Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Should God be replaced? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: pezz who wrote (432)	8/14/2000 5:02:01 PM
From: TigerPaw	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 28931

Can you suggest any such catastrophe that the changes would be evident to the naked eye? I would submit that most changes would be adaptation of our culture and technology rather than intense genetic changes. The type of catastrophe is less important than the scale of catastrophe for visible adaptations. Studies on human DNA reveal that the entire human population was reduced to about 10,000 individuals approximately 100,000 years ago. Perhaps the type of catastrophe which could occur today would be a disease, perhaps one created in a laboratory. After a massive reduction in population and assuming that a few people survive with some kind of natural immunity, you get the "founder effect". This is where the remaining population is descended from and closely related to the few who had the correct combination of genes to survive. Almost any characteristic that this "founder" population had would become the dominate characteristic of future generations. If the founder had red hair, then that would become the dominate hair color. If the founder was alergic to wheat gluten, then wheat would disapear from the diet of the decendants, if he had a hare-lip, then it would become a mark of beauty to the great-great-grandchildren. All sorts of recessive genes become expressed when a population is small, and the selection pressure has been elimininated (because the survivors are resistant to this disease anyway). It's also possible (even likely) that the founder will be rather average in characteristics other than resistance and changes would be minimal, but you wouldn't have the great variety of skin color, food preference, and language that we have today. TP