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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: nihil who wrote (33295)	3/24/1999 8:44:00 PM
From: Chuzzlewit	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 108807

Nihil, man can and does change himself. I leave the wisdom of the action up to the reader. Organisms ordinarily adapt to the environment through a combination of random mutations and natural selection. But human intervention has changed much of that. Instead of allowing the ravages if disease to decimate populations we provide artificial defenses such as medicines and vaccines. And so, in the process, we defeat the effects of natural selection. Culturally defined traits such as beauty are also selected, but the selection is not based on adaptive behavior. Maybe that's why there are so many blondes in California. But look at how human intelligence can be perverse. It is a fact that intelligent people tend to have less children than less intelligent people. The reason ought to be self-evident. It is also true that a significant component of the trait we call intelligence is inherited. So, through diminished fecundity, intelligence is selected out. So much for wisdom. If you can't out-think 'em out-breed 'em. There was a story that some geneticists liked to tell to explain why many people are near-sighted. It seems that in the days of the cave man, when he was a hunter-gatherer some of the potential hunters couldn't see that well. Given the the dangerous nature of the hunt, these individuals were left behind with the women. The better-sighted went off to hunt (and get preferentially eaten) while the myopic guys did their thing with the cave ladies. TTFN, CTC

To: nihil who wrote (33295)	3/26/1999 7:19:00 AM
From: PiMac	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

Nihil says <<There's a deeper question far more important, is Homo sapiences capable of changing himself, as a species, and should he. Are we so perfect that we shouldn't mess with what we are.>> I would rephrase it to be: is NOT Homo Sapiens so IMperfect as to Not leave his very being in the hands of his own limited consciousness? How can we trust ourselves with, as LRR says is the most momentous change since 1 celled became 2? I mean, we've done ok with the Bomb. Is ok going to be good enough to populate the earth? What makes us think we can program new organisms when we can't deprogram war and such needless waste?