[lbo-talk] was Weath Distribution and hot air something

[Miles Jackson]

James Heartfield wrote:
> Miles
> 
> "How can this be?  If evolution "ceases" when a species shapes its
> environment, then evolution has stopped for beavers, birds, wild cats,
> spiders, ants, etc."
> 
> No, they don't shape their environment, because they don't create a mental 
> picture of how they want to change it before they do. Once people introduced 
> reason into their relationship with nature, they introduced a principle of 
> change that was much more rapid than the leisurely pace of natural 
> selection. So, for example, over around a hundred years, people put 
> something like twenty years onto their life expectancy. That could not have 
> happened through natural selection. It could only happen through the impact 
> of human industry onto human development.

I don't understand your reasoning.  The existence of sociocultural 
innovation and the changes in human life that provokes occur alongside 
and interact with evolutionary forces.  There are many, many aspects of 
human life that have little or nothing to do with evolution; even 
evolutionary theorists like Gould emphasize that.  However, the 
existence of these social forces does not somehow render null and void 
the ongoing impact of evolution in shaping human characteristics.  It 
will continue to be true that genetic characteristics that increase 
reproductive success in a given environment will become more common in 
the human gene pool, and genetic characteristics that decrease 
reproductive success will become less common.  Social innovations can 
contribute to the environment that makes certain traits adaptive, but 
social innovation cannot nullify evolutionary processes.

--One more thing; your comment about life expectancy makes me a bit 
suspicious about your understanding of the basic principles of 
evolution.  The basis of natural selection is reproductive success, not 
length of life per se (tacking on 20 years of life post-reproductive age 
would not easily happen via evolutionary processes).  Thus the example 
of life expectancy is not demonstrating that an effect once determined 
by evolution is now due to social forces; rather, it is showing that 
sociocultural forces work alongside and interact with natural selection.

If all you're trying to emphasize is that there are many 
nonevolutionary, sociocultural forces that shape human life, I'm right 
there with you.  However, it requires a willful misunderstanding of 
evolution to assert that we've somehow transcended evolutionary processes.

Miles