From: spike66 (spike66@attbi.com)
Date: Sun Jul 14 2002 - 19:12:55 MDT
Vanessa Novaeris wrote:
>spike wrote:
><<If we we able to shoehorn humans down to about 20 kg,
>and 1 meter height without excessive loss of intelligence...
>
>
>Once "shoehorned" why would it be necessary to "bootstrap"?
>
It would not be *necessary* to bootstrap, but I would predict that it
would occur anyway because of differential mate selection. The
DNA would remember, in a sense, that men were once large and
manly. Instinct would guide the women to differentially mate with
those who resembled modern humans more than those big headed
guys you saw in the pilot for Star Trek. I expect it wouldn't take
long for nature to bootstrap humans back up to our current scale,
assuming a successful means of producing sufficient food.
>It might be really simple & I just missed it, but why bother
>returning to a bigger, clumsier, more wasteful body type?
>
I see your point and agree that it would be better to stay at the
1 meter (or less) scale, in order to ease the task of going on to,
and devouring, the next star system. However I predict that nature
would bootstrap them back up.
In fact, I am not surprised that humans are currently getting larger.
We have figured out how to produce arbitrarily many calories, so
we are in the process of bootstrapping ourselves to a larger size.
Is evidence necessary to support this claim? If so, I would offer
1) the diminutive suits of armor from the middle ages, and
2) the observation by my wife's grandfather who was a supply
seargent at the start of world war 2. They had a number of boots
left over from WW1, which they distributed to the troops. They
ran out of the largest boots almost immediately, but the smallest
boots went unclaimed. When ordering new boots, they had to
order 2 sizes larger than in the previous conflict, from only 23
years before. Humans are getting bigger fast.
It would be necessary to shoehorn, but the DNA will fight all
the way down. It would be unnecessary to bootstrap but
instict will do it for us.
spike
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