Dear Wardnik,

>I suppose a case could be argued that rich people stand a
>better chance of surviving than those who are destitute, and the
>largesse of wealthy families in seeing to it their progeny are set up for life is
>well-known. Thus, it might be that the foods that rich people eat
>stand to have a better chance of being selected for in our evolution
>given  enough time. I dunno, but I would at least like to point out the
>possibility here.

Until you look at the facts.  Wealthy people have fewer children than
poor people, and people on welfare, who multiply like rabbits.  In fact,
this effect operates in the macro-economic sense too.  Developed
industrial contries are barely maintaining their populations, while
undeveloped countries are exploding.  Even so, the diets of rich and poor
alike are terrible in different ways, so it's hard to argue for selective
pressure one way or the other based on these facts alone.

>Even if only a very few individuals die off before reproduction due
>to, say, eating cheeseburgers and fries, it still means those few
>individuals' genes are weeded out of the population's gene pool in the
>subsequent generation.

Not if other inidividuals who have those same genes are breeding like
rabbits.  I already pointed out that those few cases are more than made
up for the cheeseburger-and-fries eaters'  *much* higher overall repro
rate vs raw vegans --- though you wouldn't know it from looking at
Tansen-Muni's large family in the M2M!

>The differences in survival rate can be extremely small and still result
>in successful adaptation, it's just a matter of time.

But is it even a good idea to try to adapt to a crummy environment over a
period of eons?  Wouldn't it be better to try to regenerate the optimal
environment for our current genetic make-up?

 Bob:
>>the simplest explanation for a mystery isn't always the  Truth.

>The criterion of a scientific theory is that it be testable.
>Otherwise one can spin unlimited theories based on the idea that
>"anything at all could happen."

We're talking apples & oranges here (yum!).  I'm talking about Truth;
you're talking about scientific theories.  Science has limited tools with
which to divine Truth; it can therefore never be totally successful.

Bob:
>For example, if I wanted to go out on a limb, I could say it doesn't
>seem too far-fetched to me suggest there might be a hunk of green cheese
>on the dark side of Pluto buried 5 miles below the surface, or that there
>are There is actually some evidence in favor of the scenarios I mentioned;
>they were not complete flights of fancy.  In fact, there are a great
>debate going on in cosmological circles right now because fossil finds
>and such have pushed back the supposed primordial origins of microbial
>l.ife so far into the earliest period of Earth's pre-history that it
>doesn't appear they had time to evolve from inanimate matter (if they
>ever could, which has never been demonstrated).  The "spore" theory is
>gaining new adherents.

Ward:
>is. I mean, sure, anything could happen. Personally, though, while I
>admit the possibility, I don't find the speculation of extraterrestrial
>origins reasonable because of the lack of evidence after decades and
>decades of paleontological excavations. However, were you to propose
>a realistic test for it and could present some substantiated evidence to support
>your test, then I might be willing to reconsider. (And it would certainly
>make life a lot more interesting, that's fer sure!)

Well, I have evidence on videotape that there was once life on Mars ---
intelligent life, not microbial life.  Of course anything can be faked
nowadays, but this material was sufficient to convince both me and a PhD
candidate housemate.  If you search the Web for the name Richard
Hoagland, I think you'll come up with some interesting photos and reading
material to get started on this one.

>There is an equation which quantifies all this: >t = log[Qo/(1-Qo)]/s

Oh, uh, yeah, yer right, Ward; how clumsy of me.  I neglected to take
this equation into account in my earlier calculations.  (:-Q)

Bob Avery ([log in to unmask])

P.S.  I may disagree with you on human diet from time to time, but I sure
wouldn't want to mess with you about chimp diet!  Good post.  (And NFL
guys, I liked yours too, but it's a little like Daniel entering the
lion's den with Wardo on vegraw patrol.)