Human Species May Split In Two

gEvil (beta) writes "According to an article at the BBC, an evolutionary theorist in London suggests that humanity may split into two sub-species within the next 100,000 years. From the article: 'The descendants of the genetic upper class would be tall, slim, healthy, attractive, intelligent, and creative and a far cry from the "underclass" humans who would have evolved into dim-witted, ugly, squat goblin-like creatures.'" No missing link here, we already have the troll-like humans to prove it.

Comments

So to be clear...

[Anonymous Coward]

Half of us will be Swedish, and the other half will be British?

Re:So to be clear...

[Savage-Rabbit]

Half of us will be Swedish, and the other half will be British?

Yes and the Brits will make revolting sausages out of the Swedes and eat them with bacon and eggs.

Re:So to be clear...

[Anonymous Coward]

Somebody tag this as Old News, please! H.G. Wells made a very similar prediction more than a century ago.

Re:So to be clear...

[colonslashslash]

I'm British, but that was fucking hilarious. Mod up haha.

I, for one, welcome our futuristic tall, slim, attractive, intelligent and creative sauna loving meatball munching copyright infringing swashbuckling pirate blonde overlords. May death come quickly to their enemies. Yaaaaar!

Re:So to be clear...

[slughead]

Half of us will be Swedish, and the other half will be British?

From the Oh-Snap! Dept.

Re:So to be clear...

[Gentlewhisper]

Half of us will be Swedish, and the other half will be British?

Nah, the top half will be the Mac users. The other half will be.. you know.

Re:So to be clear...

[pilgrim23]

I know! lets call one group Eloi and the other...oh...say Morlocks!
after all...you are who you eat...

Re:So to be clear...

[ehrichweiss]

The smart, beautiful and creative ones?

Re:So to be clear...

[gkhan1]

Yeah, I know. How come you can land of the frontpage of /. by simply repeating the plot from the The Time Machine? Silly rabbit...

Re:So to be clear...

[marklark]

This is not a new idea.

Read Aldus Huxley's Brave New World

Re:So to be clear...

[WilliamSChips]

Linus is a Swede ethnically. And do you really think a PHP channel is the best place to find people that can code?

Re:So to be clear...

[einhverfr]

I didn't think the morlocks made sausage.... But then it was a long time since I read the book.

Re:So to be clear...

[einhverfr]

This was not a new idea when Huxley was writing.

Time Machine by HG Wells, anyone?

Re:So to be clear...

[Ray]

I think we already have ample proof that won't be the case.

I, for one, welcome our dim-witted, ugly, squat goblin-like overlords.

Re:So to be clear...

[Skevin]

> Hopefully, half of us will still have boobs.

In the USA, 65% of the population have prominent breasts. The only problem is, only 50% of the population is female.

Solomon

Re:So to be clear...

[siriuskase]

Apple will have 50% market share?

Re:So to be clear...

[unknownideal]

A Brave New World had exactly nothing to do with evolution. The members of the society depicted in that story were tailored to their specific function via genetic engineering.

1984, on the other hand, does suggest this, in almost the precise words of the article:

"He looked round the canteen again. Nearly everyone was ugly, and would still have been ugly even if dressed otherwise than in the uniform blue overalls. On the far side of the room, sitting at a table alone, a small, curiously beetle-like man was drinking a cup of coffee, his little eyes darting suspicious glances from side to side. How easy it was, thought Winston, if you did not look about you, to believe that the physical type set up by the Party as an ideal-tall muscular youths and deep-bosomed maidens, blond-haired, vital, sunburnt, carefree -- existed and even predominated. Actually, so far as he could judge, the majority of people in Airstrip One were small, dark, and ill-favoured. It was curious how that beetle-like type proliferated in the Ministries: little dumpy men, growing stout very early in life, with short legs, swift scuttling movements, and fat inscrutable faces with very small eyes. It was the type that seemed to flourish best under the dominion of the Party."

Re:So to be clear...

[jafac]

Actually - it's older than that.

There's this book called The Bible (author; disputed, age; roughly 2500 years?) that tells the story of an ancient nomadic race of goat-herders called the Hebrews. One of their laws was to discourage marriage outside their own race. Only the Hebrews were the Creator's favored race, and the rest were damned.

Re:So to be clear...

[sita]

There's this book called The Bible (author; disputed, age; roughly 2500 years?) that tells the story of an ancient nomadic race of goat-herders called the Hebrews. One of their laws was to discourage marriage outside their own race. Only the Hebrews were the Creator's favored race, and the rest were damned.

Wrong on all accounts. The Hebrews didn't exactly believe themselves to be favoured. They believed that they were God's tool to bring salvation to all of humanity. They also didn't believe that this made them any better than the rest of humanity (but it did bring a lot of punishment from God for not being). Sometimes it worked, Jonah, who wasn't exactly a role model, but perhaps more of a warning example, brought God's message to the citizens of Nineve, who turned away from their wicked ways and were saved. And so on.

And, as you probably know, marriage between prominent Hebrews and outsiders weren't exactly rare. Even moabite (supposedly the worst people Israel knew of) married into Israel. Jacob married Arameans, Josef an Egyptian. The wife of Moses is widely held to have been a black women (a cushite). And Boaz' wife Ruth is the role model of all women who marry into the Jewish people today. (The list is much longer, and I seem to remember that it didn't always work out well, but people were people even in biblic times.)

And finally, the Hebrews weren't a race of goat-herders. They did a lot of things (including herding goats, of course)!

Confounding factors

[BWJones]

*Snort!* Ha ha ha ha ha ha....... heeeee ha ha ha ha ha! *sniff*.......

In all seriousness though, there is nothing new here as this certainly plays off any number of sci-fi subjects going back to the late 1800s and early 1900s. People have been obsessed with this sort of thing for years and in fact, was the basis of racial profiling, discrimination, murder and genocide by the Nazis in the 1930s through eugenics.

The funny thing though is that even though many folks are obsessed with image and "beauty", people will choose mates for a variety of different reasons, that sometimes boggle the mind in their complexity or pathology and as long as you have people that are..... less than attractive with large amounts of financial reserves, you will always have confounds in the system. Other confounds are simply human relationships. For instance, my wife and I decided to date and then marry only after we had been good friends for some period of time. The fact that she is physically attractive was only incidental which brings up a whole other category of people who meet and then fall in love over the Internet without ever having met in person.

Oh, and speaking of confounds, the increasing use of plastic surgery among those that 1) have real reason to use it (true disfigurement) and 2) are just vain enough to want it (lips, cheeks, chins, breasts) will have an effect on this as well, leading to a whole new aspect of relationships. What is false advertising when it comes to body modification? Breasts are pretty easy to detect, but what about that nose which might have been bobbed? Straightened? What about those cheekbones? Teeth? All of these mods and others will confound any selection pressure and likely will increase in their statistical impact the more important "beauty" becomes to societies.

But hey, you know..... The Clone Wars will take care of all of this sort of nonsense..... or will it be Skynet? :-)

Re:Confounding factors

[Anonymous Coward]

What is false advertising when it comes to body modification? Breasts are pretty easy to detect, but what about that nose which might have been bobbed? Straightened? What about those cheekbones? Teeth? All of these mods and others will confound any selection pressure and likely will increase in their statistical impact the more important "beauty" becomes to societies.

This is why you check out other members of the family. You get an idea what their mom and aunts grandmas look like. You can easily get an idea whether they've augmented and if they'll age "gracefully".

Re:Confounding factors

[rolfwind]

Nazis in the 1930s through eugenics.

Lest people think that Eugenics could only happened under the Nazis, various mental health places in America and other countries were practicing forms of it until the 1960-70s with practices like sterilizing the mentally handicapped:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics#Eugenics_and _the_state.2C_1890s.E2.80.931945

"Despite the changed postwar attitude towards eugenics in the U.S. and some European countries, a few nations, notably, Canada and Sweden, maintained large-scale eugenics programs, including forced sterilization of mentally handicapped individuals, as well as other practices, until the 1970s. In the United States, sterilizations capped off in the 1960s, though the eugenics movement had largely lost most popular and political support by the end of the 1930s.[27]"

If you ever watched "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest", there seems to have been other practices (Lobotomy) that lived until recently as well that seem barbaric today....

Re:Confounding factors

[MadMorf]

True. Here's some info on North Carolina's "Eugenics Board":

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7242649/site/newsweek/

Stereotypical Predictions from Dr. Curry ...

[skitheboat]

Direct quotes from Dr. Curry's article:
Men: "... bigger penises"
Women: "... pert breasts" (and presumably larger/fuller too)
I gotta wonder how valid this "research" truly is - sounds like something Dr. Frankenstein or Homer Simpson would have written - D'OH! ;-)

Well done ScuttleMonkey with the "Missing Link" addition.

Re:Stereotypical Predictions from Dr. Curry ...

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Women: "... pert breasts" (and presumably larger/fuller too)

Boy, he really hasn't studied human beings enough, has he? First he expects smart people to be beautiful (or the converse) and now he expects large boobs to be pert?

Re:Stereotypical Predictions from Dr. Curry ...

[dumdeedum]

First he expects smart people to be beautiful (or the converse) and now he expects large boobs to be pert?

Hush up, you. They may have taken away our dreams of flying cars and houses on the Moon, but breasts that are both large and pert is a future worth fighting for!

Re:Stereotypical Predictions from Dr. Curry ...

[fermion]

He lost credibility when he mentioned that 'tall, slender' as evolutionary beneficial. From my understanding, the tallness and slenderness of a person can have as much to do with environment as genetics. Immigrants to the US might be short and stocky, but the diet of the US often leads to the children to be much taller. A immigrant parent might be slender, and stay so, but the children are often more likely obese.

Now, if the tall slender people are more likely to mate, and keep the refuse out, then perhaps a subspecies will develop. OTOH, given that slenderness can be as much a function of surgery as genetics, it might seen a bit far fetched that a master race will develop.

In any case, it is unclear what the benefit of increasingly tall and frail frames might be. OTOH, it is clear that a tall frail frame has quite a few evolutionary drawbacks, often requiring much more care than a stocky frame.

As far as the timeline is concerned, the 100,000 year number can be found just be extrapolating the geologic record. About 400,000 years ago the first Homo Sapien appeared. About 200,000 years later, the Homo Sapien N appeared. About 100,000 years later, the Homo Sapein S, or us, appeared and apparently wiped out our cousins to become the dominant species. Hominid type have been around for maybe 5 million years, and have had varying degrees of success. Perhaps we have another 100,000 years and the Homo Sapian will be replaced with another Hominid. Certainly the the optomistic view is that another Homo Sapien subspecies will appear, wipe us out, and carry on the Sapien branch.

The article author isn't named Wells

[georgeha]

by chance?

Sure, the Eloi are better looking

[homerjfong]

But when the all clear sounds, which side would you want to be on?

It's already happening

[TheWoozle]

Just take a look at professional athletes. They're bigger, stronger, and faster than even just two generations ago. We're starting to see more and more offspring of atheletes following in the footsteps of their parents. And to top it off, they make more money and have more prospects for reproducing.

Our genetic upper-class is already here.

Re:It's already happening

[Anonymous Coward]

"Our genetic upper-class is already here."

Umm, no it's not. You clearly have no understanding of evolution or genetics. It takes a liiitle longer than two or three generations to have a visible effect.

Re:It's already happening

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Yeah, but where do the brains come in? Athletes are not exactly known for their creativity or intelligence.

Re:It's already happening

[masdog]

They're bigger, stronger, and faster than even just two generations ago.

That's not evolution - that's steroids.

Re:It's already happening

[darkmeridian]

Sports stars are not it because they do not exclusively intermarry, and breast implants are not heritable. Instead, I think the fear is the "uncivilized" world. If we do not do something about it, Africans and the denizens of the Third World will fork into their own species. They do not get enough food, they do not get adequate health care, HIV/AIDS is killing everyone, and there is no selection for longevity because everyone dies young. This idea is horribly racist and insensitive, yes, but that's only because we have been acting in such a racist and insensitive manner. (Do you think we would let Caucasiasn starve to death?)

Re:It's already happening

[demachina]

"They're bigger, stronger, and faster than even just two generations ago."

That is mostly due to better chemistry, primarily the use of steroids, not genetics. The benefits of steroids aren't propagated through reproduction. Better diet has also led to both taller, healthier, athletic people and overweight, unhealthy people. Abundant cheap, subsidized, high fructose corn syrup alone is creating millions of overweight diabetic Americans.

I doubt you will ever see dramatic genetic changes over the space of two generations especially when mating choices are fairly random in modern society. Slavery did produce dramatic physical improvement in the gene pool in American blacks but it was over the course of a number of generations, with brutal breeding constraints enforced by slave owners coupled with selectively in the harvesting of slaves from Africa by slavers.

An interesting paradox that will work against this proposed genetic "upper class" is the fact that there is a pronounced trend for highly educated, affluent, beautiful people to reproduce in relatively low numbers while the uneducated and poverty stricken are usually reproducing at a dramatically higher rate in this world. Now maybe the "upper class" can preserve well protected islands of affluence where they dominate and survive, but they could just as easily be swept under when someday the underclass figure out that the world order is concentrating the world's wealth and well being in the hands of a tiny often undeserving minority while the rest of the world lives in grinding misery. Maybe the "upper class" can hold power though economic, political, technological and military means but I wouldn't count on it.

To be honest I really don't expect the human race to survive in tact another thousand years, let alone a hundred thousand years. A few basic factors working against us:

- Our inability to control our population growth, religions in particular pour fuel on this fire by trying to maximize the growth of their flock by obstructing birth control
- Our dominant economic system, capitalism, simply isn't sustainable because its predicated on maximizing growth which is devastating our finite habitat and again its concentrating ever more wealth in ever fewer hands and that probably isn't sustainable, before there is revolt.
- Our technological advances are dramatically outstripping our wisdom in applying and controlling them. Biological manipulation and weapons alone are a grave threat to survival of our species, along with nuclear proliferation.

Another factor that works against the creation of a genetic upper class is that people raised in affluence and without adversity often end up being complete losers. People who succeed in the face of adversity and serious obstacles are much stronger people than those raised with a silver spoon in their mouths. You need to look no further than America's two biggest dynasties the Kennedy's and the Bush's to see the deficiencies that develop in generations raised on a silver spoon.

A thousand years out I imagine we will have rendered most species on the planet extinct including our own, through cataclysmic climate change and decimation of land and oceans alike in a vain attempt to feed billions more people. It took millions of years to sequester carbon dioxide in the ground and cool our climate, and we are going to unleash it all in the space of a couple hundred years and the results will be cataclysmic. It took hundreds of millions of years for earth to develop its diversity and abundance of life forms and again in hundreds of years we will have decimated all of them.

I wouldn't mind if the human race took itself out, but its unfortunate its going to take out the rest of the planet thanks to our rampant hubris and avarice.

Re:It's already happening

[krebcycle]

Maybe more than two or three, but not as many as you might think. When doing studies on moths in England they were able to notice that before the industrial revolution the moths were white to blend with the birch tree bark. During the industrial revolution when the coal smoke pollution darkened the bark color, the moths changed to a darker grey color. After they stopped burning as much coal, the moths changed color back to white.

Re:It's already happening

[Dun Malg]

"Our genetic upper-class is already here."

Umm, no it's not. You clearly have no understanding of evolution or genetics. It takes a liiitle longer than two or three generations to have a visible effect.

Additionally, unless you believe in the long-ago-discredited theory of Lamarckian Evolution, a bunch of musclehead athletes pumped up on steroids and scientifically tweaked diet and weight training programs will not end up with musclehead athlete children through genetics.

Re:It's already happening

[inKubus]

You can also look at the Tsarist Russia example, wherein the royal family became so inbred they couldn't get rid of the hemophilia.

America kindof goes against this trend anyway, being the "melting pot" that it is. Of course, there are a lot of cultures that look down upon marrying someone outside of your culture. Some Asians and Indians. Granted, that will be solved in a few generations of Americanizing.

Survival of the species style evolution kindof depends on the opposite of survival; that is, lower suited genetics need to perish. Unless we all follow scientology, I don't see this happening in the modern age.

Re:It's already happening

[minsyntax]

In insects, it's fairly common to have genetic mutations in "master control genes" that can turn other sets of genes all on or off. So you could have a leg growing where an antenna should, for instance. In humans (and mammals in general) mutations don't occur at the master control gene level, so changes that large are rare. The few that occur are "minor" in the sense that they might code for a particular protein that does something-or-other on the surface of red blood cells.

Of course, such a mutation could still cause something serious to a human, but insects can, to put it in street language, "evolve faster" than humans. A couple moths with a mutation for a whole new wing colour could hit the reproductive jackpot if the environment was right.

Not to mention that five to ten human generations during some period of time corresponds to two hundred or so moth generations (if they live a year).

So, in the end, tall athletes = nutrition, practice, and often, drugs. Not evolution.

Re:It's already happening

[Vicissidude]

People who succeed in the face of adversity and serious obstacles are much stronger people than those raised with a silver spoon in their mouths. You need to look no further than America's two biggest dynasties the Kennedy's and the Bush's to see the deficiencies that develop in generations raised on a silver spoon.

Or Paris Hilton vs Mr Hilton.

Re:It's already happening

[nhavar]

Not quite accurate.

There would have been a number of moths in the population that were naturally dark prior to the industrial revolution. Those moths would have suffered higher predation than the lighter colored moths which blended in more easily. This would have kept their numbers very low. During the IR the darker colored moths would have blended in more easily and the roles been reversed, allowing the already naturally occuring dark moths to increase in number while the lighter colored moths were kept down by predation. The mutations existed pre-IR. Natural variation allowed that type of moth to survive through different environmental changes. They didn't split into two species.

There's no such environmental change and no predator to enforce that level of natural selection on humans. Plus for the fact that there's no motivation for pretty people to only select other pretty people to procreate with. I've seen plenty of cavemen with beautiful mates.

Re:It's already happening

[Trailer Trash]

Do you think we would let Caucasiasn starve to death?

The problems in Africa aren't our fault. We send plenty of aid, but it ends up lining the pockets of Robert Mugabe and his ilk more than the people who need it. It's not a racial issue; it's a cultural issue.

Re:It's already happening

[Dun Malg]

I'd also mention the way military health benefits have been cut recently, but that one may actually BE racist.

No, not racist, just generically shitty. The racial distribution of the military has pretty closely mirrored the general population since it went all-volunteer. Skewing towards greater numbers from minority groups was entirely a byproduct of the draft.

Re:It's already happening

[runcible]

In 2002, 11.1% of American households were "food insecure" every single day of the year -- meaning basically they didn't have enough money to buy all food needed to sustain the household. In the same year 3.5% of households were "hungry" meaning that not only could they not healthily sustain, they couldn't meet their energy budgets.

So it's clear to me that not only am I willing to let Caucasians starve to death, I'm willing to let my figurative and perhaps indeed even literal ( I live in Manhattan ) *neighbors* starve to death, regardless of their color.

Re:It's already happening

[shutdown -p now]

I think we need to obviously find some way to feed these poor people and transform third world countries into much better places to live where the people have enought to eat, feel secure, and can enrich themselves with vast intellectual pursuits.

Feeding all those people for some time is not a problem. Getting them to the level where they can feed themselves is what we really need, and that is a problem.

Re:It's already happening

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

If we do not do something about it, Africans and the denizens of the Third World will fork into their own species.

I think this line basically sums up what this entire story is about. Educated white people predicting that their "superior" strain of humanity will evolve into a more "perfect" form than other "lesser" strains of humanity. We heard all this before in the great age of colonial racism, and the logic is still flawed.

Let's look at the facts.

When does a species begin to diverge? The answer is when separate populations of that species exist in different enviornments for a long enough period, typically hundreds of thousands of years. One gets two seperate species at the point where individuals from the disparate populations are no longer able to mate to produce fertile offsping. Clearly, dispite over 50,000 years of separation between some human groups, this has not occurred.

To be sure, there are regional difference in human populations. Our species, like any other, will adapt over time to the enviornment in its locality. As long as human populations remain separated in different enviornments, yes, we can eventually expcet to see divergence into seperate species.

Now, lets consider how seperated human populations are today. I can buy an airline ticket to take me to the other side of the globe for less than a months wages. In prior times, a months wage would barely have gotten me into the next country. With improved communications, separate populations of humans have more incentive, more oppertunity, and more motive to communicate, and ultimately interbreed with one another. In fact, such are the benefits of this increased communication, that human communities who choose to isolate themselves are far more likely to become extinct than diverge.

Once one follows the basic tenants to evolutionary theory, the future of humanity is writ clear. We are all destined to intermingle into one diverse population, with no real "racial" or "ethic" groups. The gene pool will be larger, healthier and disease resistant than our current homogenous populations, which are based more on skin colour than anything else. Incidently, most people in the future will have more or less the same skin tone, whos tint will depend on how degredated the ozone layer becomes.

This is so obvious and inevitable, it's barely worth mentioning. However, it of course involves something quite a lot of rich white folks do not approve of, that is people marrying outside their race. Hence they moan on again and again about "purity" of blood, even when we know that people who's parents are from different races are on average healthier, smarter and more attractive.

So give the eugenists the finger and do your future offspring a favour. Marry someone outside your "race", if there is such a thing,

Re:It's already happening

[metlin]

Umm, who said you had to play sports all the time?

Do it once or twice a week to unwind, and you'd be surprised at how consistent playing of any sport can improve your performance. I used to work at a certain national lab where I worked with some really smart people - and these people always had time for other things. Oh, they were geeks alright, but they loved doing other "athletic" things - and I'd really be careful about calling a theoretical physicist or a mathematician that what he does is "soft work". S/he probably think that writing an OS or software engineering is soft.

Just as being just athletic and not doing anything else is bad, doing geeky things and not doing anything athletic is equally bad. Both are at the opposite sides of the spectrum, and one is not better than the other.

How about being balanced, and finding time for work and play?

The problem with this is

[Marxist Hacker 42]

That he's got his use cases mixed. Intelligent, creative people are far less likely to pay attention to personal appearance, where beautiful people are far less likely to pay attention to mental pursuits.

Re:The problem with this is

[Tsiangkun]

I can't tell if you are being funny or insightful, but I agree with your statement.

I think we are more likely to end up with intelligent goblins and beautiful brainless fairies, if there will only be two groups.

Re:The problem with this is

[Scrameustache]

Intelligent, creative people are far less likely to pay attention to personal appearance

In order to dissuade you from this dellusion, I direct your attention to my dearest of college discoveries: Sexy art chicks.

Re:The problem with this is

[Seydlitz]

I must disagree. Having spent time with various groups of students around the UK, I always find that the students at the 'better' Universities [Oxford, Imperial, etc] invariably take much better care of themselves, and are generally more attractive to boot. This, of course, is only a general observation, but seems to hold true. There's also a class divide at play; the wealthy south [UK again] are generally a lot more healthy than the poorer north; and it's generally considered difficult to be attractive when you're morbidly obese :)

Probably quite an interesting study in why this should be, although it's rather outside the scope of my CS course to conduct it :)

Re:The problem with this is

[megaditto]

So if my ideal partner is a musician with a doctorate in Brain science (looks not important, under-300 lbs, 4 intact limbs preferred), does that make me an intelligent goblin or a brainless fairy?

My point is that humans will select a mate very much unlike them, and the opposites will attract.

Re:The problem with this is

[revery]

Sexy art chicks.

Ah, yes, the sort of girl who will destroy your soul and then break up with you via interpretive dance, a psychedelic barrage of Tempera paint, and a thousand posterboard paper cuts.

Re:The problem with this is

[aadvancedGIR]

Years ago, I read an article about a study in which women were asked to chose mens by smelling tshirt they wore for a couple of days.
The conclusion was that there was no real winner but rather that most whomen chosed the man who had the most different immune pattern from their own.

Of course, in modern civilization, it is far from being the most important mating choice reason.

Good timing...

[Arathon]

I guess we should all be happy we came along now. Better to be dim-witted, ugly, squat goblin-like creatures while it's still politically incorrect to call us such.

Hey!!

[nate nice]

As a dim-witted, ugly, squat goblin-like creature, I take offense to this!

Re:Hey!!

[dbIII]

As a dim-witted, ugly, squat goblin-like creature, I take offense to this!

There's no point being precious about it.

Stats?

[Datamonstar]

So... what kind of stats do the short goblin-like humans get? Want to make sure I don't inadvertadly lower any of my prime skills. ;P

wait, that sounds familiar..

[sam_paris]

Mac users and PC users You work out which is which..

Fox

[DoofusOfDeath]

Hey, it's only Fox New's fault if Republicans and Democrats entirely stop cross-breeding!

(You can't call it a troll if I don't say which one becomes the upper class :p)

Re:Fox

[slughead]

(You can't call it a troll if I don't say which one becomes the upper class :p)

Sure I can! I'm libertarian, you insensitive clod!

Morlocks and Eloi, anyone?

[sebFlyte]

"He carried out the report for men's satellite TV channel Bravo." Because I go to Bravo for all my evolutionary biology needs. This sounds like a joke, really. The guy in question got a cheque from a tabloid TV channel, nicked HG Well's idea, and laughed all the way to the bank. Nice work if you can get it.

Re:Morlocks and Eloi, anyone?

[gEvil (beta)]

You also have to take into account the bit that got cut from my blurb--he's from the London School of Economics. I don't know anything about that place, but from its name I'm guessing it's not particularly known for it's evolutionary biology program.

Re:Morlocks and Eloi, anyone?

[Mr. Shotgun]

A brief Bio of the guy:here
and the course work offered at the London School of Economics: here
He is apparently a researcher for the Evolutionary Moral Psychology Group at LSE. The group doesn't seem too keen on actual biology or evolutionary research, just extrapolating biological theory into philosophical concepts so his prediction should be taken with a rather large grain of salt.

Pets? Similar to gadgets?

[x_MeRLiN_x]

"However, Dr Curry warns, in 10,000 years time humans may have paid a genetic price for relying on technology. Spoiled by gadgets designed to meet their every need, they could come to resemble domesticated animals." I fail to see the similarities between relying on a human owner and using "gadgets designed to meet our every needs". Technology doesn't think for itself, but who knows where we'll be in such a long time? Apparently, we'll have less advertisements for penis enlargement.

Re:The Time Machine

[Anonymous Coward]

How insightful of you considering the article itself mentions H. G. Wells.

This ignores history

[MightyYar]

The problem with this is that throughout history, the ruling class has changed many times. The rich and powerful tend to get beheaded from time-to-time, making way for a new rich and powerful set. Putin has little lineage from Catherine the Great, Chirac has little relation to Marie Antoinette...

Re:This ignores history

[venicebeach]

Not only that, they are not genetically isolated. All it takes is Thomas Jefferson to screw some slaves every once in a while and we all stay part of the same species...

Re:This ignores history

[TempeTerra]

Not to mention that even apart from the high chance of promiscuity, social elites that actually manage to stay exclusive (or perhaps only mix 'outwards' as with Jefferson) have trouble with recessive genes piling up after a few generations. Haemophilia and no chins, anyone?

obligatory charles heston reference

[triffid_98]

A planet where apes evolved from men?

Nova was the perfect woman. Beautiful, Compliant, Mute.

Cup Holders!

[the_last_tmnt]

Following his logic, we will all also grow cup holders out of our sides and men will develop urinals out of the end of their genitals.

Figures...

[scooter.higher]

Just another step towards the elimination of the middle class...

Hmmmm... soma

[Scrameustache]

The summary mentions Alphas and Epsilons, but glosses over the transitional Betas, Gammas and Deltas.

Umm...

[M0bius]

Musicians are proof of how untrue this theory is because they show time and again that the hottest of ladies will sleep with the ugliest of guys as long as they can play a guitar, normalizing the gene pool.

Troll-like humans?

[Alizarin Erythrosin]

No missing link here, we already have the troll-like humans to prove it.

Yeah, they're called politicians!

Come on... high five! Anybody?

Re:Why just two?

[Salvance]

You just made me think of something ... if there was a split in our species, how many people would find it a novelty to try to "mate" with the other species, and eventually bring us back to 1 species? The only way it would seem like they'd stay split is if the new species had a different # of chromosomes ...

Troll 1: Hey Biff, I just banged a Homo Tallenperty
Troll 2: Unga bunga ... sweet, can I have some more cheetos?

Seems like this would be repeated on both sides until we'd all be back to our mildly ghoulish yet mildly attractive selves of today.

Home Run Time

[mattwarden]

From the article: 'The descendants of the genetic upper class would be tall, slim, healthy, attractive, intelligent, and creative and a far cry from the "underclass" humans who would have evolved into dim-witted, ugly, squat goblin-like creatures.

Talk about a setup. I predict 90% of the comments on this article will be modded funny (regardless of whether they actually are).

if i recall my "time machine" properly

[circletimessquare]

it was the "ugly, squat goblin-like creatures" who were not "dim-witted", but intelligent and ran the world (not an underclass, but they did live underground). While the "tall, slim, healthy, attractive" ones were not at all "intelligent, and creative," but were utterly empty headed vapid frail cattle... literally. they were food. they were all vegetarians and they were regularly slaughtered for the meat eating underrulers

but why anyone would seek sustenance by eating a bag of antlers like lindsay lohan is beyond me. utter science fiction, on that point alone

100000 years?? humans?!?

[wall0159]

Of course, we all know that the cockroaches will rule by then..

I, for one, welcome them.. ;-)

tag: dumb.

[headkase]

The "evolutionist" didn't even point out that natural evolution for humans is over. It ended when Fire was state-of-the-art. But I'll go out on a limb and say that there will be distinct species of human in 200 years. Not through natural evolution but through genetic engineering. Even if we didn't alter the selection pressures on humans for 100,000 years there would still be enough genetic drift that we wouldn't recognize our decendants. But I guess we'd instinctively look both ways before crossing the street by then....
Trollin' trollin' trollin' keep those Morlocks trollin'...

Rubbish

[Un pobre guey]

This moronic hypothesis must be decades old.

It assumes that rich people will stop having sex with poor people. Anybody see any logic flaws here?

Re:Rubbish

[ydrol]

It assumes that rich people will stop having sex with poor people. Anybody see any logic flaws here?

Also there is a counter argument that actually mixing the genes across "races" or "sub-species" reduces the impact of facial mutations that make people less attractive. That is why women of mixed races/backgrounds often seem more attractive on average than women whose parents are from the same 'stock'. (or is it just a fetish of mine?)

This is based on *what*?

[Shimmer]

Is there any evidence at all to support these predictions? I didn't see any in the article. His credentials (London School of Economics) hardly convince me that he's an "expert" in the field of... what? Super-futuristic anthropological speculation, I guess.

No one alive today knows what the next 100,000 years hold for humanity. No one. It's just too complex a subject and too long a time period to make any reasonable predictions about. Heck, no one even knows what the next 10 or 100 years hold, let alone 100,000.

This is just a typical sensationalistic "news" story designed to attract eyeballs. It's not based in science or reality. You can make up your own long-term predictions with just as much authority.

Contraception

[justin12345]

Given that contraception is the real barrier to procreation these days, I guess women will evolve to be forgetful (namely in forgetting to their pill), and men will evolve to be impulsive or stupid (too impulsive to use a condom, or too stupid to use one properly).

Wait....

A Warning that Must be Heeded

[rlp]

... ugly, squat goblin-like creatures

Yet another dire consequence of too much time playing MMORPG's. As if the recent South Park wasn't warning enough.

Generally, yes.

[jd]

Affluent people don't become rich by throwing away money. Kids are expensive and earn you nothing.

Also, athletic bodies are often damaged or disfigured with massive hormone imbalances and other severe (and occasionally fatal) problems. Gymnasts, for example, do not mature correctly and often suffer from muscle and bone disorders. Body builders, weight-lifters, etc, can disfigure their hearts - I would not expect life-expectency to be nearly so high. Rugby players - well, I can see them evolving into a whole new species that has less to do with class and more to do with causing sheer terror when barreling down the playing field. Soccer players can suffer damage to hearing or their pre-frontal lobes, from a mixture of heading and smashing into the ground at high speed. It's usually not lethal, but if you look at the various team managers for the England squad, it's clearly harmful to thought processes.

Re:Generally, yes.

[flibbajobber]

*None* of the problems you have mentioned would be passed to a next generation through genetics. Besides, the elite few don't use drugs or extreme training to become elite - they use it to become the elitest. Therefore they are already at the superior end of the gene spectrum.

eLoi Dreams

[Doc Ruby]

What kind of idiocy is this "genetic theory" from Oliver Curry? Where is the evidence for humans abandoning at least hundreds of generations of "racial" mating exclusion in favor of thousands of generations of "class" inbreeding? Where's the selection criterion forcing that division of mating opportunity by work in much more extreme degree than the millenia-old class system that has failed to produce the results Curry predicts in the future?

Humans have been dependent on "technology" to reproduce for many thousands of generations. Tech is freeing us ever more from any selection criteria except infectious disease (just more unevenly). Current tech trends make genetics ever less important to using tech, which further decouples it from evolutionary mechanics.

Curry just wants smooth-skinned women with big eyes and "pert" breasts, who he thinks will prefer "graceful" nerds like him to the exclusion of the "robust" people who like tech less. So what? So he thinks HG Wells' The Time Machine is a prediction of our future more than a social satire on Wells' Victorian classist society. He should stick to hack SF rehashes, and leave the genetics to people who are realistic enough to actually get laid.

Sauna-loving Swedes?

[Soulfarmer]

Swedes love their bastu, it is us Finns that love SAUNA. Sweden is practically the only western country that wants to use their own word for sauna, bastu.

I just HAD to clarify this, since I love sauna and I am Finnish. And I am not even sure swedes love their bastu.

Other than that, yaaar!

Re:Sauna-loving Swedes?

[Clueless Moron]

"Bastu" is a perfectly good and quite old Swedish word, originally coming from "bad stuga", which basically means "bath house".

The word is around 500 years old, for crying out loud.

He is 1/2 write

[earthforce_1]

I think the species will probably split, but not in the way he thinks. (Assuming we don't wipe ourselves out of existance which is highly likley, but that is another thread)

Humans will evolve to live in the sea, and with the pressure and gravity difference of other worlds. We will adapt and evolve as our environments dictate, and if technology eventually permits we will actually rewrite our own genetic code to suit our whims.

Wasn't this...

[Nom du Keyboard]

Wasn't this an original Star Trek episode. The Cloud Minders, if memory serves.

And IIRC, some of them (her) wasn't ugly at all!

Besides, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Each new race might find themselves quite attractive.

(Slashdot Rule #17: Any post mentioning Star Trek the original series is to automatically be modded Insightful.)

Re:whoever wrote the article is gay.

[buswolley]

Are you kidding.. The rich get their fashion from the poor..

Bush Family Trees

[Doc Ruby]

George Bush Jr's grandfather Prescott Bush was a eugenicist, consistent with his work funding Hitler's Nazis. Prescott's law partner Tighe was the Connecticut (Bush family home state) director of the eugenics "Birth Control League". Prescott's boss Averell Harriman was one of the main promoters of American eugenics.

Re:Bush Family Trees

[Venik]

Din't do a very good job, now did he? As they say, eugenics starts at home.

Re:Bush Family Trees

[Geoffreyerffoeg]

George Bush Jr's grandfather Prescott Bush ... Prescott's law partner Tighe ... Connecticut (Bush family home state) ... Prescott's boss Averell Harriman

"I...am your father's...father's...law partner's...and home state's...and boss's...ad hominem."
"So what does that make us?"
"Absolutely nothing. Which is what your argument means!"

Re:Bush Family Trees

[Doc Ruby]

In point of fact, I said nothing about George Bush Jr except that his grandfather was an asshole. And I backed up that attack on Grampa Prescott with facts. Prescott Bush isn't just some random person, he's the patriarch of Bush Jr's rich and powerful political family. When I replied to comment on the continuing status of the history of American eugenics in which Prescott Bush looms so large, of course it was worth mentioning that the eugenics patriarch is also the current president's patriarch.

So your strawman argument, that I somehow made any "argument" about Bush Jr, let alone an "ad hominem" argument, is specious. Useless. "Absolutely nothing", it's sometimes called.

Except commentary on Bush worshippers like you. So scared of your own shadow that you jump out of your skin when your worst fear, the skeletons in Bush Jr's closet, rattle you into defending from arguments that weren't even presented.

Time to fall on your lightsaber.

Re:Bush Family Trees

[operagost]

"Planned Parenthood" was founded by Margaret Sanger, a eugenicist, and was part of that 20th century eugenics movement.

Remember that next time you try to politicize good and evil.

By the way: the President is not "George Bush, Jr." He is George Walker Bush. His father is George Herbert Walker Bush.

Re:Bush Family Trees

[thedbp]

Christianity is stupid. Give up.

Re:Bush Family Trees

[Jedi Alec]

By the way: the President is not "George Bush, Jr." He is George Walker Bush. His father is George Herbert Walker Bush.

Ye what!? Grandpa Bush was a Dune fan? Next thing you're gonna tell me G.W. is Baron Harkonnen denying the Fremen their hajj and hordes of desert-dwelling bearded men will use the natural resource found in their sands as leverage.

On a serious note, ....

[Anonymous Coward]

The sort of evolution mentioned in the header article starting this discussion is possible only in a caste system like that in India.

In the "modern" system in the USA, economics imposes a different sort of evolution. As people become richer, they have fewer children. As people become poorer, they have more children. Those with the wits to become rich essentially become extinct, leaving a nation of teaming poor people.

In short, the socio-economics of free markets kills of the smart people by voluntary extinction.

Re:On a serious note, ....

[WhiplashII]

And more to the point, what is the evolutionary pressure? If everyone lives, then evolution stops. Evolution is a bunch of pointless changes that suddenly become important when the environment changes, wiping out everyone without the change. What you should expect from "evolution" without any "weeding out" is extreme divergence from the mean, but not much change to the mean. So you wouldn't have 2 races, you'd have 5 billion - and we would still mostly humans...

Really, who is this guy?

Re:On a serious note, ....

[Onan]

Actually, the one solid predictor of reproductive tendency (in all cultures, so far as I know) is education. More educated people are less likely to have children, less educated more likely. Of course education and affluence have a strong correlation. But when they diverge, reproductive tendency follows the schooling, not the money.

Education is not a genetically-passed trait. So while this has interesting implications for societies, it will have little or no effect on species.

Re:On a serious note, ....

[Simonetta]

As people become richer, they have fewer children. As people become poorer, they have more children.

    The rich people are much more selective about the number of children that they have. They are willing and able to invest more into each child that they produce.

    The poor have always had many children. For one thing, they don't have the access to birth control that allows the rich and middle classes to have unlimited sex (without barrier-style birth control methods like condoms, crevical caps, and diaphrams) without pregnancies. Two, historically about half of the children of the poor die before productive maturity in mid adult years. And, three, the poor have been indoctrinated by culture and religion to have as many babies as possible.

    It has only been in the recent historical era, about the past hundred years, that most of the children that the poor have reach 'productive maturity'. By that I mean not only adulthood, but also get past the self-destructive cultural brainwashing like military 'service', reckless driving, and binge intoxications that kills so many young males.

    This present era with so much population growth is directly dependent and resultant from massive amounts of cheap energy, primarily oil. As we pass through Peak Oil, when half of all the oil on Earth has been found, refined, and burned, we will find that it is increasingly difficult to keep the poor people alive and well, regardless of how much they breed. As the oil era passes and the price of oil climbs each year, more and more of the poor sections of the Earth will become like present-day Palestine. That is hopelessly overcrowded; with no resources or solid government; endlessly locked in a civil war that prevents the economic growth needed to sustain its population.

    The rich are not engaged in an unforseen policy of extinction, they are enacting an understood but unspoken policy of population sustainablility at lower levels than at the present. It is the poor that are breeding themselves into unsustainable levels. Levels that will inevitably result in a massive 'die-off' in the not-too-distant future.

Re:On a serious note, ....

[agent0range_]

Education is not a genetically-passed trait

True, but isn't intelligence a genetically-passed trait? Having access to eduaction has nothing to do with the intelligence of the person or their parents.

On a serious note, Curry hasn't said anything that hasn't been proposed before by science fiction authors like Aldus Huxley or Issac Asimov. The future division and mutation of our species is something worth considering unless you subscribe to the theory that man kind was created in some magical and purposeful way, complete with all the creatures in their current (and permenant) form.

Assuming the species survives another ten thousand years, I hope there are a lot of tall, slim, intelligent, and creative boys and girls with green eyes ;)

Re:On a serious note, ....

[dalutong]

Evolution isn't just about surviving -- it is also about who mates with who. If the smart people stop reproducing with the short people, then the divergence will still happen.

Re:On a serious note, ....

[earthbound kid]

Historically, as soon as an area created a culture or civilization worth talking about a great religion sprang up and encouraged the smartest people to become celibate monks or priests. In the West, the Christians told smart people to become priests and monks and fornicate not, and likewise in the East, India was (and still is) covered in celibate holymen of various stripes. Nevertheless, no one would argue that the Europe, India, and China are any dumber than the other areas of the earth where these kinds of practices didn't exist in the past. I think the whole issue is overblown.

Re:On a serious note, ....

[laejoh]

For one thing, they don't have the access to birth control that allows the rich and middle classes to have unlimited sex (without barrier-style birth control methods like condoms, crevical caps, and diaphrams) without pregnancies.

What's this unlimited sex you're talking about?

Re:On a serious note, ....

[ErroneousBee]

Evolution is not about massive shifts in genetics within a single generation.

It can be, just look at Downs Syndrome or dwarfism or albinism to see how much a simple genetic change can cause quite large body morphisms. Imagine if some unfortunate had all 3 plus excessive hairyness. They'd look like me.

Re:On a serious note, ....

[jawtheshark]

Ah, another married slashdotter....

Re:On a serious note, ....

[AGMW]

And its a shame the the world doesn't equal the USA ..."

Not wanting to contradict you there friend, but no, it isn't a shame that the World doesn't equal the USA. The US has it's plus points (for example, I love your steak and oversized portions) but it sure as hell ain't perfect.

It's a nice place to visit but I wouldn't want to live there.

Re:On a serious note, ....

[phozz bare]

more and more of the poor sections of the Earth will become like present-day Palestine

Exactly which part of present-day Palestine are you talking about? Israel? Gaza? The West Bank? I assume you speak of the Palestinian territories.. Have you ever been there? I think you'd be surprised at the fairly high standards of living in, say, Ramallah, Nablus or even Jenin. People have homes with running water and electricity. There are no people living in tents on the streets (as opposed to, say, India - see discussion above). The situation in Gaza may not be amazing, but this is because the leadership is devoting all its resources into developing an army capable of fighting Israel, rather than improving living standards for its civilians. It's just a question of priorities.

Sorry to be changing the subject, but I really don't get why of all choices you had to use Palestine as an example of a really hopeless and terrible place.

Re:On a serious note, ....

[Chrononium]

So by "population sustainability," you mean not sustainable at all? Sustainable would be replacement rate, but that ain't the case. The rich and/or educated generally don't have enough children to replace themselves. There's no overpopulation thing going on there and if you look at especially decadent places like Europe or the United States, immigration is the only source of population growth. Our social security models in the West are based on the idea that there are more young than old, more workers than retirees -- what are we going to do when the situation is reversed? Nothing, I contend. We'll just invite more immigrants from the comfort of our old-age homes.

Like other posters have noted, the last few hundred years have seen a population explosion because of the industrial revolution, not because of cheap oil. And as for your estimate that in the last hundred years, the poor have gotten past "cultural brainwashing like military 'service', ...", it seems to only point to your ignorance of history: remember the three major wars of the twentieth century? Ya know, the ones which killed millions upon millions of people, displaced millions more, and crafted the world political landscape where there is a sole superpower? Throughout all of that crap, only the poor survived; don't overestimate your own survival chances when history bears witness to the fact that the poor own the world and the rest of us just live here.

Re:On a serious note, ....

[OwnedByTwoCats]

You make an assumption here; that is, the reason for increased human lifespan can be traced back to cheap energy in the form of oil. This is simply not the case. The reason for increased lifespans, and massive population growth, has and always will be the industrial revolution.

And the industrial revolution was built on engines. Steam engines at first, because that was what they could make. Now, modern industrial economies require oil and electricity. Modern, industrial agriculture certainly requires significant amounts of oil and Natural Gas (as a feedstock for fertilizers and pesticides). Without modern industrial agriculture, lifespans would be significantly reduced.

When the oil becomes expensive, food will become expensive. And then what will the poor eat?

100,000 Years?

[LindseyJ]

That's a long time. We should have trancended into pure energy beings by then, or at least superintelligent shades of the colour blue.

Re:whoever wrote the article is gay.

[Gilmoure]

I call it...Derelict!

Re:I for one ... (revised)

[jmorris42]

> I haven't seen a lot of children in the families of our supposed upper class.

Yea, it is a real problem. Our socialist utopian policy planners think they can negate a billion years of evolution. While making public pronouncements establishing science as the State religion. But Mother Nature is a bitch and isn't going to cut us any slack. Assuming the barbarians at the gates from the Religion Of Peace(tm) don't wipe us off the planet while we worry about the trivia that consumes our lives, we will breed ourselves down from sentience in another couple of generations.

Think about it, evolution is all about adaptation and survival of the fittest.... with fittest defined as the specimens who succeed best at propagating their genetic material. We have inverted all of the signals, the fittest (from the p.o.v. of civilization) are discouraged from reproducing and the unfit are strongly encouraged by the welfare system to breed early and often.

Just how long can that continue? Here in the US we just crossed the 300M mark. At least half of that number is useless baggage, through lack of education, genetic fitness or both when it comes to contributing in a meaningful way in a modern information society. But a very large percentage of the next generation will come from the useless half because successful (again, as viewed by their useful contributions to civilization) people can't afford children of their own because they are too busy supporting the welfare state. And children raised by the clueless, even if they luck out on the genetic lottery and pick up some good ones from a generation or two back, will still likely be failures when raised by clueless parents and then further damaged by government schools designed to churn out mindless drones to work in factories which were long since offshored.

We are now living in a bad sci fi novel. And no, it is probably too late to change the ending, about all we can do is try to make sure a few of the more important contributions of our civilivation survive to be picked up by the survivors when everything goes to hell in another generation or two.

I think there will be 10 sub-species

[Cloud K]

Those who understand binary and those who don't.

*ahem*

Anyway, aren't there already 2... males and females... might as well be completely different species sometimes :P

Or, to take the controversial line, perhaps the two will be natives and immigrants :)

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

I think they've got it mixed up

[RogueWarrior65]

How many tall, slim, healthy, and attractive rocket scientists do you know? I'd say zero. These types are usually the jocks and prom queens. They tend to mate with one another.
How many intelligent, creative, ugly, squat goblin-like people do you know? Probably a lot. These are the geeks and nerds. They often end up alone.

More than likely, there are going to be a lot of attractive, dumber-than-a-bag-of-hammers people and a handful of brilliant trolls.

But here's something to consider: census data show that the vast majority of highly intelligent and educated couples have two or fewer children whereas couples with little or no education have three or more. IMHO, that's equivalent to the thinning of the gene pool. So, if you're a geek, date a geek and have lots of kids because that's the only way we're going to keep the world from going further down the drain.

Re:Correction to Last Sentence

[Xichekolas]

But I would argue that the only impetus to become rich is poverty. When you have nothing, you have more drive to succede, and liberal capitalism allows that. If you are born rich, or already rich, what drive is there to create anything new? Some people obviously have it, and never are satisfied, but they are the very rare exception. The most innovative ideas come from the ranks of the "poor and stupid" as you call them. Think of the founders of Google, or Andrew Carnegie, or even Jim Carrey. At one point in his life, Jim Carrey lived in a station wagon with his family. Now he makes $20 million+ a movie. If Jim were rich, or even just upper middle class, would the drive been as strong?

I think history proves that the overall condition of society constantly improves, with a setback here and again. There may still be a huge gap between today's rich and poor when it comes to looks, money, talent, education, whatever. But compare today's poor with the poor of a hundred years ago, and things are marginally better (thinking in industrialized countries... Africa is another story). I think the socio-economics of free markets kill off the rich caste, because they become complacent. Is this a bad thing? I think not. Look at the Forbes 400... not a lot of inherited wealth there. When it comes to being rich, ideas and drive count more than beauty and status.

Vi and emacs users?

[Trillan]

But which will be which?

Did you read the article you linked to?

[joggle]

It doesn't seem convincing that he intentionally funded the Nazis based on the article you linked to. The author of the article certainly doesn't seemed convinced.

Re:Did you read the article you linked to?

[Doc Ruby]

The article author downplayed the involvement, but the facts they cited speak for themselves. Not just the early investment helping Hitler's rise in the 1920s, but the much more serious "Trading with the Enemy" crimes during WWII:

"The central charge against Prescott Bush has a basis in fact. In 1942, under the Trading With the Enemy Act, the U.S. government seized several companies in which he had an interest."

Bush funding Thyssen's 1920s Nazis wasn't an accident - not when the Nazis were working on the same fascist and racist program as Bush. After the US was at war with the Nazis, after the Nazis had taken over most of Europe and their Japanese allies the other half of the planet, there was no pleading ignorance of what their earlier clients had become.

There is no benefit of the doubt left for these people. They are thugs.

Idiocracy is kind of like this story

[Schwarzchild]

Idiocracy is a movie directed by Mike Judge (director of Office Space) which tells a story of an average man who is put into cryosleep for hundreds of years and when he wakes up he discovers that he is the smartest man in the world since everyone else has become dumb.

The film is apparently difficult to get a hold of because Fox hasn't promoted the movie at all for unknown reasons.

Nazi

[wrfelts]

The speculative conclusions that this "Dr." Curry is spewing out is the same type of garbage that promotes and perpetuates racism; a racism of the worst kind, that sears someones conscience into beleiving that another human being is actually a "sub-human". If we encourage this tripe, we are asking for a return to a master race, nazi, mentality. You must remember that many noble sounding causes were based on these kinds of assumptions. Planned Parenthood, for instance was founded by Margaret Sanger for the purpose of reducing the black population because she viewed it as a threat to white purity and control. READ HER OWN BOOKS if you doubt this! Lobotomies, forced sterilization, and forced infanticide are all promoted and perpetuated by the "noble thoughts" of idiots that are broadcast to the masses as fact.

Mod me down, if you must, but someone has to speak the truth against these monsterous ideas.

BBC News is going to hell.

[Pedrito]

Okay, first of all, he's an evolutionary theorist at the London School of Economics. I simply can't believe the BBC is printing such garbage. I mean, I like sci-fi as much as the next guy, but this is pure fantasy.

But in the nearer future, humans will evolve in 1,000 years into giants between 6ft and 7ft tall, he predicts, while life-spans will have extended to 120 years, Dr Curry claims.

Well, first of all, in 1000 years, humans won't evolve to be a foot taller. Even if we were to evolve to those average heights, it'd take a lot longer than 1000 years. I would think anyone knowledgeable about evolution and genetic would know that. Second of all, 120 years? Shit, in the next 1000 years, if the past 100 have been any indication, we'll either have wiped ourselves out, or we'll have virtually unlimited lifespans because of medical advances. Natural lifespan will be completely irrelevant.

Finally, his entire theory hinges on an upper and lower class being maintained and still existing 1000 years from now. I'm not saying 1000 years from now there won't be classes, but look who was in power 1000 years ago. You think their descendents are still in power?

This guy's living in a fantasy world and for the BBC to publish this as anything but fiction is simply wreckless.

Re:BBC News is going to hell.

[craagz]

I'm not saying 1000 years from now there won't be classes, but look who was in power 1000 years ago. You think their descendents are still in power?

THANK GOD

You have made my day by suggesting 1000 years from now America won't be governed by George Z. Bush

Re:BBC News is going to hell.

[Martin S.]

first of all, he's an evolutionary theorist at the London School of Economics. I simply can't believe the BBC is printing such garbage. I mean, I like sci-fi as much as the next guy, but this is pure fantasy.

His credentials are first class. A first degree in Natural History and a PhD on the interaction between evolution and morality.

The LSE is one of the best universities in the world and is the home of the Darwin collection.

Re:Correction to Last Sentence

[JamesTKirk]

I think history proves that the overall condition of society constantly improves, with a setback here and again. There may still be a huge gap between today's rich and poor when it comes to looks, money, talent, education, whatever. But compare today's poor with the poor of a hundred years ago, and things are marginally better

I have to disagree with you there. The majority of the worlds population live in India and China. In these countries, the poor aren't any better off than they were 100 years ago, while the rich are significantly better off. The trend seems to be cyclical where the gap between the rich and the poor increases until it's not maintainable, and then there is a correction. I'm not so sure that there is any overall progress made.

Re:Correction to Last Sentence

[Xichekolas]

I would argue that the poor in those countries are better off than 100 years ago... not all of them, I'll give you that, but there are a lot more with running water and some basic access to medicine than there were back then. Relative to the Rich in those countries, they haven't progressed much, but they still progress.

K vs r selected species

[myowntrueself]

I think its along the lines of a split into K and r selected sub-species.

r-selected species reproduce rapidly with little care for offspring.

K-selected species reproduce slowly and invest heavily in their offspring.

It sounds reasonable to extrapolate this from the behavior of educated vs uneducated humans.

The educated breed less but spend more on childcare.

The uneducated breed more and don't spend so much on childcare.

We almost get this trend 'for free'.

Re:K vs r selected species

[gsasha]

Except that in animals, most of the K offsprings don't survive long enough to reproduce. Won't happen to humans - and thus the K type will dominate.

Artificial evolution

[Requiem18th]

I'm i the only one who thinks that, 100 000 years from now humans will be either:

a) Suficiently advanced as to choose their own physical apparence and bodly composition or...
b) Extinct.

those are my theories.

Poor

[Z34107]

Are you kidding me?

India has seen the end of a caste system and has moved into a knowledge-based economy. Their poor are becoming literate, and taking "our" IT jobs. The prospects for the average Indian are getting better as the days go on.

Ditto for China. The front page article of the Oct. 17 Investor's Business Daily is "Chinese Wage Growth Surging, But Hasn't Fueled Higher Prices." Although the focus of the article is on urban China (where unskilled/semiskilled workers have been seeing wage increases between 5 and 20 percent each year since 2000), it also mentions how efforts to "exploit" rural farmers for labor have also driven up their wages.

Although the "Cultural Revolution" was definitely a setback for the Chinese economy, things have been going wonderfully for them since. Consider that in the 80s, Proctor and Gamble researched expanding into the Chinese shampoo market - only to realize that there wasn't any. The average peasant could only afford a bottle the size you find complimentary with your hotel room; and even then, only once a year, for a special occaision. McDonalds and other fast food places ha da little more success, but mostly with the wealthy and tourists - as in Russia, peasants would make pilgrimages of sorts to a fast-food restaurant that they could only afford to eat at once a year.

Now, the standard of living in China is rising rapidly - people can not only feed themselves, but they have cars and consumer electronics! They have computers and internet - remember that big firewall China has? Their standard of living is rapidly approaching western standards - a far cry from when Mao Zedung encouraged peasants to smelt steel in their backyards.

Re:Poor

[Afrosheen]

Wow, you sure have a shiny opinion of India. The fact remains that the caste system is still in strong effect. On the way to the Microsoft campus in Hyderabad, you see people living in vinyl tents along the sidewalks. These people are the untouchables, nobody helps them or even looks at them. It's worse than the homeless here in the US, because at least there are hundreds (if not thousands) of nonprofits dedicated to feeding/bathing/caring for the homeless. If you're homeless in India, you are truly fucked. And about the only way to be homeless is to be born homeless, and thanks to the caste system you will stay that way until the day you meet your untimely demise. Another sad point is that during the tsunami that wrecked Southeast Asia, Sri Lanka, and India's coast, India denied any public information regarding the number of dead or missing. Why? Because everyone who lives on the beaches and coastlines in southern India where the tsunami hit is in the garbage caste. They were uncounted and the Indian government refused and barred assistance from any agency. That's pretty damn bad.

  Education is lifting Indians up, but not Indians in the lowest part of the caste. The middle class is emerging along with the upper class. It's the opposite of what's happening in the US, where the congregational focus of wealth is just becoming more and more concentrated into a very thin sliver of the populous, eroding the middle class and widening the gulf between all classes. However, the US also maintains a caste system but it's based more on personal wealth and education than bloodline. Americans at least have opportunities to get ahead, even if the glass ceiling is dropping lower by the hour for the middle class. Minimum wage hasn't budged in over a decade and congress is holding it down by the throat. In fact, the current US minimum wage, after being adjusted for inflation, is the worst it's been since 1955. $5.15 today is the equivalent of only $3.95 in 1995 -- lower than the $4.25 minimum wage level before the 1996-97 increase.

  I know how easy it is to sit back and point fingers and say 'well this country has these problems, they must be doing something wrong', so I provided the bit about the US in contrast to admit that yes, we all have our economic and social issues to deal with. Hope I enlightened someone today. :)

Re:Poor

[Anonymous Coward]

How do you know the people in the vinyl tests are untouchables? Did you ask them? People end up living in slums in India because the are *poor* not because of their caste. There are plenty of upper castes that live in slums because they cannot afford housing in the cities. I remember the news channels in India giving 24hrs coverage of the Tsunami in India with constant update of the number of missing or dead. I am not sure which rock you live under but you could have tried to turn on the TV or go online to any Indian news site. There were plenty of interviews of people from all walks of life. 27% of seats in institutes of higher learning are reserved for SC/ST (lower castes) in India. In some states the number is over 90%. Similar number of jobs in the public sector are also set aside for them. So no education in India is not restricted to the upper class. I am not saying all the issues with caste have been solved. But it is much better than what it was at independence and is improving everyday. In fact lots of people I know in India have married *outside* their caste.

Re:Poor

[canadian_right]

While things are improving in India, many people in India do live in poverty. The middle class, if defined loosely, is about 250 to 300 million people. The middle class should be about 50% of the population in 2025 if it continues to grow at its current rate of about 1% a year. This is out of a population of about 1.1 billion people.

Only one third of rural homes have electricty.
10% live under the "poverty line", as set by the Indian government.
40% are illiterate

Re:Poor

[loraksus]

India has seen the end of a caste system
Maybe officially, but I know a whole lot of people would call bullshit on that.

and has moved into a knowledge-based economy.
Sort of. Aside from a very small minority of extremely intelligent and motivated people who are doing some damn impressive work, most indians don't work in a knowledge based economy. Unless you count reading from a script... And those are the lucky ones. There are still lots of farmers....

Their poor are becoming literate, and taking "our" IT jobs.
Their "poor" are in villages in very remote areas where not even the Army dares to enter because it is controlled by warlords and they get massacred every time they go in (look it up). These are the same places where you hear of village elders who sentence the offender's daughter to be gang raped, wives being burned alive, etc.
Yes, there are a good number of educated Indians, however keep in mind that India also has a lot of people. A whole lot of those people live in some pretty shitty places and don't even have power 24 hours a day.

The prospects for the average Indian are getting better as the days go on.
Maybe, but they still have a ways to go.

Re:Poor

[XchristX]

About poverty in India:

It is a highly controversial topic. There is bias in all directions. Certainly, the western media (oddly, the liberals most of all) love to portray India exclusively as a country of beggars and untouchables. It certainly makes them feel secure in their hatred of Indians.

However, there is no doubt that the human development index of India has risen remarkably over the last few decades (certainly a lot more than other countries in the subcontinent, where the poverty situation is worse).

There is an ongoing controversy over poverty statistics and figures made during the nineties, with some economists, banks, sociologists siding with the figures that indicate reduced poverty and others siding with
the "India is a country of beggars and untouchables" polemic.

The world bank's assessment is below:
http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/COUNTRIES /SOUTHASIAEXT/EXTSAREGTOPPOVRED/0,,contentMDK:2057 4067~menuPK:493447~pagePK:34004173~piPK:34003707~t heSitePK:493441,00.html

The Indian debate has run parallel to, and is itself a large part of, the wider debate about globalization and poverty. The economic reforms of the early 1990s were followed by rates of economic growth that were high by Indian historical standards. The effects on poverty remain controversial, and the official numbers published by the Government of India,showing a reduction of poverty from 36 percent of the population in 1993 - 94 to 26 percent of the population in 1999 - 00, have been challenged both for allegedly showing too little and too much poverty reduction

Issues over "data and dogma" in a paper published by a Princeton Univ prof and a world bank guy:

http://poverty2.forumone.com/files/15168_deaton_ko zel_2004.pdf

There has been a consensus on the fact that liberalization has led to a reduction of income poverty. The picture, however, is not so clear if one considers other factors (such as health, education, crime and access to infrastructure). Some have criticozed the stats as too one-dimensional.However, they only criticize, and do not offer any ways to objectively gauge all the criteria for poverty in India, suggesting that they are simply whining.

With the rapid economic growth that India is experiencing, it is likely that a significant fraction of the rural population will continue to migrate toward cities, making the issue of urban poverty more significant in the long run

http://www.csh-delhi.com/events/downloads/Backgrou ndNote67102006.pdf

Although there is no full consensus on what happened to Indian poverty in the 1990s, it is claimed that the official estimates of poverty reduction are too optimistic, particularly for rural India. This alleged overoptimism was amplified by statistical uncertainty that created space for commentators to argue that poverty had been virtually eliminated in India in the wake of the economic reforms.

On the other side, well-known economits Pravin Visaria have defended the validity of many of the statistics that demonstrated the reduction in overall poverty in India, as well as the declration made by India's Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha that poverty in India has reduced significantly.

He asserts that the state surveys were well designed and supervised and felt that just because they did not appear to fit preconceived notions about poverty in India,they should not be dismissed outright

http://www.india-today.com/itoday/20010319/jairam. shtml

Also, Nicholas Stern, vi

Re:Poor

[ma_sivakumar]

Caste is still alive and kicking in India.

• You can go to any online matrimonial sites for Indians (example (no affiliation) and look at ads categorised into castes.
• All leading newspapers ( example (no affliation) run classifieds every week caste wise.
• In major states there are caste based political parties gaining strength year by year. example BSP , PMK

Having said that there are major initiatives to help the suppressed castes to come up in life. Reservations for the most backward castes (classified as scheduled castes) and tribal populations (scheduled tribes) are in vogue for decades in all central and state government employment and higher education institutions.

Many states have gone further and implemented reservations for other categories of backward castes too. There is a raging debate about this issue. There are proposals to extend the reservation concept to the private sector too.

In short, yes, the caste system is still alive as thousands of years of practices are hard to kick in decades. But, there are definite efforts to get rid of the stigma attached to the so called lower castes and help everyone to have a decent life.

Those who live on the pavements are not necessarily of lower caste. They could be migrant farmers from the villages. The caste system operates with all its tragedies in villages, not in big cities.

Re:Poor

[XchristX]

Not only that, but the chief forger of the Indian Constitution, Bhimrao "Babasaheb" Ambedkar, himself a Dalit "untouchable", was extremely critical of religion and discrimination, specifically of the practice of discriminating against the Dalit "untouchables" in Hindu society and the rampant discrimination of the Arzal "untouchables" in Muslim society in South Asia.

His position on castes was likened to that of the American founding fathers on the separation of religion and state. In addition, Amebedkar frequently cited the reforms of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in Turkey as precedent for abolishing untouchability.

He absolutely loathed the Varnas among Hindus and the Ashraf/Ajlaf divide + the Quomiyat/Beradari system among Muslims. His criticism was so aggressive that he became rather unpopular among orthodox Hindu Brahmins and orthodox Muslim Mullahs, particularly among the Muslim League people in Pakistan, which was formed during Ambedkar's time (all this despite that fact that Ambedkar supported the segregation of Pakistan).

Plus, the president and commander-in-chief of India's armed forces from 1997-2002 was K.R. Narayanan, a Dalit "untouchable". The current president of India, Abdul Kalam, is an "Ajlaf" (low caste) Muslim.
Also, Abdus Salaam, a famous physicist known for his work on the Glashow Weinberg Salaam electroweak theory that earned him a Nobel Prize, was a low-caste "Mojahir" Muslim by birth.

Reservation in India (a more drastic version of affirmative action) is a horrible idea as it completely removes all concept of position by merit. The argument that "my granddaddy was forced to carry night soil from one end of my village to another so please give me a seat in IIT despite the fact that I don't know how to integrate x*e^(x) and have never heard of complex variables" only goes so far. It goes far enough to warrant, say a 20% quota, but 50%??? That's pushing it.

Btw I say this as a low caste guy myself so am not partisan at all. Putting reservation in primary/secondary schools is ok as it gives the SC/ST/OBC's the boost they need to get into the education system. But it needs to end there. Admission to colleges and higher education should be largely on merit with a small quota for political correctedness. Same for IAS and other job appointments. I personally know several SC's who were my co-students in IIT who got in by virtue of merit and did well by virtue of merit. They did not need any quota to get in as they did well on their own abilities.

The 50% quota thing is just a votebank move by politicians based on the fraudulent data inspired by the fraudulent Mandal Commission of the 70s. It is merely a ploy to get votes from the SC/ST blocs who have been polarized by sectarian "activists", themselves the most communal bastards of the lot.

Re:Poor

[XchristX]

Er, conversion to what? Islam? Muslims in India have a well-oiled Caste system already. Read about the Ashraf/Ajlaf divide The Qomiyat of Swat, Pakistan and Bengal and the jajmin/Kamin separation.

Among Muslims, the Ashraf are regarded as those descended from Arab stock and are mandated by Fatwas to be "superior" to those converted from Hinduism, called "Ajlaf". even among the Ajlaf we have the "Arzal" who are treated as untouchable. To quote a scholarly paper Arzals are those:

"with whom no other Muhammadan would associate, and who are forbidden to enter the mosque or to use the public burial ground"

http://www.indianexpress.com/story/12109.html

http://stateless.freehosting.net/Caste%20in%20Indi an%20Muslim%20Society.htm

Read this famous book by Ambedkar (I already spoke about him in a thread earlier), a Buddhist by the way, who exposes the entire Muslim Caste System in South Asia:

http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00amb edkar/ambedkar_partition/410.html

Also, read:

Aggarwal, Patrap. Caste and Social Stratification Among Muslims in India.
Social Stratification Among Muslims in India by Zarina Bhatty

and "Political theory in the Delhi Sultanate by Mohamed Habib" when the Muslim Castes of Ashraf/Ajlaf/Arzal was established by religious sancation through the Fatwa-i-Jahandari.

Convert to Christianity? Dalit Christians are the among the most persecuted people in India right now. Read about Bama Faustina, a Dalit Christian, who has exposed the atrocities committed on Dalit Christians by the Christian clergy

http://www.hinduonnet.com/2001/09/16/stories/13160 17m.htm

http://www.womenswriting.com/writerdetails.asp?wri terid=116

In the book "Sangati":
http://www.us.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/L iteratureEnglish/WorldLiterature/India/~~/dmlldz11 c2EmY2k9OTc4MDE5NTY3MDg4Mg==

Christian churches in India are largely controlled by upper caste Christian Priests and nuns. Low-caste Dalit Christians are discriminated against by the upper-caste Christians. The extent and practice of untouchability within the Indian Christian community have been researched. Chapels for Dalit Christians are often segregated from Christians of a higher caste. Other churches admit Dalit Christians, but keep separate pews for them. Dalit Christians are buried in separate cemeteries. In addition, Dalit boys are not allowed to be altar boys or lectors.In addition, there are various instances of economic discrimination where Dalit Christians are not allowed to own arable land by upper caste Christian clergy. In many Christian communities in India, bonded labor is still practiced. As a consequence of the discrimination, Dalit Christians tend to be very poor and undernourished. Dalit Christians are denied education by the Upper Caste Priests and nuns. Very few Dalit Christians are involved in administrative services, except for the few who reconverted back to Hinduism.

http://indianhope.free.fr/site_eng/article_5.php3

The only realistic religion to convert to would be Buddhism, which is no biggie because Buddhism originated in India only. However, the movement is being taken over by violent extremists and anti-Hindu bigots who have even gone so far as to side with Islamist terrorists in Kashmir who ethnically cleansed millions of Hindu

Re:Poor

[XchristX]

You are oversimplifying on several counts:

1. Corruption is hardly the argument to justify quotas. You are using straw man arguments to deflect from the issue at hand. The issue at hand is merit vs. quota. Quotas are not given on the basis of merit and that is morally and academically wrong no matter what the motivation of the opposer is (btw I am also critical of affirmative action in the USA on the same grounds even though I am intellectually sympathetic to the discrimination faced by the African Americans and Hispanics).

2. I was a "college student" and I was neither idealistic nor liberal. I was always a conservative Hindu from a low-caste (but urban middle class) background and I was not alone. I opposed reservation on the grounds that non-meritorious students would get in and professors would be forced to lower standards to accomodate them, which is precisely what is happening in my alma mater with this 50% quota crap.

3. The IAS (Indian Administrative Service) is corrupt because it is bottom heavy and hindered by quota entries with no real merit. Corruption is the effect, not the cause. Don't conflate cause and effect.

I agree with the claim that "Economic freedom does not thrive when the government gets in the way". I am a conservative as Americans would say, not a liberal "moonbat". I advocate for small decentralized government, which the present leftist UPA government in India is not doing.

Note that the so-called "Right-Wing" NDA coalition government of the last election term did precisely that, tried not to get in the way. They enacted the "Prasaar Bharati" bill which freed media from government regulation, they favored small businesses, encouraged investment, tried to reverse the isolationist policies and the horrid 5-year plans of the Congress party Government of before etc. They lost because of their disastrous election campaign and the votebank hatemongering of the liberal leftists. Their only major flaws were that they focussed too much on the small businesses which looke bad to the rurals in the short run (which the left wing propagandists exploited to the hilt), and they scared some minorities with their rhetoric (though bear in mind that President Kalam, a Muslim minority, as well as several Muslim constituencies in the state of Uttar Pradesh were and still are pro-NDA), another thing which the left-wing exaggerated and propagandized assiduously.

I'm confused...

[Belial6]

My 2 year old son has been bitten by other humans 10 times in the last 12 weeks. This would indicate he is Eloi, yet, I am far to unattractive to be anything other than a Morlok. Can Morloks produce Eloi offspring? Or do the Morloks get eaten too, and Wells forgot to mention that?

Re:I'm confused...

[Fred_A]

It could be a spontaneous mutation. Go see your neighborhood geneticist (don't eat him!), he should be interested by your case. Maybe he can publish. ;)

If Darwin is anything to shout about...

[cryptor3]

The Chinese will survive us all without any doubt.

I like Chinese, yes I like Chinese.

Re:Reproduction, selectivity, and long results.

[jets42]

In the comment above, you said:

If the smart people stop reproducing with the short people, then the divergence will still happen.

HMMmmmmmm.... That depends on whether I interpret your reference
to "short people", as meaning "people lacking in height/stature"
or "people lacking intelligence". The first one of those makes it a
TWO variable equation, with associated preferences, and the second one created a ONE variable equasion, with preferences to associate with people of similar status (resulting in divergance/polarazation and fewer "average" people in the middle over time). Well, As-Far-As-I-Know:

1. [typed with tongue-in-cheek]
   If the smart people stop reproducing with the short people,
   Then you will just wind up with progressively fewer tall short people.
   (providing that those are the ONLY parameters you define)
   If on the other hand, the "smart" people DO reproduce, but only with
   the "tall" people, then...
   • The pre-existing smart AND short people, won't be able to find "smart" people (of any height) to reproduce with, and will therefore be limited to reproducing with tall but not so smart people. This would theoretically result in average height, average intelligence people.
   • From this "average" group of people, genetics, chance, and standard deviation would result in some taller and some shorter people. Theoretically, the influence of one smarter parent would also help educate most of these children, to become "smarter than your average bear"... despite the fact that some had more "natural" ability than others due to genetic disposition.
   • The net result of this, would be that existing short+smart people would have smarter than average children of average to varying heights.
   • If the smart people persist in their refusal to reproduce with short people, then over dozens of generations, you will wind up with a population of short and stupid people, because all of their smart descendants will want to leave the group of sorties, and possibly meet/mate with taller people.
   • Meanwhile the smart and tall people can reproduce with any other tall people (either smart or not), but might pick the attractive ones, regardless.
   • In this scenario, it is the stupid people in each group, who are free to mate with absolutely anybody they want to (and who finds THEM attractive)...so they are "free agents" and spread across the board.
   • This soon results in a major shortage of tall+stupid people, to mate with the short intelligent ones!! (since short+smart people refuse to reproduce with each other, and can't attract tall+smart people, they have to either become extinct, or reproduce with tall non-smart people)
   • Now, since the tall+smart people have married the most attractive tall people across the board... short+smart people are left with tall+stupid+ugly people as mates. (who are in short supply, and high demand by short+smart people)
   • Eventually, you have a genetic bias AGAINST intelligence among the short people. Since all smart sorties are forced to marry tall+dim, the smart sorties eventually become extinct. There are progressively fewer "average height" people in the middle, and the separate group of tall people of varying intelligence, won't have much to do with the sorties, except for the occasional tall+stupid individual, who thinks that one of the sorties is cute enough to marry, despite the fact that she and her entire sortie family are dim-witted.
2. Now, if you meant that the "short people" were short on brains, or lacking intelligence (instead of height) then:
   • The smarter people just refuse to marry the stupid people, and height/stature isn't built into the equation.
   • This means that smart people reproduce with other smart people, regardless of height, leaving the stupid people to reproduce with each other.
   • Over time, you have a divergence in the middle, where smart people tend to have children with the POTENTIA

You should think harder about it

[Dr. Spork]

Two things you're ignoring: One, if everyone lives no matter what their traits are, then "genetically expensive" features like good vision will just go away. Evolution has been strongly selecting people with good vision, but your eyes cease to affect your chance to reproduce, but mutations still go on, it is incredibly probable that each generation's eyesight will be progressively worse. Ditto for other traits.

Two, there is evolutionary pressure, caused by partner selection. This is the basis of TFA! Good looking people tend to find good looking partners and make good looking children, ditto for the not-good-looking. I would add to this the element of wealth, I think it's quite important: I grew up in a very rich suburb where my schoolmates were uncommonly pretty. I realized that the people rich enough to live in that neighborhood attracted uncommonly pretty partners. No mystery why, and no surprise that the children turned out pretty. Now when you consider how little class-mixing there is in the US, and how little social mobility there is (that's right, look it up!) This means that money, and the extra attractiveness it brings, stays in families. Families with money will typically marry pretty people - most likely from other rich/pretty families, but possibly someone from a lower class who happened to look good. This means the upper classes poach the best lookers from below, making themselves even prettier. Because in each generation, the best looking people marry out of their lower class, this leaves the people of lower class with a increasingly uglier partner pool (on average, of course).

As this trend advances, the increasingly pretty rich will find fewer eligible partners among the increasingly ugly lower classes. Now that you have two non-interbreeding groups, each with different selection pressures, it's not hard to imagine a further divergence. It's not a pleasant thing to picture, but it's not really so crazy!

Re:You should think harder about it

[ShadowBot]

"Two, there is evolutionary pressure, caused by partner selection. This is the basis of TFA! Good looking people tend to find good looking partners and make good looking children, ditto for the not-good-looking. I would add to this the element of wealth" ...

"Families with money will typically marry pretty people - most likely from other rich/pretty families, but possibly someone from a lower class who happened to look good"

Not entirely accurate. You are leaving out a couple of factors.
First, if you observe more closely you will find that *Men* with money tend to marry beautiful *Women*.
This is becuase the mating preferences of men and women are obviously different. So wealthy men (whether they are ugly or handsome) will poach the best looking women from the not so wealthy classes, leading to them having (on average) better looking children.
However, the good looking man already in the lower class in very unlikely to be picked out of it by a wealthy woman. Infact, what is likely is that he will have more children, by more (lower class) women, than his upper class counter parts. Thereby, increasing the pool of poor but beautiful women to move upwards, and the pool of poor but beautiful men to move sideways.

Second, as much as social mobility may be low, if you think of it in terms of movement of genetic material between classes per generation it's huge.
For example, how many of the people on today's top 500 rich list had rich families just 5 generations ago, or even just 3?
And how many fifth generation decendants of say, the king of England (or any other royalty, or business mogul) are still considered very wealthy? And, on an evolutionary timescale, five generations is quite small.

Wealth tends to be cyclical. A rough approximation of it being - Rich Parent -> Lazy Child -> Poor Parent -> Desperate Child -> Rich Parent

TFA also ignores two other points:
1. The definition of beautiful changes every few decades. In some african countries as recently as ten years ago women used to go to fat camps, where the purpose was to put ON weight not take it off, becuase the rounded body was considered much more healthy/attractive (Not Hungry-looking = Healthy).
However, in the west now, where people are much more likely to die from over-feeding than under nutrition, stick thin is becoming the image of the perfect body (Not Morbidly Obese = Healthy).

2. With the amount of progress being made in the fields of complexion altering makeup and cheap plastic surgery, we will soon be reaching a point where the traits you are marrying into will no longer be genetically transferable. Perhaps that will even lead to a situation (when people can look like anything they want) where looks REALLY don't count and beauty begins to be judged by personality, capability or some other non-physical yardstick.

Basically , whenever anyone tries to predict the future based on the changing fads of today, they usually end up very wrong.

Re:You should think harder about it

[Kreigaffe]

Uh.

Look at our politicians.

Look at leaders of industry.

Dubya ain't pretty. And.. Ted Kennedy? Hello?

SOMEONE TELL ME BALLMER IS HOT -- I DARE YOU.

So how about royalty, they've had a few centuries of selective breeding right? ... huh look at that, Prince Charles looks.. mighty.. not.. royal.

Re:Won't matter

[chromatic]

1913 just called. It wants its historically inevitable utopianism back.

Re:Correction to Last Sentence

[fusion9290991]

just look at Paris Hilton... a classic example of wealth reaching critical mass, no matter what she does, the money rolls in. Maybe one day she can afford to have that eyelid lifted :)

Caste system ended ? Not so.

[aepervius]

This is the official explanation. But the cast system is alive and well in India. Just not officially. I just had to look at the mariage of our outsourcing coworker, where they explained us who can marry whom, and why one could not marry another. They never mentionned cast, only stutbornly said "no he can't marry her, because of what he is and what she is." If this not caste, well that smell and looks like it. Taste like it too.

Re:Doctor dick, tits, and technology fails it.

[PlusFiveTroll]

THANKS to technology.

And beer, don't forget the beer.

Re:Reproduction, selectivity, and long results.

[WillAdams]

LOL!

There's an old saying, ``The world would be a better place if ignorance and stupidity were not mere contagious, but also fatal diseases.'' A bit more than painful though....

William

Re:Correction to Last Sentence

[nebosuke]

When you have nothing, you have more drive to succede, and liberal capitalism allows that. If you are born rich, or already rich, what drive is there to create anything new?

I grew up in a poor area, and my family made less than $25k take-home per year, with both my parents working full-time, living in a state with one of the highest COL's in the US. I made it to Harvard on a scholarship by studying so much in HS that I only slept around 4 hours each weekday (and most weekends) from the beginning of my sophomore year up until graduation. People with backgrounds like mine were the vast minority there, and they tended to be far less ambitious than kids born into power.

Given that I went to a high school where over 85% children came from families who were below the poverty level, you would expect them to be the most motivated people in the state. Instead, that school is among the worst in the state by all metrics (from graduation rates and standardized test scores to teen pregnancies).

While poverty can be a strong motivator for a vanishingly small minority, all measurable data indicates that the exact opposite is true for the majority. The poor are far less likely to pursue higher education, more likely to struggle economically throughout the entirety of their lives, and their children are more likely to maintain or drop below their parents' economic status.

When was the last time that you saw news coverage about a millionaire's son being accepted to Harvard? How about a homeless man getting drunk and saying stupid things? Rags-to-riches success stories (e.g., Liz Murray) and lurid pieces on the boorish behavior of the wealthy (e.g., Mel Gibson) are newsworthy because they're exceptional, unlike those two everyday scenarios. Unfortunately, because the exceptions to the norm get a disproportionate amount of media coverage—including in school textbooks—many people tend to get the two terribly confused.

Being poor is, statistically speaking, a massive demotivator, while starting rich has the opposite effect.

The assertion that capitalism must be eliminating the 'rich caste' because the standard of living has been improving assumes a false dichotomy. Even a casual analysis of the economic trends in, say, the US, will show a steadily increasing stratification of society between the rich and everyone else, even as the standard of living has been improving.

The change that capitalism brings is that intelligence becomes the strongest correlation to potential wealth. This actually increases the selection pressure towards divergence of the species along social lines because the social division correlates to a genetically heritable trait and reinforces the tendency for that trait's 'carriers' (for lack of a better term) to select other 'carriers' as mates. In other words, given that, in a western capitalist society:

• People tend to marry people within the same socioeconomic class.
• People tend to marry people with similar educational backgrounds and levels of intelligence.
• Wealthy people tend to be smart.
• Smart people tend to be educated.
• Educated people tend to be relatively wealthy.

You have a perfect recipe for the eventual divergence of a subspecies of smart rich humans.

Re:Correction to Last Sentence

[14CharUsername]

thinking in industrialized countries... Africa is another story

I find it odd that you're arguing that people have all kinds of opportunities, but admit that "Africa is another story". You do realise that africans that are denied the opportunites that you have are people too, right?

You seem pretty quick to gloss over this, but its a major point. Most of the time speciation occurs when there is a geographic isolation. What you have to do to survive, reproduce, and care for your young is a hell of a lot different in Africa than it is in an affluent western city. Add in the geographic isolation and it will also be very rare for a person from the west to breed with a person in Africa.

We really are at a cross roads now. We can accept that with globalisation we are required to share wealth and encourage education around the world (a rising tide raises all boats). Or we can build higher walls so we can protect our hoarded wealth from people in other nations ("those mexicans are trying to take our jobs" or "those ragheads are terrorists"). It seems that right now the powers that be are working hard to build walls and restrict travel all without giving up the cheap labour available to them.

Re:Correction to Last Sentence

[Xichekolas]

I totally agree with you, hence my comment about Africa.

Africa suffers from several problems. I'm not really qualified to make an intelligent argument, but I believe these problems include geographic isolation, as you pointed out, a predominance of Warlord governments which loot public finances, an AIDS crisis, and ecological disaster. I said that 'Africa is another story' because Africa seems to be the one continent where the population has increased without a corresponding improvement in infrastructure or public order. I don't blame this entirely on the Africans, nor entirely on the West. Nor do I consider myself qualified to lay blame to begin with, as I honestly am not an expert.

That being said, I think on the timelines that the article was discussing, Africa's recent backslide is just a blip. From the time of the first European colonizations of Africa in the 16th century to now only encompasses 500ish years. This is a drop in the 10,000 year bucket the author describes. Combine that with my optimism that recent attention to Africa's issues (both publicly by G8 countries and the EU and privately by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and others) means that a lot of improvement can be made in the next 500ish years... well before geographic isolation could lead to speciation.

Is any of that a comfort to someone living in Africa now? No. Should we put off helping Africa because it's problems are recent and hard to blame on any one party? No. But, I think that when looking in the context of the history of humanity, Africas problems, like the Dark Ages in Europe, will eventually be fixed.

Re:whoever wrote the article is gay.

[skinfitz]

sleazebag elitists. nuff said.

Speak for yourself, shorty.

The rich control the weapons.

[xtal]

Speaking in evolutionary terms, doesn't the survival rate of a species increase with rapid, frequent, and earlier reproduction?
In a massive die-off, it will be the offspring of the poor who are better suited for survival. They have a more diverse gene pool, and they have sheer volume on thier side.


Except the rich people control where the tanks, missiles, and bombs go.

Ahh the wonders of Alcohol

[bintech]

Ok, so assuming that all this 100,000 year stuff is true and the ugly get ugly and the sexy become sexy. But don't ya think that alcohol is really the compensating control of allowing this to happen? :)

Re:Attractiveness, lions and tigers, oh my!

[Wintermancer]

Bugger. I hit the submit button by mistake instead of preview.

Sigh. Humans are primarily K-selection strategy (fewer children, greater parental investment) based, not r-selection based (many offspring, little parental involvement).

To continue, a lot of the pseudo eugenics crowd likes to glom on to the rich vs. poor and quantity of children concept, and play the race card in new and interesting ways. Yes, the poor do usually have more children. They also experience greater childhood mortality, lack of access to birth control and host of other reasons why they have more children than the wealthier classes. Go talk to a sociologist for greater insight into this problem. The rich generally maximize the K factor, in terms of investing in their offspring (this should come as no surprise). If we were to roll back the clock to before modern medicine, you would find the rich would try to have as many children as they could afford, just to counter childhood mortality and other factors which contribute to premature death.

If you must memorize one thing how genetics works, here it is: tendency towards the mean. The average IQ is 100. The average height is approximately 178 cm for males in the USA. The average level of physical attractiveness is probably staring back at you when you look in the mirror. Why? Because these are the best, default values that nature has selected for over millions of years. Pretty much everything genetic can be put on a bell curve. The interaction of genes does not guarantee that super-tall, super-intelligent, earthshatteringly-attractive couples will produce the same. Chances are, they will produce an child with average intelligence, average height and average looks more often than not. Until we have genetic engineering to custom fab our children, Mother Nature is the one driving the car.

Re:whoever wrote the article is gay.

[zarozarozaro]

I don't think this will ever happen, the rich love to fuck the poor.

Re:Why would you not want to live in the USA?

[iblum]

Well, I will say this. I'm nearly 40 years old, and have lived my entire life in the united states. I have never, in all of those years, ever seen anyone use a gun in anger. I've never been the victim of a violent crime, nor known anyone closely who had admitted to have been. I've seen television reports of crime, and shootouts, and serial killers et cetera, but sometimes I think that these things are a bit, well, unreliable. My point is not that the US has no crime, but that you cannot always believe what you see on TV, even on the news.

I will say this, the only time I was in your country, an Underground station was closed because of an IRA bombing. other than that (and having someone nearly choke because I ordered "Iced" tea) my experiences in England were very positive.

Ira

Poor not better off

[iendedi]

I would argue that the poor in those countries are better off than 100 years ago... not all of them, I'll give you that, but there are a lot more with running water and some basic access to medicine than there were back then. Relative to the Rich in those countries, they haven't progressed much, but they still progress.

Today, the overpopulated poor regions of the world live in their own industrial waste dumps filled with plastics, foil and other packaging materials combined with toxic chemicals and other hazardous waste. A hundred years ago, the poor were likely living off basic sustenance as farm workers and everything they consumed was naturally recycled. But today, with consumable packaging and big industry combined with the lack of basic services (such as waste disposal) in poor regions results in a death spiral of living conditions. Industrialized polution combined with plastic and metallic containers for consumables have created living conditions that are completely foreign and not at all friendly to biologicals (such as people). Have you been to any of these very poor regions and seen the problem first hand? I have and I can tell you that it is unequivocally true.

Also, the previously clean rivers and streams that provided water in the past are now completely polluted. The fact that those water sources have not been 100% replaced by running water is a considerable step down for the poor. And medicine? Are you kidding me? How can the poor afford modern medicine? Don't kid yourself, the poor are much worse off today than they were at any time in human history -- and there are many more of them. More poor people living today than not just a hundred years ago, but than all humans born in the entire history of our planet before one hundred years ago. It is disgraceful and could be corrected if we diverted some of the money used to kill each other and protect corporate profits to education and social services for our fellow man.