are stressing the importance of biological
evolution, and this is why you offer the end of famine and of any
limit to reproduction as the main shift, rather than agriculture.
I have to agree that this is an important theoretical shift as far as
biological evolution is concerned, and provided we agree that the
shift is aptly characterized that way (I'm not quite sure).
But as I said, to me, biological evolution in the sense of gene
selection is important to understand what we ARE; not to understand
what we will be.
Jacques
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Nov 02 2002 - 09:13:13 MST