Bob Avery writes:

>I disagree with this idea.  True positive adaptation only occurs when
>selective pressures are brought to bear.  For example, if in our society
>hamburger & fries  eaters have  many  more children than raw vegans
>(which is the case), this does not  mean that our species is evolving
>toward being able to thrive on this fare (or, rather, "unfair") because
>there are no selective pressures involved.  Most of the diseases that
>kill SAD eaters occur after they have already reproduced.

Bob, this is a common objection, but the overall contention is not
supported by thorough evolutionary reasoning--you are leaving out one
essential factor: The role of intelligence in longer-lived members of the
human species helping to ensure survival of the rest of their communal
group. In fact, this is what has helped select for longevity in humans. In
the human species--in evolutionary times at least--no member was ever truly
"post-reproductive" in the way that other species are, because of the role
of accumulated wisdom in helping other members survive.

This evolutionary dynamic is also largely responsible for the sense of
"kinship" felt with close family members and why altruism is also a factor
in human behavior. Members have a definite interest in seeing to it that
their progeny and other close relations survive, because such individuals
carry genes either directly descended from theirs (in the case of sons and
daughters), or very closely allied (in the case of cousins). Much of this
occurs on a somewhat unconscious level of course, but it happens
nonetheless due to the influence of genes on behavior. In close-knit
groups, the survival of one's progeny, including grandchildren and so forth
one degree removed, is--to whatever degree--aided by parents' and other
close elders' input with advancing years, which is of course dependent on
their health.

Often the survival of a tribe through one natural disaster or another (for
example, which food sources not normally exploited in times of plenty could
be utilized without fear of poisoning during times of famine) would have
been dependent on the wisdom of the longest-lived members of the tribe,
thus selecting for their survival and those of their descendants.

>And of course evolution is still just the prevailing scientific paradigm,
>not yet proven, but that's a whole 'nother smoke.

True, but by that point of view, *everything* is just a paradigm of one
sort or another. And what is the alternative? Basically it is creationism.

One has two basic choices in explaining how all those ancient bones made
their way into the geological strata: (1) You reason on the basis that more
recent bones with similarities to the bones that preceded them in
historical time have some kind of continuity or link with them, or (2) You
assume they are unrelated to each other, in which case you have to answer
the question of how the bones sprang out of nowhere if they didn't come
from earlier ones. The first alternative is the theory of evolution. The
second one is creationism: the theory of a supernatural origin where things
spring out of nowhere apropos of nothing. For people who prefer to base
their assumptions, theories, and reasoning on logic rather than
supernatural intervention, there really isn't much choice.

--Ward Nicholson <[log in to unmask]> Wichita, KS