tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8398797088391606752.post8991392234382266405..comments2023-09-06T07:13:58.715-07:00Comments on PLEKTIX: The Future of Human EvolutionBen Allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15594823641514744644noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8398797088391606752.post-61109248068727596982009-10-27T20:32:18.567-07:002009-10-27T20:32:18.567-07:00may be because you are in 10% of people who can &q...may be because you are in 10% of people who can "choose to mate". If you really want to check your claim (that we are not competing for mating) may be you should check with many other societies of different cultures.szproxyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06884742102826509940noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8398797088391606752.post-63800861052427658592009-01-28T14:25:00.000-08:002009-01-28T14:25:00.000-08:00Good point! I hadn't thought to frame the transit...Good point! I hadn't thought to frame the transition from genetic to cultural evolution as a "scaling up" analagous to cells within an organism, but the analogy may be quite useful. <BR/><BR/>I haven't heard Nowak talk specifically about the qualitative distinction between genetic and cultural evolution, though he has talked about each separately. I'll see if I can pry some thoughts out of him some time.Ben Allenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15594823641514744644noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8398797088391606752.post-10096093823125662752009-01-20T10:46:00.000-08:002009-01-20T10:46:00.000-08:00I agree with your post and the nuanced points made...I agree with your post and the nuanced points made in the previous comments. To add to the discussion, I'll suggest that the evolutionary process as shaped by selection and drift, is going on all the time at <A HREF="http://emergentfool.com/2007/01/24/levels-of-organization/" REL="nofollow">all levels of organization</A>. However, as higher levels emerge from lower, the higher level constrains the dynamics (including evolutionary) at the lower level. Thus from an absolute and relative standpoint it appears as if evolution stops or slows to a crawl at the lower level, even though it doesn't. An example worth noting is somatic evolution (i.e. the population of cells in the body or soma) which has been constrained by the multicellular level of organization, but at times speeds up and <A HREF="http://emergentfool.com/2009/01/01/cancer-as-evolution-2008-summary/" REL="nofollow">we recognize that as cancer</A>.<BR/><BR/>As for the levels of organization above human, there are many, and they are overlapping and intersecting. Language and culture play key roles and can be seen as evolutionary systems if you <A HREF="http://emergentfool.com/2007/05/24/generalized-evolutionary-theory/" REL="nofollow">model them appropriately to meet the evolutionary preconditions</A>. Dawkins was the first to do this by positing a population of agents called "memes" which are essentially ideas. They live in the minds of humans, reproduce with differential fecundity, etc. Disappointingly, memetics has not been fleshed out or formalized much since the concept was introduced. But there is some work on it, including extensions into the <A HREF="http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/susan_blackmore_on_memes_and_temes.html" REL="nofollow">technological</A> and <A HREF="http://www.amazon.com/Origin-Wealth-Evolution-Complexity-Economics/dp/157851777X" REL="nofollow">economic</A> realms.<BR/><BR/>The most prolific thought leader in generalized evolutionary is, of course, your professor, Martin Nowak. What does he have to say about linguistic/cultural evolution as it relates to human evolution?Rafe Fursthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00995234619199173547noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8398797088391606752.post-83657186493526336982009-01-06T13:01:00.000-08:002009-01-06T13:01:00.000-08:00@samineru-Also a good point. The existence of sem...@samineru-Also a good point. The existence of semi-permanent media means it is very hard to kill any idea completely. There is a biological parallel here as well: some bacteria, upon finding that their environment cannot support them, go into a "dormant state" where they shut off all life functions and encase themselves in a hard shell, preserving their DNA for better times.<BR/><BR/>@paz & blake-Evolution, as I've been taught in my classes, requires three ingredients: variation, reproduction, and selection. With the third ingredient removed I don't think we can say we're still evolving genetically, though our genome is certainly changing.<BR/><BR/>There are models out there that use epidemiological methods to study the spread of ideas. There are also more explicit models where individuals can choose to imitate each other's behavior, and some behaviors are more likely to be imitated than others. But I don't think I've seen a big-picture study of how idea evolution advances a society differently from genetic evolution.<BR/><BR/>Here's one more interesting question: what makes an idea likely to spread? One could say that ideas spread if they provide some utility to the idea's holder. (Or if they <I>appear</I> to provide utility, as in "Hey, that tattoo looks cool! I should get the same one!") But what defines utility in this context? Evolutionary biologists usually think of utility in terms of an increase to reproductive fitness, but as we've discussed, this doesn't much apply to us anymore. So to understand the evolution of ideas, it is important to think about which ideas are valued by humans and why.Ben Allenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15594823641514744644noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8398797088391606752.post-52735706802144820442009-01-06T06:46:00.000-08:002009-01-06T06:46:00.000-08:00Yes, selection may be defunct — or, rather, many o...Yes, <I>selection</I> may be defunct — or, rather, many of the selective pressures may have been nullified — but mutation and drift are likely still at work.<BR/><BR/>Interesting subtleties arise when one tries to model the spread of ideas by analogy with the dynamics of genes. For example: genes are coded onto physical objects, snippets of nucleic acid, which are passed from one organism to another, either by reproduction or via horizontal gene transfer. Genes acting in concert produce a phenotype, which then has a greater or lesser chance of success in the organism's environment (part of which, of course, is formed by the presence of other life-forms carrying their own genes). Selection changes allele frequencies by acting on phenotypes.<BR/><BR/>Now, suppose we try to think about ideas and culture in the same fashion. How does an act "go viral"? Consider a case where it's very clear whether the "phenotype" is present or not: wearing one's baseball cap backwards, say, or wearing a carnation in one's lapel. Encountering that phenotype may influence me to emulate it, stealing a carnation from a flowerbed and poking its stem through the otherwise useless buttonhole in my lapel. No physical object was passed from Clifton Webb to me, nor did I really receive an explicit set of instructions. The "idea gene" reproduced <I>via its phenotype.</I>Blake Staceyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13977394981287067289noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8398797088391606752.post-79244642266860511212009-01-05T18:34:00.000-08:002009-01-05T18:34:00.000-08:00Hi, great post and topic, but I disagree that the ...Hi, great post and topic, but I disagree that the process of genetic evolution for humans is defunct.<BR/><BR/>It is true that the idea of humans dealing with 'natural selection' may mostly be considered obsolete (save a few stubborn diseases), but that's only one of the processes of evolution. Genetic drift, mutation, gene therapy, cultural behaviors, and more random (esp. catastrophic) events will still change the gene pool. Our traits as a species will always evolve genetically, just under societal rules and not necessarily in a positive or beneficial way (see: Idiocracy).<BR/><BR/>Part of the semantic problem is that the word 'evolution' has come to imply improvement, something the field of biology never intended. The process of evolution makes no distinction in whether a trait is beneficial or not, because every change in a species' inherited traits (whether good, bad, random, neutral, homogenizing) is considered evolution.<BR/><BR/>Having said that, the real question you raise is how an advancing society of ideas will evolve with and around us and how it will affect our evolutionary path. Describing ideas as viruses might actually work very well in existing models, with different cultures or individuals as hosts with varying degrees of susceptibility and distances measured only in access to communication. <BR/><BR/>I bet if you plugged in numbers for the spread of ideas into similar disease models, we'd be facing endless epic epidemics since the internet hit.Pazhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02842799366260973675noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8398797088391606752.post-34478743686142070132009-01-05T11:17:00.000-08:002009-01-05T11:17:00.000-08:00But what is there to say about storage media like ...But what is there to say about storage media like books and movies? I think the ability to be archived and unearthed at a much later date is a significant difference as well. For a gene to survive it has to constantly be within a living organism and keep reproducing.samineruhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11186921762824109969noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8398797088391606752.post-89462734952807021892009-01-04T06:20:00.000-08:002009-01-04T06:20:00.000-08:00Excellent question! I think that ideas live in ou...Excellent question! I think that ideas live in our collective consciousness---that is, a single idea will live multiple lives in the minds of multiple people. In this way ideas are like viruses: they live inside hosts and reproduce by infecting other hosts.<BR/><BR/>The environment for an idea would consist of all the other ideas that are out there in people's heads. The success or failure of an idea depends on the current intellectual environment, as well on the idea's intrinsic worth.Ben Allenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15594823641514744644noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8398797088391606752.post-40959268209808587802009-01-03T21:53:00.000-08:002009-01-03T21:53:00.000-08:00I think something else interesting to consider is ...I think something else interesting to consider is the environment of ideas. When dealing with organisms it's fairly obvious, and factoring the breeding pool into play with genes isn't much of a leap. With ideas however they almost completely shed the environments of genes and organisms. Do they "live" in our head, or in our speech, what about books, television, and the radio waves we send out into space?samineruhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11186921762824109969noreply@blogger.com