CharonY

Well, that explains it. It is all a liberal conspiracy. Obviously the way to maintain pristine water is not to figure out what is inside in the first place.

Also to add to that, natural selection as doesn't necessarily affect evolutionary rates as such. One huge challenge in determining rate on the molecular side is that certain parameters are invisible and we cannot really quantify them well. For example, mutation rate have a huge impact on the rate of evolution, as they determine overall timing. But quantifying that is difficult, because what we see in the DNA is an interplay between purely stochastic mutational events and cellular mechanisms that affect them (e.g. DNA repair, metabolic rates, reproductive speed etc.). On a higher level, population size further skews results, making it very difficult to accurately determine germline mutation rates. I.e. comparing the impact of selection between populations only make sense if we assume same mutational rates, and the hypothesis here is that stronger selective factors will increase fixation rates. However, even that can be complicated by the fact that we also have to contend with recombination. Here, some models have shown that if recombination (i.e., sexual reproduction or horizontal gene transfer) are the major sources of diversity over mutation (which is the case for species with sexual reproduction and low mutation rates), then natural selection actually slows down evolution. That is all to say, that any discussion on evolutionary rates or selection has to look through a population lens. Even among mammalian species evolutionary rates vary significantly and there is ongoing discussion about the determinants for that.

I would be careful with that. For starters that really only relates to allergies, not the immune system wit large. We had a bit of a discussion those interactions here https://www.scienceforums.net/topic/140127-the-rise-of-allergies/#comment-1303884 Though I am a bit skeptical regarding the explanatory power of microbe-host interaction alone, as our immune systems interact with a host of other antigens, too. There is also a bit of a misconception that the immune system can be trained like a muscle. It is a fair bit weirder, and certainly your immune system doesn't get better the more often you are sick. Not saying that is your claim, but that is something I keep hearing from some folks and now also students, which is a bit worrisome. And this is called an assertion, but as mentioned before, it is not one that can be verified. As I mentioned there is no way to quantify that across species. Moreover, such generalizations are almost always wrong (heh). In very small populations, regardless of species stochastic effects are quite a bit more likelier to impact evolution rather than selective sweeps. Moreover, you haven't even begun to figure out what kind of selective forces might be present in humans or animals. It goes way beyond just prey interactions, for example. Take sexual selection for starters. Do you think in human populations there are no preferences? In many animals this likely contributed to hugely ineffective and even potentially harmful phenotypes (e.g. excessive plumage). Or weird adaptations including loss of the ability to live independently from each other. How would you even begin to try to quantify your claim?

I think it was a common occurrence as seen here. https://www.politico.com/gallery/algae-in-the-reflecting-pool?slide=0 It is just a big thing because this administration has an uniquely unfavourable boast to competence ratio.

I disagree with that statement, at least the way it can be interpreted. In evolutionary sciences it makes zero sense to try to rank selective forces. Those are relative quantities. Assume for example a population where predation is the strongest shaping force. Now, suddenly all predators are gone. What happens is not that suddenly evolution stops, but instead the other evolutionary elements contribute more to the changes in the gene pool. Extremely strong selective sweeps can keep the gene pool a bit more narrower, as for example a particular trait might become essential for survival. But once that is gone, other traits may rise, which could open up the pool more and give rise to other positive traits that otherwise may not have appeared in the first place. Both are are evolutionary processes which cannot be ranked as OP desires to. Moreover, "wild animals" covers a huge range of very disparate population with wildly different conditions that shape their evolution. Stating that humans are categorically different is, in my mind, a very anthropocentric claim. The mechanisms may be different, but tool use and tech just creates a different environment where other forces (selective or not) impact our evolution. Similarly to how other organisms impacted our world. Things like oxygen production has massively changed the world in the past and way more profound to what tech is doing to us, for now at least. The fact that humans practice birth control, also has impact on the evolution, in multiple ways. On the one hand, one can thing about it as creating bottleneck structures in the gene flow, as only a small subset (below replacement level, for instance) of folks reproduce. But then in recent times, economic stability seems to be associated with reproduction. And while wealth is not associated with genes as such, generational wealth runs in families. So one can speculate about how that impacts our gene pool (with emphasis on speculate). In terms of rapidity, human evolution seems to have accelerated and this is documented both, on the fossil as well as the genetic level. Changes in skull shapes and brain development seemed to have happened faster than in our cousins. There are multiple hypotheses, including the ability to learn better use of resources, with allowed dispersion of human population followed by massive shifts in selective forces. Some of the most obvious genetic examples we find in text book are changes associated with diet, as well as climate adaptation, which happened very fast. But with urbanization we also see a lot adpatation related to pathogen exposure. One of the challenges of modern life is that we are connected (in case folks forgot about the annual influenza pandemic or COVID-19). All those are selective forces that OP neglects. Likewise, because of our changes in diet, certain populations are now at higher risk of metabolic syndromes, severely impacting reproductive success. And yes, those with more resources might have a better chance to address some of them, which has its own accelerating impact, as I mentioned earlier. Also, the examples of OP have given earlier, such as Klinefelter, Angelman, Downs etc are under negative selection, so it doesn't really add to the their argument. My bigger point is that the idea of comparing wild vs human is not really feasible as selection is a relative force action on the gene pool under a given environment. If humans change the environment, they change selective forces, but again, unless they are able to create conditions approaching the Hardy-Weinberg scenario, the pool will shift and functionally there is little difference if the environment is caused by technology, or a beaver dam or biochemically (e.g. oxygen production). Now the respective consequences are different, of course, but for that you would need to compare specific populations rather making a wide claim. And perhaps rather symptomatic, when folks talk about natural selection for some reason they do think about sweeps of disorders, and assume that strong selective forces somehow keep the gene healthier (in a eugenic sense) but forget that what it also means is that the gene pool is likely narrower. As such, when talking biology, rather than social sciences, it makes little sense to frame it around the concept of disorders, but one has to take a view on the shape of the gene pool as a whole. After all, we do not really categorize alleles as unequivocally good or bad, nor does it really make biological sense. A gene might reduce your performance is some way, but provide resilience to a certain pathogen. Is that good or bad? In the absence of the pathogen, it might show up as a negative, in the presence it is a positive.

You have, likely unknowingly, shifted the question you are asking throughout the discussion and this is likely caused by conflating multiple concepts. Your original question was regarding the drivers of evolution. However, you mostly ignored the various drivers and exclusively focused on natural selection. IOW in most of your arguments you are not discussing the drivers of evolution, but rather ask the question whether natural selection still occurs in human population. Within this context you are using a concept that is not really accurate by distinguishing "good" and "bad" traits. In the context of evolution, a bad trait suggests a trait that is negatively selected, whereas a good train would undergo positive selection. However, you define good or bad in context that goes outside of evolution and is more a social darwinistic view of good and bad (or survival of the strongest), that really is not an evolutionary concept. The reason is simple, and it is in fact the basis of your own argument. If a trait does not cause negative selection, because any negative reproductive effects are eliminated, then by definition it is not a "bad" trait in the context of evolution. And it matters not if that was caused by technology or anything else. For example, animals that do not rely on eyesight have no positive selection for maintaining eyesight. The consequence could be reduction of this ability without it having (by definition) any impact on reproductive success. The same goes for correcting eye issues, even if they are genetic. They are not negative traits, in an evolutionary context. It all relates to the common misconception that somehow evolution makes us stronger, yet in nature there is no such concept. Also disabilities are a bit of a value judgement, though it might feel counterintuitive. The reason is that because in order to define them, we define a baseline which we consider to be "able". But the issue is that this is a value judgement. In biology there are just different phenotypes.

You should check at the basics of evolution. Much of your speculation can be addressed with minimal reading. To make things easier for your here is a link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardy%E2%80%93Weinberg_principle. So to address your question You should first look at the list of parameters. Just very quickly, depending on the granularity you want the key parameters would include: infinite population size (eliminating drift), random mating, no gene flow, lack of mutations, and finally no natural selection. Now you can think what still exist. You have a very narrow view of natural selection, but at minimum think about conditions that renders folks sterile and/or less likely to procreate. There quite a few conditions that fall into that category. Likewise some negative traits can also be positive or are co-located at the same region with positive ones. Protection against malaria via alleles associated with sickle cell are a classic example of the former. There are many other examples for selection that are frequently discussed in class, including lactase persistence, amylase production, skin pigmentation etc. It is true that these are partially lessened in modern societies, but often they are not eliminated fully. You kinda, sorta dismiss mutations, but of course they also play a role. Then look into population size. Human populations are large, but they are also geographically distributed. Do you think that there are large enough that the gene pools of all human populations are resilient to random effect? Especially consider that only part of the population procreates (considering that many countries are below replacement levels). Now within population, to humans randomly mate? Have you considered cultural and religious barriers for starters? Ultimately I think the issue is that you focus on dying as somehow it being a key element of evolution, and it really isn't. It is one possible parameter, if it occurs before procreation, but it is just one of many. And again, it is not unique to humans. In nature procreation is not solely dependent on survival. Random mating is rather rare (look up sexual selection, for example).

What is the difference? Evolution is an universal descriptor and there is not difference how it works mechanistically. This is demonstrably false, bottleneck effects had huge impact on human population we see today, especially related to reduced genetic diversity outside Africa.

That is wrong. Evolution is the change of the gene pool over time. Natural selection is part of it, but mutation, drift, sexual selection etc. all play a role. You should read up on the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium, which outlines the conditions where evolution doesn't occur. IOW, if Hardy-Weinberg is not satisfied evolution occurs, which makes the rest of your argument moot. I will just add that evolution is not about survival of the fittest, it is about reproductive success and associated changes in the gene pool. But individual survival matters little, as long as there is reproduction.

Yersinia is also often found in soil, so it sticks around and there is a chance for sporadic outbreaks. Though for big spreads sustained human-to-human connections is important.

I think some specifics have shifted, especially related to COVID-19 but there are some general themes that come up. One is often economic concerns, often rather diffuse, and also globalism. But these tend to be soft arguments and some studies looking at more solid aspects have a few common elements. One is simply the fear of status loss. It is a diffuse, emotional angst that interestingly is independent of their actual economic situation. I.e. folks with high socioeconomic status react similar to the same cues as folks who are at a lower status. This fear is strongly connected to another aspects, the appearance of the "the others". That is often seen in a racial light (sometimes hard, sometimes soft) but increasingly plays out on the ideological range, too (e.g. left vs right; dems vs reps etc.). The idea here is that if the other is more visible, it will diminish my status. And I think this is the real threat. If all had a rational basis, such as measurable economic situation, conventional wisdom would tell you that addressing the economy would tangibly shift perception. That happened in the Weimar Republic. Following the treaty of Versailles, the extreme right and left made rapid gains, but by 1928 the centrist and the SPD made promises for more welfare spending and brought the hyperinflation you mentioned under control. But then in 1929 the Wall street crash happened and we all know what happened afterwards. The issue now is that the perception has increasingly decoupled from facts, and this is something that is happening across virtually all sectors (heck, even things like the evaluation of Musk's company could fall under that). US economy stabilized under Biden, but the perception was that somehow it was worse. It worsened under Trump, but some folks feel that they are on the winning side (despite losing out on cash). We are increasingly going into a "feel" society, which I think is largely driven by tech-created disruption of information streams. We do not have a diversity of opinions anymore, but a diversity of realities. In think that part is a grand challenge for the coming generation, and we are only vaguely aware of it and certainly not equipped to deal with it. Moreover, with AI taking over the internet, the reality distortion will ramp up to massive levels in the next few years. I do not think anyone living now will have a strategy to deal with that.

Interesting study documenting plague outbreak in hunter-gatherer communities over 5000 years ago. While the sequence Yersinia pestis strain lacked certain pathogenicity factors compared to those found later in the bubonic plague. it appeared to be lethal especially to children. In the past, it was often assumed that urbanization and rats were key factors in the spread of the bubonic plague. However, lately studies challenged the relevance of rats and this one here challenges the need for urbanization for such outbreaks. Macleod, R., Seersholm, F.V., De Sanctis, B. et al. Lethal plague outbreaks in Lake Baikal hunter-gatherers 5,500 years ago. Nature 654, 697–705 (2026) DOI 10.1038/s41586-026-10540-5

The big issue is that what happened doesn't even have to be true. You just have to make feel true. As Swansont mentioned, it is easy to do by scapegoating someone and it is a well honed tradition to do so. It also comes naturally to folks like Trump who really do not have understanding or expertise in doing policies that actually make things better.

Well, and the electorate. Regardless how silly a government has become, the ultimate check should be the voters. Of course, Gerrymandering and similar mechanisms make it so much harder, but it is not that folks look at that mess and universally rejected it. Far from it, there are even for example conservative, typically religious white women who are seemingly OK with having their right to vote stripped from them. Also, it is not just America. Looking at Alberta right now, and the number of MAGA hats is worrisome.

I would argue that even simple biological system vastly outstrip the complexity of current most advanced tech. The reason being that we are able to create that advanced tech from scratch, but we don't have the tech to create simple life forms.

Unless there is some new technology coming in, the footprint for a robotic creation system seems to be quite a bit more complicated and inefficient. Where it seems superior appears to be scaling. Every step of the supply chain, from extraction, refining, production of parts and assembly requires large footprints to establish. Producing an biological individual is far more efficient than producing one robot, for example. I would also disagree with the clunkiness of metabolic pathways. It is supremely flexible, allowing survival and efficient energy and biomass conversion under extremely variable conditions. Currently robots require external systems to do that, using systems that are much less flexible overall. Of course future tech might catch up but giving what we have now biology does have an edge, with the exception of immediate scaling (if we disregard microbes). I think of it that way: robotic systems seem to require a highly complex supply where external systems (e.g., mining operations, refineries, energy production facilities, fabrication etc.) have to work together to produce new units. In contrast, even simple biological system incorporate core elements, such as energy conversion, biomass production, in an extremely small, efficient package.

I think it is because of our perception that folks treated black folks worse in the past, therefore we expect indicators also to be worse (relatively speaking). But the issue is that the system never fully corrected the issues that already put them on a different path and with all the other issues, that also affects white low-income folks on top, a widening gap is exactly what we expect to see. Conversely, it means that whatever measures where done were insufficient to close that gap and it is unclear whether it can be, as intergenerational wealth is a big driver and even if all negative factors were gone over night, they still start behind. I don't think that the folks in power are smart or inclined enough to develop such long-term strategies. I think what happened is that in their quest to improve things like targeted marketing, they more or less stumbled over the impact of these mechanisms and only after that that, started to weaponize it for their gain. Silicon Valley seemed to have gone through multiple stages, starting from the "do no evil" part where a lot was driven by developing and finding use for tech, then increasingly drive it towards monetization which at some point culminated in power and control. Pretty much like every comic book villain story.

Absolutely. One of the elements I am interested in is the erosion of trust, associated with factors such as inequality. There is also a large body of research looking into things like institutional trust that have been eroding across the political spectrum, in some areas these are politically segregated (e.g., there is a big divide relating to racial wealth inequality) but quite a bit overlap when it comes to criticism regarding the "elite" (though with different view on who are part of it). One theme related to the erosion in trust is related to lack of perceived fairness. During times of shock (e.g. financial crisis 2008, COVID-19, now war on Iran and tariffs), the burden is not only shared unequally, at the top the wealth actually increases. This observation suggests for many that the system is "rigged" as the wealthy disproportionate benefit from good economic developments but are insulated from the negative ones. Conversely, the bottom do not see the benefit but are are at high risk at status loss. These are, as you noted, the consequence of many factors making up the system. And while some have partially better solutions, the interconnection of modern economy largely means that pretty much no country is fully protected from these developments.

Thanks for the clarification. I think this is true, but addresses yet another domain, i.e. that of power inequality and associated self-enrichment. One issue with attempts at centrally planned economies is the intrinsic high inefficiency and overall reduced economic envelope compared to capitalist societies. As a consequence, everyone was by default poorer. And in that context, the Soviet Union is a great comparison to modern Russia, the former having a centrally planned economy, and the latter changing switching to capitalism. In both power differences are known and sometimes exerted by the same group of people. Studies there do suggest that inequality has increased after the switch to capitalism (see e.g., Davies: Personal Wealth from a Global Perspective). But again, the caveat is that there is more inequality with an overall bigger pie. I.e., the overall baseline has improved but inequality almost immediately increased in tandem. The issue with all such system is whether there is some mechanism to stabilize a steady state (i.e. there is inequality but fixed at a given level) or whether it somehow continues forever, which of course inevitably means collapse (or an entirely new state). I think a reason why this worry is coming up again is because the AI folks somehow simultaneously claim multiple contradicting things at once. I.e. AI and robots will make humans obsolete, yet somehow it won't cause mass-poverty and somehow the companies still will be endlessly profitable (though they are not even profitable now) and also no one will have to work, but no we won't need to have a completely new economic model (somehow). This opens up the space for new and old worries and almost demands a better grip on what all of that will mean for the next generation(s).

No, I see your point, but what I mean is that in case of monuments or similar structures, the context matters. Oppenheimer's legacy could "just" highlight the scientific, organizational and engineering achievements, just the doomsday scenario that nuclear weapons enabled, or even focus on how McCarthy's anti-communist hunt led to him losing his security clearance. IOW, to me it is not only about the person, but also the question what message we want to send when we create monuments in their honor. Folks are complicated, and I generally prefer to depict folks as human and enable a discussion regarding their legacies. I think the Manhattan project is even a bit disconnect to the outcome, I think a clearer depiction of the issue would be e.g. portraying Stalin as a bulwark against Nazis and conveniently downplay the whole other rest of his legacy. I.e., in my mind monuments to great men tend to gloss over the complexity of each person and I think I just have an automatic dislike to such shortcuts. I do recognize that as my own preference, and potentially, failing. And that creates a system in which the fetters on capitalism are diminished. A system where laws would prohibit that, would be a different system, wouldn't it? Well, the EU also has similar issues, at a lower level. The fetters are, on average stronger than in North America. However, there was a big push around the 2010s for a more neoliberal/free trade in order to boost economies. And for a while it did. But even there the gap between rich and poor is increasing, in part adding to the rise of the far right (who then ironically accelerate the process). In my mind, what happens in the US is not the cause of the issue, but to a large degree just a symptom. The economic system does not come in with built-in safeguards and there has been a big push to reduce them further. It is quite possible that economies will indeed stagnate as many predict if there are too many regulations, but the current development does not appear to be sustainable, either. It should also be added that the economic issues in the US and elsewhere did not start with Trump. He (and COVID-19) just made such a mess that the fractures just became so much more visible. If those things hadn't happened, and the Supreme Court were a bit less weird, it would likely just take a bit longer to arrive where we are.

I suspect it depends a lot on context. I.e. who initiated it and to what purpose. During the Jim Crow era, a lot of confederate statues were built in direct rebuke to equal rights, for example. In other cases it might also be just naivete where the folks celebrate a particular achievement, but were just not aware of the issues, just by general lack of education in this area. Though in these cases it can be bit difficult to disentangle it from soothing the conscience. In my mind worshipping any person comes with issues as MigL pointed out, humans are faulty creatures. And while it might be fine to celebrate certain achievements, by worshipping persons you inadvertently tend to minimize those faults. That in turn make it easier to dismiss victims of their actions. I wished we would treat folks as humans, rather than idols.

I think that is a good way to move towards a more equitable economic system. The idea of our mixed economy was always to balance out the flow of capital to the top and devaluing labor, which is pretty much how capitalism works (and which Adam Smith considered a virtuous cycle, but where folks like Marx recognized that it does not in fact create an expanding pie where everyone gets richer). The issue is that the balance is increasingly perceived to be off, especially in the service economy, where products are increasingly intangible and wealth seems to increasingly move independent of production. That being said, wealth and with that, power, has accumulated so massively in few hands, it seems now to be almost impossible to move the needle towards redistributing. Especially as folks almost reflexively fear some sort of market breakdown (but conveniently forgetting that for some reasons the major market crashes again made the richest even richer). But that, in my mind does not touch the fundamental societal issues. What baffles me is that especially social media companies are not only a thing, but that they are so massive. It is somewhat dystopian that a system can make money bytaking away your attention, and spoon-feed you content. Together with addictive hardware (cell phone), it has massively re-engineered human society world-wide. As we have discussed before, other major events (books, radio, TV) had similar wide-scale effects. But at least in modern times, these technologies have, I believe for the first time, systematically degraded human abilities across the spectrum, at scale. Folks focus a lot on the decline in various scoring domains (e.g. maths, reading, writing, etc.), but I think beyond just the skills it also has eroded reasoning abilities in a very strange way in younger folks. I think that is almost immediately connected the next part. With a decline of basic reasoning skills, we have reverted to an almost exclusive in-group based trust system. Someone who is considered to be part of the group is endlessly trust worthy, regardless of facts. My work has drifted ever more into the public health area and the one thing I increasingly believe is at fault is the internet, where the virtual has become more real than the real world. Emotions have increasingly become the currency of trust, not facts or reasoning. The interesting thing that happens, if you engage with folks in person and demonstrate goodwill, many are at least more willing to listen. But the format is very important and decoupling reality with what they heard online is often hard and inconvenient work. No system currently likes to do that, and because news (and the fact that you call it a news show sort of already outlines the problem) want to make money, and they are basically just competing with content creators into an endless downward spiral. Even if folks listen to analyses, what they really want to hear is that the analysis reaffirms their feelings. And again we enable that by degrading basic reasoning skills among the next generation(s). This is again an economic argument, and it is equally baffling, but perhaps also understandable that corporations don't understand/care for that. Economy has always been short-sighted, looking at immediate improvements of productivity, efficiency and profit, rather than long-term vision. Almost by design capitalism is reactive (which is its big strength) but resilient to long-term planning. The right regulations might be able to change the course, but I have not yet seen a convincing framework of what needs to be done, or even what vision we have for the future. And I do think that the societal changes that we have, will make those visions ever more blurry.

There are already autonomous robotaxis and what we currently learn is that it obviously cuts down on human failings, such as cell phone use and other distracted driving, DUI etc. And therefore outperform drivers especially under good conditions. The issue is a bit murkier under bad weather, dusk/dawn situations, but this could be areas of improvement. It should be noted that this is likely not exclusively a software-side issue, though companies like Tesla treat it as such, but also a sensor-side issue. LIDAR significantly outperforms camera only, for example. If we get tot the point that autonomous driving becomes the norm, I would assume that liability will be similar with respect to robotaxis, i.e. the manufacturer will be liable, for crashes while in autonomous mode. Though there will be questions regarding shared liability with respect to maintenance or use beyond the terms that will likely exist (e.g. driving outside of established grids). But again, I don't think that autonomous driving, at least for the foreseeable future, is an AI-only question.

Unfortunately, in practice that has been quite challenging. There are numerous studies showing that quite a few of the forensic methods used in court are flawed and judges often struggle with Daubert adherence, with one of the issues being lack of science literacy. There have been multiple calls for more rigorous means to ensure scientific validity (here is one from the Obama White House https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/ostp/PCAST/pcast_forensic_science_report_final.pdf) But again, in practice apparently there was little improvement. Or at least that is the impression I got from reading articles such as this here: https://www.scispace.com/pdf/forensic-science-daubert-s-failure-3fqt704qv8.pdf I suspect it will depend a lot on the judge and their perception on AI how admissible the evidence is. However, as there is a strong desire from tech companies to push AI into everything, I suspect that until sufficiently evidence to the contrary is being presented, it will be also accepted, like similarly other iffy forms of forensic data. In otherwise highly regulated areas, such as medicine, machine-learning algorithms had a huge impact on many levels, from medical imaging, operation of medical instruments, patient-donor selections, to diagnoses and insurance pricing. Often, it took years until failures became apparent (e.g. due to poor selection of training data, overfitting or simply disconnect with realities on the ground). This will likely happen in the judiciary.

No doubt, regulations are written in blood as the saying goes. Strangely, it is never the blood of profiteers. Great, I now know that you want to make lembas muffins for larvae. Do you want me to write the whole recipe or should we torture the elves first?