Firstly, any mutation that does occur is likely to be determined as abnormal and modern medicine will attempt to "fix" the mutation.

Secondly, we have no hardships in modern society for any mutation to prove itself to be beneficial. If we take, for example, a giraffe, we can assume that it originally looked something similar to a horse. As time passed it proved to be beneficial for them to have longer necks and because the shorter giraffes could not reach the taller trees they died. In our modern society, there is no chance for any mutation to prove itself to be beneficial because we can always find alternate solutions to any problems we face. For example, it may have proved to be beneficial for us to be able to run faster, but because we invented cars, we had no need to be able to run fast.

Of course, this all assumes that evolution is going to continue as it has in the past. That merely physical mutations will be passed on to future generations. Though perhaps, it is not entirely ridiculous to think that evolution will not continue in this manner, but will take an entirely different course.

Thoughts?

Post edited at 5:46 pm on Nov. 8, 2009 by Jettie12

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I snort like a true woman. - CherryD
Black, get in the back, Brown can stick around, but not with me,
Yellow, best not be mellow, the Red band can go to hell man,
And White, continue to do what's always right.

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If there is no need for a "mutation" then what does it matter?

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Because we are no longer in a progressive state. We have merely plateaued and will stay as we are.

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If it's beneficial, why would it try to be fixed?

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The point is, we would never know if it is beneficial because it never has the chance to prove its worth. We would only view it as an abnormality and then attempt to make it "normal".

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Quote: from Sick Duck at 5:43 pm on Nov. 8, 2009

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If there is no need for a "mutation" then what does it matter?

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Because we are no longer in a progressive state. We have merely plateaued and will stay as we are.

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Our brains are evolving, we are getting smarter as the years go by. We have no need to physically evolve.

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You have to define what you mean by "smarter".

If you mean that we are gaining more knowledge, then yes, I would agree we are getting "smarter".

But this is not what I consider becoming "smarter". I would say this is becoming more aware. I would define "smarter" as something similar to an IQ test, something that cannot prove your knowledge but proves your reasoning abilities and different intelligences. This, I do not believe, has change much, if at all, over the centuries. You would be hard pressed to find objective evidence to support this too.

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Quote: from Sick Duck at 5:46 pm on Nov. 8, 2009

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Our brains are evolving, we are getting smarter as the years go by. We have no need to physically evolve.

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You have to define what you mean by "smarter".

If you mean that we are gaining more knowledge, then yes, I would agree we are getting "smarter".

But this is not what I consider becoming "smarter". I would say this is becoming more aware. I would define "smarter" as something similar to an IQ test, something that cannot prove your knowledge but proves your reasoning abilities and different intelligences. This, I do not believe, has change much, if at all, over the centuries. You would be hard pressed to find objective evidence to support this too.

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Okay, we are gaining more knowledge. We have gotten to the point where we can create basically anything to fix the smallest problems. As an entire race, there is no need to physically evolve anymore.

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Gaining knowledge is not an evolutionary process. So our brains would not be evolving.

Im not only speaking of physical evolution either, we deny the chance for any part of us to evolve.

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Don't be a scrotumbrain.

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Well we haven't been that long here on earth. Evolution is a slow process, but I am sure it will happen like what she said.

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We can see different human species evolving within 300k to 200k years. The first homo sapiens were found about 250k years ago.

I realize it is a slow process, but my point is that we may be inhibiting our own evolution.

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Our brains are evovling.

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Evolving how? I already touched on your "smarter" theory.

Give a response with some substance.