Thumbs Are the New Fingers for GameBoy Youth

An anonymous reader writes "Reuters is running an interesting story on how the use of gadgets such as mobile phones and GameBoys has caused a physical mutation in young people's hands. The use of the thumb is a deviation from the use of the index finger..."

Comments

Not a mutation

[Jonathan]

It is possible that the use of hand-held devices make one's own thumbs more dextrous, but that certainly doesn't cause a mutation, which is a genetic change. That would be Lamarkian inheritance of accquired characteristics. Both Slashdot and the article are using a completely incorrect term.

Re:Not a mutation

[bloggins02]

MODERATORS!!! Are you on crack? This is in no way "off-topic". The shift in allele frequencies to favor this trait through evolution would:

a) not have happened yet, there hasn't been enough time

b) not happen at all. How does scoring more points on your gameboy increase your reproductive fitness?

Thus, the only way to posit that the latest generations have somehow developed a "mutation" which causes their thumbs to be more nimble is to invoke Lamarkism (which is primarily the view that acquired changes in the genetic code are inhereted by the next generation). This view has been refuted in so many ways it's not even funny, and for slashdot and the publication to use the word "mutation" clearly shows a lack of understanding of the fundamental processes of evolution.

Why not try the more obvious approach: those people who have had to use their thumbs in more exacting roles tend to increase their skills in the use of their thumbs.

Would you say it was a mutation that was causing all piano players to have more dextrous hands?

Mutation?

[asobala]

They're suggesting people have used thumbs so often that they are more skilled with using thumbs than index fingers. Not a mutation.

Old news

[tardibear]

See here for articles from last year on this topic.

Thumbs

[jezreel]

Thumbs are one of the major evolutionary factors that are responsible for the state in which humankind is now.
The opposing thumb for handling tools, the brain and the upright walk.... So the fact that ppl excessively use their thumbs could be -if you look at it from another perspective- referred to evolution. Though the term 'mutation' is rather wrong here.

As long as we'll use keyboard we won't end up using just our opposing thumbs :-)

Re:dictionary.com

[khuber]

1. The act or process of being altered or changed.
2. An alteration or change, as in nature, form, or quality.

Why don't you go look up "connotation" and "denotation" in your fancy computer dictionary too, cut and paste boy.

P.S. you forgot to paste entries 3 (genetics) and 4 (linguistics).

-Kevin

Uh no...

[kypper]

Well, far be it for me, a biochemistry student, to argue with a dictionary that gives an overall definition of each word, but... you're wrong.
Mutation is a genetic alteration at the cellular level; what these people are doing is training their bodies, in this case, their thumbs, in such a way that they have better control. You could technically paint with your toes as well (many people do it) but it's not a mutation.
A mutation is a random alteration of one or more chromosomes in the nucleus of the cell resulting in different productions/responses.
Nor is the parent of your comment correct, either; a mutation does NOT have to be in the germ line cells in order to be a mutation (in which case the mutation would be transmitted to offspring). Mutations can occur in standard mitotic cells and never be passed to offspring; Lemarkian inheritance has nothing to do with anything, but especially not with mitotic cells. I think we all know that a 'mutation' for the dexterity of the thumb is not occuring in the 'balls' of the 'gentlemen' who use technology and then father offspring.

Re:Uh no...

[56ker]

Here's a link to the original story - original story. In it mutation is not mentioned at all - which makes me think it was added when the article was re-written at Reuters - then the mistake added. Strangely the /. headline is the original Observer one & not the Reuters one.

Re:Uh no...

[mutende]

I was sure at the time the article was different!

Perhaps it has mutated? :-)

Then again, in an earlier refererence to Plant's studies, the acquired thumb skills seem to play only a minor rôle.To quote from the article:

• Personal Power: Cell phones have given people a new-found personal power, enabling unprecedented mobility and allowing them to conduct their business wherever they go.
• Gender Differences: Females tend to value their cell phone as a means of expression and social communication, while males tend to use it as an interactive toy. However, evidence suggests that males are becoming far more chatty and communicative as a result of cell phone use.
• Male Status Symbols: Men have a tendency to display their cell phones more proudly, using them to display their aggression in front of other men, and almost like a mating ritual in front of women.
• Stereotypes: Dr. Plant identified six distinctive types of cell phone users based upon common traits and characteristics, and compared these types with six different kinds of birds. Owls, for example, tend to keep their cell phone use to a minimum, making and taking only necessary calls, while starlings tend to be more aggressive, pushing their way through crowds while talking loudly on their cell phones.
• Innies and Outies: There are two distinct types of cell phone users - ``innies'' are quiet, discreet and unobtrusive with their mobile conversations, while ``outies'' are louder and less concerned with the perceptions of people around them.
• Secret Phones: Many cell phone users keep a secret second phone to conduct love affairs or clandestine business deals, or even just as a hotline between friends.
• The Thumb Generation: Texting has had a profound effect on the way teenagers use their thumbs in some regions. Because they are used to tapping out numbers and messages with their thumbs, they now point and even ring doorbells with their thumb instead of their forefinger.

Thus the thumb dexterity is mentioned as the last item on the list, and the word mutate doesn't appear at all...

dict.org

[Sc00ter]

From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) :

Mutation \Mu*ta"tion\, n. [L. mutatio, fr. mutare to change: cf. F. mutation. See Mutable.]
Change; alteration, either in form or qualities.

The vicissitude or mutations in the superior globe are no fit matter for this present argument. --Bacon.

From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) :

Mutation \Mu*ta"tion\, n.
1. (Biol.) Gradual definitely tending variation, such as may be observed in a group of organisms in the fossils of successive geological levels.

2. (Biol.)
(a) As now employed (first by de Vries), a sudden variation (the offspring differing from its parents in some well-marked character or characters) as distinguished from a gradual variations in which the new characters become fully developed only in the course of many generations. The occurrence of mutations, and the hereditary transmission, under some conditions, of the characters so appearing, are well-established facts; whether the process has played an important part in the evolution of the existing species and other groups of organisms is a disputed question.
(b) The result of the above process; a suddenly produced variation.

From WordNet (r) 1.6 :

mutation
n 1: an organism that has characteristics resulting from chromosomal alteration [syn: mutant, sport]
2: the process or event of mutating

Detective Work; I have uncovered bullshit

[sam_handelman]

You can find the exact text of the original "research", such as it is, here. Google dwells in the sky and rules us.

The thing is a glossy advertising sheet which motorala purchased - NOT a research paper. The word "Data" DOES NOT EVEN APPEAR. Likewise, the words power, mean and measurement, and the letter n, are nowhere used in any statistical sense. The "research" seems to involve no hard numbers WHATSOEVER. The report has no references, although the author has peppered it with the names of her friends, along with vague, sweeping claims about the results of their "research" (if you can find evidence anywhere of where this supposed work was reported, by all means, post!) If there was ever any primary data associated with this report, it is not here and I cannot find it, although Dr. Plant includes a dozen glossy photographs she took herself. Dr. Sophie Plant, the author of the article, has quit her job at the University of Warwick's cybernetic culture research unit (a fact reuters also glosses over) in order, supposedly, to write full time.

Incidentally, the cybernetic culture research unit, established by Dr. Sadie Plant (author of the report), seems to do a lot of, yes I will keep the quotes, "research" into the experiences of people abducted by UFOs. Their homepage reads like the ravings of a new age schizophrenic.

This paper is absolute vapor; even in the field of Sociology is stands out for it's lack of substance.

Re:This questions the old ideas about evolution

[young-earth]

The point I was making and apparently did not carry across is that presenting known false "proofs" makes it look like it's not science. It really should be just plain facts not fancy in textbooks. And while you are clearly smart enough and well enough educated to recognize the problem with Haekel, kids in high school around the US are being taught that as a proof of evolution.

Okay, examples for Haekel's embryos: Biggs, Kapicka, Lundgren, "Biology, the dynamics of life", 1998, ISBN 0028254317. Also Futuyama, "Evolutionary Biology", 1998, ISBN 0878931899. And Guttman, "Biology", 1999, ISBN 0697223663. And Miller & Levine,"Biology", 2000, ISBN 013334362659.

There are more but I think that makes the point rather clearly. Your statement

No one believes in "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny" anymore. No one. No one even remotely mainstream claims that the fact that embryos sometimes look like earlier evolutionary forms "proves" evolution, or even means very much of anything at all.

is not borne out by the facts - the above and other textbooks are teaching this and other lies every year. As long as lies like this are being taught, what can you expect people who find out the "proofs" they were taught are lies to believe after the exposing of the falsehoods?