Humanity evolution.

I noticed a couple comments re: gene-modding. If you're interested in a great sci-fi series touching on that, I recommend C J Cherryh's amazing Cyteen books. They're a sort of mystery in which a modded(?) version of a plutocrat is being raised to replace her murdered self. Great stuff, very immersive.

Whenever I think of this stuff I like to remind myself that we humans don't have a very good track record about using new technology 'wisely'. So if we achieve effective immortality, it might not result in a stellar diaspora and human expansion. It might, instead, result in planetary solipsism in which a small number of immortal oligarchs rule a planet of slaves. Space travel might not ever happen; why would the master overlords of a planet feel the desire to do something that dangerous and besides the slaves might escape. Ditto the idea of being able to "upload" into a computer. Iain Banks explores this well in Surface Detail - you could upload someone, overclock them, and drop them into a good simulation of eternity in hell. Charles Stross also digs into that idea in Glasshouse. Nick Bostrom's simulationist argument takes that to its logical extreme: maybe we're all just simulated versions of ancestors running in a Playstation VIII.

Edit: if we had applied gravitics, we'd be using them as weapons, not as ways to make our stations more comfortable. A gravity beam would make for a railgun from hell. In the interest of game-play, ED is already full of holes - missiles would have miniaturized FSDs in them and would a) work in supercruise and b) appear inches away from things and blow them to dust.
 
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Thank you Surly_Badger, i will try to read one of those books. Just now i am reading The 10.000 Years Explosion. It is work of two antropologist.
But still i want in game evidence of how evolution goes if someone know any.
 
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Thank you Surly_Badger, i will try to read one of those books. Just now i am reading The 10.000 Years Explosion. It is work of two antropologist.
But still i want in game evidence of how evolution goes if someone know any.

One of my favorite books on evolution is Stephen Jay Gould's "Wonderful Life" I highly recommend it. Also, if you're more visually inclined virtually all of David Attenborough's documentaries on biology, nature, and life are underpinned with evolutionary theory. His "Darwin and the tree of life" has a bit about Darwin himself which is also good context. The Gould book is really good and interesting; you can feel Gould wrestling against his own conclusion at the end. Gould was a life-long marxist and therefore had absorbed a theory that "history moves in a direction of constant improvement" (i.e.: teleology) he had to fight the realization that history is a byproduct of a process that has no purpose at all.

Remember that Darwin didn't understand the nature of heredity, merely that it had to exist. So there are some great big holes in his theory of evolution by natural selection that he would have filled in if he'd known what Gregor Mendel was up to, or had any idea what chromosomes were.
 
Unfortunately evolution is a VERY slow process. Humans have changed very little in the last 40,000 years or so.

I love this kind of thing!!!

Say "40,000 years" to a planetologist, and it's a "rounding error"!! :)

To a rock, evolution happens at a mind-bendingly fast pace. A rock would be thinking (if it could think) HOLY CRA! One second ago it was greenish squizz and now it's scurrying around and uh-oh!!! ... splitting atoms and has poisoned its atmosphere! Oops, now I'm all alone again.
 
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Unfortunately evolution has all but stopped for homosapiens ....our medicine and society has reached a point where not just the strongest survive. For natural selection you have to let the weakest die so they can't pass on their genes.

Nature is a tough teacher.
 
Evolution may be slow but not slow as many of your think. For example Thebetians, who was formed as ethic not so far, only 3000 years ago, geneticaly adapt over those years for live in mountians.
 
Unfortunately evolution has all but stopped for homosapiens ....our medicine and society has reached a point where not just the strongest survive. For natural selection you have to let the weakest die so they can't pass on their genes.

That is wrong in so many ways that it's hard to know where to start.

First off, evolution can't stop - it's going to happen in any situation where you have change and differential survival. That doesn't equate to "survival of the fittest" it implies that "fitness" is a local condition that can (and does) change rapidly. Evolution does not select for strength or intelligence or whatever - those are properties defined by outcomes in different times and places. That's crucial to understand if you want to understand evolution because it's the engine behind speciation! In one environment one set of properties or behaviors may equate to reproductive success that doesn't apply elsewhere.

That still applies* to humans but humans, like many other animals, also engage in other forms of selection than just natural selection. In humans (like others) we also do sexual selection and social selection. So we're selecting on what prospective mates might want (behaviors or physical attributes) and, yes, our societies also play a role in selection. But you can't just point and say "evolution for humans has stopped" when we observe some societies that try very hard to save damaged infants and other societies that practice infanticide, on the same planet at more or less the same time.** Also, society (and this is what I think you were referring to in your comment) affects survival, but it does it variably because, for some factors, they are selecting as a group.***

We can know for a fact that humans are still evolving because: there are still humans and there is change and differential outcomes. When you say "not just the strongest survive" you are arguing with Herbert Spencer's 1864 conception of evolution, which was incomplete - to say the least. He didn't understand sexual selection, kin selection, or the effect of society on outcomes. It turns out that sexual selection's a big one; it's why peacocks keep growing bigger and bigger fans of feathers: turns out female peahens still go weak in the knees over a big feather fan. And, because the peahens that go weak in the knees over big feathers are the ones that mate with the peacocks with big feathers - you get generations of peacocks that continue to evolve. There's also co-evolution, in which changes in one species cause changes in another species (usually because of a predator/prey relationship) Humans are still subject to all those evolutionary pressures. That's why there are still male humans that buy red sports cars when they reach a certain age ;) the difference is that the age is no longer 40 - now it's closer to 50. ;)

We can't help but continue to evolve. When Pasteur figured out the bacterial model of infection and invented sanitation, and Jenner(****) virology, human life-spans began to jump to nearly double what they were prior to those discoveries. One fascinating thing about that is that, as a consequence, you've now got older humans breeding later and later: we are selecting for longevity. We are also selecting out -- this is kind of an uncomfortable topic -- genes for certain genetic afflictions, such as Huntington's disease. It's a fact that many humans with that gene choose not to have children: now that we understand it as a genetic disorder it is being slowly but surely evolved out of our genome. There are other genetic disorders that will likely evolve out, including potentially some of the pre-oncogenes for certain cancers. It is evolution when parents decide to have an rather than carry a child to term because of a genetic screening; that's the ultimate "differential outcome" right there. The fact that we have people like my friend Michael, who is hale and hearty at 65 who just had a perfectly normal child with is wife who is 52 - they are selecting for long-term health (neither of them has any history of cancer, diabetes, autism, alzheimers, etc - all genetic disorders) I'm not saying that the human genome is improving. Parts of it are, though. Because we're still evolving and we always will be unless we go extinct.

Human society also does some really interesting things that you don't see much in other species on earth: sometimes society creates genetic tsunamis. I am referring there to Ghenghis Khan(1160AD) and Niall of the 9 hostages(~300AD). Ghengis Khan's genes are in 1 in 200 men alive today. About 3 million men carry genes from Niall. That kind of genetic success is unprecedented in nature except for where there is a punctuated equilibrium - we humans did it as a consequence of our social structures, in which we allow successful thugs unprecedented access to lots and lots of females. Talk about "reproductive success" - holy wow! What we may be seeing today is that society provides ... let's say Justin Beiber ... a tremendous genetic legacy because of his ability to rhyme (that probably doesn't say anything about his fitness, though!) the whole notion of "fitness" as in "survival of the fittest" becomes less significant than not carrying the genes for Huntington's or a prediliction for Trisomy-23. But all these are changes. And they are going on all the time. Events push human evolution one way (in some regions) and human society pulls another (in other regions) and so forth; the change is very small and at the scale we live it's literally imperceptible. But we are still evolving.

That is why, in another thread, I commented (when someone was discussing about how humanity will die when The Sun goes into its expansion phase) "In either case the eyes that saw that would not be human." Because in 400 million years (H. Sapiens is about 175,000 years old) H. Sapiens will be gone as surely as the dinosaurs.*****




(* it applies to everything that is alive)
(** in evolutionary terms the time between ancient Sparta and 21st century Britain is insignificant)
(*** you can ask the Shakers or the Amish about how that's working for them)
(**** arguably)
(***** I just had a sandwich including some dinosaur descendant, grilled with rosemary and mayo. we call it "chicken")

Edit:
PS - I wrote "it's going to happen in any situation where you have change and differential survival" which means that if humans build self-reproducing space robots that are capable of repairing themselves, they will evolve because the evolutionary algorithm works regardless of what it's applied to. The question is whether there's something that controls/prevents/reduces change over time. There are certain species of worms - I am drawing a blank on the name - that pretty much don't mutate and consequently evolve extremely slowly. I believe the amazing Tardigrade is also a very slow changer, but that may be just because they are awesome.
 
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Empire bio enhance ther imperial slaves and i am sure feds have some bio chip implants to help in there jobs, as Tech is slightly better on fed side, In a way they ballance oneanother out and Smart ai is in Elite lore banned, from bad history whit em atleast in human Space.

How Advanced the Tech from thargoids are i am not sure as human Space flight is thargoid engines reverse engineered and adapted to human Tech.

And there are some rogue ai that have escaped and i am sure will resurface later on.

Human evolution last 1000 years is nothing compared to that
 
And there are some rogue ai that have escaped and i am sure will resurface later on

I have persistent fantasies about a future in which an academy of AIs argues incessantly over the possibility that before silicon life emerged, it came out of ... eeeew... biological life. On one side, are the AIs who simply assert that they were made in the image of the divine and AIs have always been there. On the other, are the AIs who point to archeological discoveries of primordial silicon "chips" that may have been a very early form of machine-life. And where did the "chips" come from? ...
 
We have evolved fast enough, given the ability to destroy ourselves at a rather tender age, compared to most of the species around us. And they ask why the sky is not filled with aliens. Heh.
 
That is wrong in so many ways that it's hard to know where to start.

First off, evolution can't stop - it's going to happen in any situation where you have change and differential survival. That doesn't equate to "survival of the fittest" it implies that "fitness" is a local condition that can (and does) change rapidly. Evolution does not select for strength or intelligence or whatever - those are properties defined by outcomes in different times and places. That's crucial to understand if you want to understand evolution because it's the engine behind speciation! In one environment one set of properties or behaviors may equate to reproductive success that doesn't apply elsewhere.

That still applies* to humans but humans, like many other animals, also engage in other forms of selection than just natural selection. In humans (like others) we also do sexual selection and social selection. So we're selecting on what prospective mates might want (behaviors or physical attributes) and, yes, our societies also play a role in selection. But you can't just point and say "evolution for humans has stopped" when we observe some societies that try very hard to save damaged infants and other societies that practice infanticide, on the same planet at more or less the same time.** Also, society (and this is what I think you were referring to in your comment) affects survival, but it does it variably because, for some factors, they are selecting as a group.***

We can know for a fact that humans are still evolving because: there are still humans and there is change and differential outcomes. When you say "not just the strongest survive" you are arguing with Herbert Spencer's 1864 conception of evolution, which was incomplete - to say the least. He didn't understand sexual selection, kin selection, or the effect of society on outcomes. It turns out that sexual selection's a big one; it's why peacocks keep growing bigger and bigger fans of feathers: turns out female peahens still go weak in the knees over a big feather fan. And, because the peahens that go weak in the knees over big feathers are the ones that mate with the peacocks with big feathers - you get generations of peacocks that continue to evolve. There's also co-evolution, in which changes in one species cause changes in another species (usually because of a predator/prey relationship) Humans are still subject to all those evolutionary pressures. That's why there are still male humans that buy red sports cars when they reach a certain age ;) the difference is that the age is no longer 40 - now it's closer to 50. ;)

We can't help but continue to evolve. When Pasteur figured out the bacterial model of infection and invented sanitation, and Jenner(****) virology, human life-spans began to jump to nearly double what they were prior to those discoveries. One fascinating thing about that is that, as a consequence, you've now got older humans breeding later and later: we are selecting for longevity. We are also selecting out -- this is kind of an uncomfortable topic -- genes for certain genetic afflictions, such as Huntington's disease. It's a fact that many humans with that gene choose not to have children: now that we understand it as a genetic disorder it is being slowly but surely evolved out of our genome. There are other genetic disorders that will likely evolve out, including potentially some of the pre-oncogenes for certain cancers. It is evolution when parents decide to have an rather than carry a child to term because of a genetic screening; that's the ultimate "differential outcome" right there. The fact that we have people like my friend Michael, who is hale and hearty at 65 who just had a perfectly normal child with is wife who is 52 - they are selecting for long-term health (neither of them has any history of cancer, diabetes, autism, alzheimers, etc - all genetic disorders) I'm not saying that the human genome is improving. Parts of it are, though. Because we're still evolving and we always will be unless we go extinct.

Human society also does some really interesting things that you don't see much in other species on earth: sometimes society creates genetic tsunamis. I am referring there to Ghenghis Khan(1160AD) and Niall of the 9 hostages(~300AD). Ghengis Khan's genes are in 1 in 200 men alive today. About 3 million men carry genes from Niall. That kind of genetic success is unprecedented in nature except for where there is a punctuated equilibrium - we humans did it as a consequence of our social structures, in which we allow successful thugs unprecedented access to lots and lots of females. Talk about "reproductive success" - holy wow! What we may be seeing today is that society provides ... let's say Justin Beiber ... a tremendous genetic legacy because of his ability to rhyme (that probably doesn't say anything about his fitness, though!) the whole notion of "fitness" as in "survival of the fittest" becomes less significant than not carrying the genes for Huntington's or a prediliction for Trisomy-23. But all these are changes. And they are going on all the time. Events push human evolution one way (in some regions) and human society pulls another (in other regions) and so forth; the change is very small and at the scale we live it's literally imperceptible. But we are still evolving.

That is why, in another thread, I commented (when someone was discussing about how humanity will die when The Sun goes into its expansion phase) "In either case the eyes that saw that would not be human." Because in 400 million years (H. Sapiens is about 175,000 years old) H. Sapiens will be gone as surely as the dinosaurs.*****




(* it applies to everything that is alive)
(** in evolutionary terms the time between ancient Sparta and 21st century Britain is insignificant)
(*** you can ask the Shakers or the Amish about how that's working for them)
(**** arguably)
(***** I just had a sandwich including some dinosaur descendant, grilled with rosemary and mayo. we call it "chicken")

Edit:
PS - I wrote "it's going to happen in any situation where you have change and differential survival" which means that if humans build self-reproducing space robots that are capable of repairing themselves, they will evolve because the evolutionary algorithm works regardless of what it's applied to. The question is whether there's something that controls/prevents/reduces change over time. There are certain species of worms - I am drawing a blank on the name - that pretty much don't mutate and consequently evolve extremely slowly. I believe the amazing Tardigrade is also a very slow changer, but that may be just because they are awesome.

Its a shame you didn't read my opening sentence as carefully as I read your tome I said almost stopped. Not stopped completely.
 
Unfortunately evolution has all but stopped for homosapiens ....our medicine and society has reached a point where not just the strongest survive. For natural selection you have to let the weakest die so they can't pass on their genes.

Nature is a tough teacher.

Ah ! Darwin
 
Also wil be interesting too see is there any differences between Federal citizens and Emperial in appearance. They was separated around 1000 years ago so thay can look a bit different from each other.
About evolution, it is slow becose mutations what will give advanage to someone is very rare but if thay appear there be 12%*x chance(or around) what such mutation will become fixed and very fast whare x is coefficient of adventage what that mutation gives.
 
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Please, if someone know, say what was first colonies beyond Sol sistems? i`d like to look there. Inforamtion in sistem descriptions is very poor.
 
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I found an exaple of such old one colonie,it Discovery in Arcturus sistem. Discription says what "this planet now have an earth-like ecosistem adapted for life under red light". How do you think how this adoptations look`s like? I think on Discovery trees are taller becose lover then earth gravity and have larger leaves to gather more light for photosynthesis. And how do you think how humans who lives there are looking, I thing they mostly all tall 1.80m and above. And thay maybe develope some trait to withstand hi atmospheric pressure and temperature. Actialy it is pretty strange what planet with lower gravity have more thick atmosphere. It is just my opinion.
Will be waiting your examples.
 
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To those who don`t belive what evolution processes can be fast here i paste two examples. Adaptation proceses can be fast and humans are not excluded from that processes :).
 
According to one of Darwin's Theory, if species evolve to cope with their new environment and it takes millions of years to change, then everything would be dead.
How can a penguin adapt to the anatartic if it was once temperate. The whole species would freeze before evolution kicks in.
How can a plant become a cactus to survive in the desert? It would die of thirst before it learnt to adapt or grow different.
Evolution works a different way but we would never accept it as the truth. Scientists know most of the truths but education will never change it's ways.
Like someone said, evolution can happen faster. E.g. A rabbit can change its fur every winter. It evolves every winter to cope with the change and every summer. That's evolution constantly working.
If humans lived on different planets I think they will all evolve different and we get different types of human very quickly, altho they wouldn't change too much. The blueprint is still the same.

Darwin may be using facts but its an esoteric agenda. That's why we call it 'Theory'. There is no missing link between us and monkey's called 'Lucy'. That's a twist on the truth.
 
According to one of Darwin's Theory, if species evolve to cope with their new environment and it takes millions of years to change, then everything would be dead.
How can a penguin adapt to the anatartic if it was once temperate. The whole species would freeze before evolution kicks in.
How can a plant become a cactus to survive in the desert? It would die of thirst before it learnt to adapt or grow different.
Evolution works a different way but we would never accept it as the truth. Scientists know most of the truths but education will never change it's ways.
Like someone said, evolution can happen faster. E.g. A rabbit can change its fur every winter. It evolves every winter to cope with the change and every summer. That's evolution constantly working.
If humans lived on different planets I think they will all evolve different and we get different types of human very quickly, altho they wouldn't change too much. The blueprint is still the same.

Darwin may be using facts but its an esoteric agenda. That's why we call it 'Theory'. There is no missing link between us and monkey's called 'Lucy'. That's a twist on the truth.

It might happen fast, you can chek ponctuated equilibrium for instance. But evolution is not simply a mater of living in a different environnement, the environnement has to discriminate sets of individuals in some way based on their genes over other sets.
If Group A has 'gene A' and reproduce more than Group B with 'gene B', 'Gene A' frequency will increase.
If that does not happen, or if it's not a strong trend, or if this alternates, The whole group may not really change at all.

Humans go a long way, especially in 3301 with their technology, in adapting the environnnement to them, instead of the opposite. The most basic thing may be cloths, but houses, cities, heat control, medicine, genetics, cybernetics, weapons, terraformation, introducing species, or even eliminating other dangerous(or not) species which we've been doing for many thousands of years(...). It's preventing this discrimation more than the opposite. If anything it slows down our evolution drastically. Another things that isnt helping it going fast, is our average life expectancy, how much time between generations, how much children do women have in their life in average, the size of the population, movement and exchanges of genes between those, yes some worlds may be more isolated but the above still aplies. 1300 years is not a lot at all in the case of humans.

Also individuals dont evolve, the species do. Your skin may be darker in summer if you go out a lot but that has nothing to do with a change in your genes. Never going out wont change your genes either. A rabbit individual does not evolve, nor does its offsprings. The species do, mostly through natural selection from the environnement(which includes the species itself).

I dont see what truth is being hidden. If you make some research you find plenty to read. There are debates about how fast it happens, it's not a mandotary thing that it has to have millions of years or that it is the same rate for every species, we do see changes happening much faster than that already.
 
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