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The benefits that natural selection causes to propagate are those which improve the organism's reproductive opportunities. Those "benefits" aren't necessarily
by kc0bfv 14y ago
The benefits that natural selection causes to propagate are those which improve the organism's reproductive opportunities. Those "benefits" aren't necessarily all that great when you've got a civilization. To take it to a ridiculous extreme, if a gene exists which makes you kill all the other men in your village, then impregnate all the women, that gene will be pretty popular in the next generation.
- draq 14y agoThat ridiculous extreme must be quite a popular gene, because it still exists: It's called war and mass war rape. Yet, we are not all warmongers and rapists (I hope). So civilisation is already putting its slow but steady evolutionary pressure onto our genes. Let's hope that it's putting our gene pool onto the right track. I simply don't share joonix' optimism that genetic screening can eradicate "unbeneficial" traits within next centuries without wrongly removing "beneficial" ones, before we have a better and complete understanding of our biological makeup. More dangerous than ignorance is half-knowledge.