Human actions

[Acim]

Are actions of an organism (particularly humans) part of, or related to, biological evolution?

I'm thinking no, but curious if there is any degree to which behavior, and specific intended (or even unintended) actions that are conceived as part of evolutionary theory?

 

[Android]

I'd say no.
In fact, our behaviour often goes against our evolved innate urges.
Take contraception for example, we have the urge to have sex so we can pass on our genes, yet we choose to use contraception to avoid passing on our genes.

 

[Thief]

Are actions of an organism (particularly humans) part of, or related to, biological evolution?

I'm thinking no, but curious if there is any degree to which behavior, and specific intended (or even unintended) actions that are conceived as part of evolutionary theory?

Humans would be the exception...we know we die.

But ignoring that, most of us live out our lives as if tomorrow will be there.

Check the motivation of what you hand does and you will see....
you are chasing after your flesh.

We become the exception only when we pursue life after death.

 

[Yerda]

You might find the field of evolutionary psychology interesting. It's controversial, if you like that sort of thing...

 

[painted wolf]

Are actions of an organism (particularly humans) part of, or related to, biological evolution?

I'm thinking no, but curious if there is any degree to which behavior, and specific intended (or even unintended) actions that are conceived as part of evolutionary theory?

While our behavior is generally plastic, we are still constrained by our biological evolution.

wa:do

 

[painted wolf]

Here are some experiments that show some of these limitations.

Asch conformity experiments - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Milgram experiment - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Stanford prison experiment - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Bystander effect - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Hofling hospital experiment - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

and so on...

Not to mention the clear role biology plays in disorders like schizophrenia.

wa:do

 

[Acim]

I'd say no.
In fact, our behaviour often goes against our evolved innate urges.
Take contraception for example, we have the urge to have sex so we can pass on our genes, yet we choose to use contraception to avoid passing on our genes.

Okay, so part of what was occurring to me, in typing up OP, was whether or not no responses would conflict with idea of homosexuality being directly related to the topic of biological evolution?

To be as clear as possible before this goes further, I am about as pro homosexual rights and understanding of that as I think anyone.

I also would be clear that this was only part of what was occurring to me. I would say small part, and in vein of less than 25%.

I was actually thinking more along lines of how human actions, given intelligence, can seem to speed up evolution in a sense, or in an indirect way. That, to me, has almost nothing to do with the homosexual question, and is really where I was mostly coming from in asking the question.

I would also just say that I find it illogical to conceive of humans in vein of "exception" or "unnatural" given what is observably at work. Like, science is part of that process. Observably so (or inferred, I would say). As if speciation 'wanted' to get to point where it would study itself. Obviously 'wanted to' isn't something we are all going to agree on, and yet, here we are doing just that.

To conclude that what humans are doing is unnatural, is far reaching, illogical, and says a thing or two about what science is observably doing and technically is about.

 

[painted wolf]

Actually contraception isn't against our instincts.... Females are better off raising fewer stronger offspring than a lot of less well cared for ones.

Which is why females are pro-contraception while males tend to be against it.

wa:do

 

[lunakilo]

Actually contraception isn't against our instincts.... Females are better off raising fewer stronger offspring than a lot of less well cared for ones.

Which is why females are pro-contraception while males tend to be against it.

wa:do

Hmm, not sure I agree there.

In areas where women use contraception the birthrate is low. Often it is so low that the population is decreasing. How is a decreasing population good for survival?

 

[painted wolf]

Hmm, not sure I agree there.

In areas where women use contraception the birthrate is low. Often it is so low that the population is decreasing. How is a decreasing population good for survival?

Longer lifespan, better health, less competition for resources.... and that goes just for the parents. The children also get better treatment and so on.

The population is actually leveling out, not decreasing. And It's even more destructive to have a population that is exponentially growing. Resources are finite.

wa:do

 

[lunakilo]

Longer lifespan, better health, less competition for resources.... and that goes just for the parents. The children also get better treatment and so on.

What matters in evolutionary terms is that enough of your children survive to carry on your genes, not how good a good a life they have.

If you have one child which has a good life and survives to have children of its own, and another person has 10 children who have horrible lives and only 3 survive to have children of their own, then the person who had 3 children survive is still leading the evolutionary race.

The population is actually leveling out, not decreasing.

On a global scale the population is leveling out, but in some countries the population is decreasing. Germany for example. There the birth rate is simply lower than the death rate.

And It's even more destructive to have a population that is exponentially growing. Resources are finite.

wa:do

True, but if you get into a situation where you run out of resources and people start to die your genes are mor likely to be carried on if you have a lot of children.

You may be partly responsible for the problem if you have many children, but evolution doesn't care.

 

[painted wolf]

What matters in evolutionary terms is that enough of your children survive to carry on your genes, not how good a good a life they have.

Healthy children are more likely to survive. Look at the difference in infant and child mortality between countries that have contraception and those that don't.

Yes, you can have a dozen children, but if 80% of them don't survive to reproduce then it doesn't matter. It also doesn't help if they are sickly as adults because of childhood malnutrition and disease.

Also, malnourished children reach sexual maturity later than healthy children and their overall fitness is reduced on the long term.
The effect of chronic childhood malnutrition on pubertal growth and development
Childhood exposure to the 1944
If conditions persist into reproductive age due to overpopulation than infant mortality sky rockets. Mothers are unable to provide enough nutrition to the growing fetus nor enough milk for the child once it's born. Thus the energy put into reproduction is wasted effort and is a negative fitness measure.

If you have one child which has a good life and survives to have children of its own, and another person has 10 children who have horrible lives and only 3 survive to have children of their own, then the person who had 3 children survive is still leading the evolutionary race.

Not necessarily.... childhood nutrition and health impacts their ability to reproduce in the future. If you have three sickly grown children, then you are in the long run still worse off than the person with one healthy child who is primed for a longer and more successful reproductive future. This is where we start to get into eppigenetic factors on reproduction.

For example having a grandparent who smoked is just as dangerous, if not more so, than having a parent to smoked, due to long term eppigenetic damage.

On a global scale the population is leveling out, but in some countries the population is decreasing. Germany for example. There the birth rate is simply lower than the death rate.

So what?

True, but if you get into a situation where you run out of resources and people start to die your genes are mor likely to be carried on if you have a lot of children.

No they aren't. If you have a lot of sickly children they will not increase your fitness in the long term.
Remember that a single child can have a disproportionate effect on the populations genetics. (mtDNA eve, Ychromosome Adam, the one individual with the blue eye gene, the one person born with the lactose tolerance gene and so on.)
One child is all you need, if that child is healthy and has a fitness advantage. (and being healthy is a fitness advantage)

You may be partly responsible for the problem if you have many children, but evolution doesn't care.

Which is why evolution doesn't care if you pump out 20 children or more... but they will be at increased risk of disease, genetic abnormalities and early death and not improve your odds of getting genes in the next generation. Not to mention the strain on the mother, who doesn't want to kill herself young from too many births.

Carrying capacity is a very important factor for species....

It's a common misunderstanding of evolution that simply pumping out offspring is a benefit. Much like the misunderstanding of "survival of the fittest". If we were r selected species than you may have a very valid point, but we are K selected. This is where ecology has a profound impact on evolutionary success.

wa:do

 

[Android]

Actually contraception isn't against our instincts....

I agree with everything you said except this.

This is learned behaviour not innate. You have to understand how reproduction works before you can start using contraception.

 

[Sunstone]

For behavior to have not evolved, genes must play no role in behavior.

 

[Android]

We know (from studying identical twins seperated at birth) that genotype is about 50% responsible for our behaviour, the other 50% is learned from our environment.

My point was... that we havent known about contraception long enough for it to be innate.

 

[painted wolf]

No you don't have to.... There is a biological drive for women to have fewer "healthier" offspring than a lot of "weak" ones. This is supported by numerous studies and experiments. (this is also why females are so choosy about males)

Females put a lot more investment into offspring, both in time and biological energy, thus the adaptive impetus is to reduce the number in favor of "quality". Which is why every cultures female population has had reproductive "solutions" to the problem. Contraception as it is known in the west is only the most obvious application.
Contraceptives have been documented as far back as Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt. Herbal methods are known from almost every documented native culture studied in any great depth by anthropologists.
Some easily accessible information on the subject.
Birth control - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

wa:do

 

[jarofthoughts]

Are actions of an organism (particularly humans) part of, or related to, biological evolution?

Our actions and our behaviour, and that of any other organism for that matter, is to a large degree a result of evolution.
That includes the actions that cause us to build things and therefore also the things we build.
This was explained in great detail in Richard Dawkins' excellent book 'The Extended Phenotype'.

So the short answer to your question is 'yes'.

 

[Acim]

Our actions and our behaviour, and that of any other organism for that matter, is to a large degree a result of evolution.
That includes the actions that cause us to build things and therefore also the things we build.
This was explained in great detail in Richard Dawkins' excellent book 'The Extended Phenotype'.

So the short answer to your question is 'yes'.

That gets at around half, maybe a lot more, of what I was asking, and does make me ask, what would be exceptions, if any to actions we do, but are not result of evolution?

The other part is how our actions are leading to evolutionary changes. So one way of saying things is:

Evolution happens - our behavior results

And I'm wondering to what degree the following may be true / accurate:

Our behavior happens - evolutionary changes occur?

Like alcoholism may be part of way of explaining this. And may not, as I'm not one who sees alcoholism as 'disease' or 'genetic' but I'm assuming some reading this see it exactly in that way, which will only help with point I'm getting across. Alcoholism strikes me as condition where we did something to 'natural order' through our behavior, and evolution adapted. Okay, "evolution adapted" may be less appropriate way of putting things, but hopefully that leeway is allowed for what I'm getting across.

And to be clear, on both counts, I'd like to extrapolate as much in either version, that has been studied or is to whatever degree deemed reasonable. Too many things to consider, really, but an example of extrapolation would be, "if our behavior happens, and evolutionary changes do occur as a result, would this mean that musical ability is (or has potential of being) a genetic trait?"

 

[jarofthoughts]

Evolution happens - our behavior results

And I'm wondering to what degree the following may be true / accurate:

Our behavior happens - evolutionary changes occur?

Both would be an accurate description seeing as selection takes place in relation to a species' environment. Thus everything that happens in that environment is likely to have an evolutionary effect to some degree or another, and for humans our environment consists, to a very large degree, of other humans.

Like alcoholism may be part of way of explaining this. And may not, as I'm not one who sees alcoholism as 'disease' or 'genetic' but I'm assuming some reading this see it exactly in that way, which will only help with point I'm getting across. Alcoholism strikes me as condition where we did something to 'natural order' through our behavior, and evolution adapted. Okay, "evolution adapted" may be less appropriate way of putting things, but hopefully that leeway is allowed for what I'm getting across.

Could your point be expressed as 'we influence our own evolution'?
If so, that is exactly right.

And to be clear, on both counts, I'd like to extrapolate as much in either version, that has been studied or is to whatever degree deemed reasonable. Too many things to consider, really, but an example of extrapolation would be, "if our behavior happens, and evolutionary changes do occur as a result, would this mean that musical ability is (or has potential of being) a genetic trait?"

Here is a Finnish study indicating that this may be the case: (Genome-wide linkage scan for loci of musical aptitude in Finnish families: evidence for a major locus at 4q22 -- Pulli et al. 45 (7): 451 -- Journal of Medical Genetics).
Granted, this is a small study (only 15 familes), so it is hardly conclusive, but yes, musical or creative ability may very well be a genetic trait.
However, before we jump the gun and say that everything is down to inherited genes, your environment plays an important role too, with regards to fulfilling potential and exposing weaknesses.
We’re basically made up of two distinct components; heritage (DNA) and environmental influences. As recent research into genetic factors have shown, these two components actually become somewhat intertwined as time goes by, and we now know that environmental factors can change the way your DNA works.
Gene regulatory proteins and the specific DNA sequences that these proteins recognize act as genetic ‘switches’ that can turn a gene on and off, and does so during our formative years, in particular during embryonic development. What we’ve learned is that environmental factors; chemicals, stress and so on, can also influence these genetic switches.
So let’s say you have two identical twins. For all intents and purposes their genetic makeup is similar. However, if those twins were separated at birth and grew up in different environments, while their core DNA would still be mirror images of each other, their genetic switches would not. And thus you can actually have identical twins that have different health risks, different susceptibilities to various substances and so on.

 

[Thief]

That gets at around half, maybe a lot more, of what I was asking, and does make me ask, what would be exceptions, if any to actions we do, but are not result of evolution?

The other part is how our actions are leading to evolutionary changes. So one way of saying things is:

Evolution happens - our behavior results

And I'm wondering to what degree the following may be true / accurate:

Our behavior happens - evolutionary changes occur?

Like alcoholism may be part of way of explaining this. And may not, as I'm not one who sees alcoholism as 'disease' or 'genetic' but I'm assuming some reading this see it exactly in that way, which will only help with point I'm getting across. Alcoholism strikes me as condition where we did something to 'natural order' through our behavior, and evolution adapted. Okay, "evolution adapted" may be less appropriate way of putting things, but hopefully that leeway is allowed for what I'm getting across.

And to be clear, on both counts, I'd like to extrapolate as much in either version, that has been studied or is to whatever degree deemed reasonable. Too many things to consider, really, but an example of extrapolation would be, "if our behavior happens, and evolutionary changes do occur as a result, would this mean that musical ability is (or has potential of being) a genetic trait?"

Have you seen Food Inc....?
A documentary of what we eat...on a large scale.

Does man make choices that will alter our evolution?...yes.

Do we know what the outcome will be?.....no.

And it's not just our food supply.

How you deal with your fellow man will make a difference.
This was known.... long, long ago.

In the beginning, a large aggressive fellow would have whatever his desire...just for the taking.
A smaller fellow would be forced away....or die.

Law, such as an 'eye for an eye', stymied some of that behavior.

'Do unto others as you would have them do unto you'...goes even further.