You know how human evolution is shown as a tree with many dead ends?

[lunatica]

I say we’re in the process right now of splitting off again into the lesser evolved branch and the higher evolved one. The species is once again branching off and going in different directions. Do the higher numbers that we have mean that we’ll be the genetic survivors? That remains to be seen. But I think the higher mind evolving is an indication of superior survival skills and though it’s hard to resist brute violence we have the advantage of a better mind.

That or we’re the dead end and brute thuggish thinking and activity will win out. We’ve arrived at our Idiocratic fork in the road. We’ll see who prevails. I can only hope it turns out to be us.

Lately I’ve had my doubts about whether we’re the same species.

[padfun]

1. Us?

Who is "us"?

[lunatica]

6. If you can't figure it out you have a problem.

[padfun]

27. That's not how natural selection works.

It's not genetic. There are many types who have very similar genes.

and NO, I have no problem. It's just those words are ones that white supremist use. You know, us and them.

[lunatica]

30. Oh! I'm so sorry to use "those" words!

I was making a rather casual comment, but You caught me!

[2naSalit]

2. A couple weeks (?) ago I

mentioned somewhere on DU that I wonder if this might be a psychological and philosophical transition along the lines of the theory identified by Stephen Jay Gould known as Punctuated Equilibrium. This theory of evolution considers the concept that evolution wasn't necessarily a long steady process but rather some of it took place in short periods brought about by the need to adapt to massive changes in environment, for instance, making for survival skills and somatic changes needed to continue to survive becoming selected for traits.

It appears that we are in such a transition regarding philosophical and psychological survival traits.

[Crunchy Frog]

4. Cultural splitting and genetic splitting are very different phenomena.

[2naSalit]

5. The only likeness I'm pointing out

is that we are being presented with a challenge to survival under the normal environment because the environment has been significantly altered to the point we cannot carry on as we did before. It can apply to cultural tradition as well as biological/genetic adaptation... a major alteration that cannot be ignored which threatens sustaining the previous norm forces such "splitting".

How we perceive the cahllenge and behave during the transition will be a measure of what we become when the dust settles.

[lunatica]

7. I saw on Curiosity Stream about genomics in our DNA

that there are innumerable kinds of interdependent genomic switches happening all the time. The program is called Dynamic Genomes that used to be considered mostly left over fill but that is now showing amazing qualities. You can Also find it on YouTube and Sling tv and Amazon Prime video. It is really worth seeing if you have any curiosity about DNA and how it applies to everyday life in human beings.

https://www.google.com/search?q=dynamic+genomes&rlz=1C9BKJA_enUS779US801&oq=Dynamic+Genomes&aqs=chrome.0.0l3.9564j0j4&hl=en-US&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8

Though I initially posted in some jest, the thought has been knocking around in my head a bit since reading of some of the brutish way Trump’s supporters have been suggesting that allowing the death of elders and people of color to happen is OK. I can’t believe people don’t recoil at the mere thought of such horror. Yet they don’t. They seem to embrace it. To me that translates into the lack of something vital in their survival mechanism. It’s as if survival of the species is non existent in some people.

In any case it’s an interesting thought.

[SheltieLover]

14. This!👆

[Crunchy Frog]

3. You know that there's neither sufficient genetic differences nor reproductive isolation

for speciation to occur in humans at this time.

Also, the tree with many dead ends is increasingly recognized as not particularly accurate. There was a huge amount of hybridization between different groups of ancient humans, which is why modern humans carry genes from Neanderthals, Denisovans, and other, unidentified extinct lineages.

The notion of archaic humans being "thuggish brutes" is also very out of date.

So no, MAGATs are not in the process of speciating.

[lunatica]

9. We don't know that anymore than what I said happens

The study and discoveries in Genomics is far from exhausted. Somewhere along the line all those early human lines lost supremacy as they became absorbed and changed.

As for brutish behavior, it is alive and well in our society today. Speciation is always occurring or ending in elimination of the species.

[Crunchy Frog]

18. Brutish behavior has always existed in this society and

most others as well.

Natural selection is happening all the time, but speciation in hominins happens excruciatingly slowly.

There have been groups of humans who have been reproductively isolated from each other for tens of thousands of years, without any evidence of incipient speciation.

The tendency to separate people into groups of "us" and "them" is very characteristic of humans, but it doesn't mean that it actually reflects reality.

Only way it happens in any time frame we can comprehend is if we begin seriously messing around with genetic engineering, and maybe throw in colonization of other planets.

[Blue_true]

38. You make excellent points. The argument that Lunatica is making

could have been made during several times over the last two hundred years of world history. Humans by and large became more technologically sophisticated, but remained the same species.

The human species is so inter-bred now that splitting off a unique "branch" is most likely impossible.

[roamer65]

8. If people start to selectively breed, natural selection will run its course.

If the animosity between the two groups mentioned proceeds to the point where cross breeding is shunned, then selection will lean toward speciation.

We will end up with a system much Huxley’s Brave New World.

Our system is already selecting for those of higher intelligence. There is a wide difference between the upper middle class and the lower one socioeconomically.

[lunatica]

10. I'm not talking about socioeconomics

I’m referring to different thought processes in the human brain. The fact that it appears to be a societal demarcation between the people who have wealth and those who don’t is a misconception. The 1% don’t seem to be more evolved than any of the 99%. Many people with higher education are brutish in their thinking. A good look at Trump and his followers in the White House and social circles will show some really nasty thinking.

[roamer65]

11. If socioeconomic forces lead to selective breeding, speciation can occur.

Only time will tell.

[lunatica]

12. I think it's possible it is already occurring

Actually I think it has always, from the very first hominid, been a constant process.

[roamer65]

13. Many forces can influence speciation. Socioeconomic, environmental, etc.

Climate change is already the cause for a hybrid species of bear in the Arctic. A cross between land and polar bears, for example.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grizzly–polar_bear_hybrid


Natural selection is an ongoing and constantly shifting flow through time.

[Crunchy Frog]

21. You know that our species has lived through multiple episodes of

glaciations and interglacial periods and associated massive climate change, and still remained a single species.

We have also lived in massively different climates ranging from the arctic to the tropics without speciation.

Speciation among hominins doesn't happen within a time frame that most of us can comprehend. It certainly doesn't happen due to episodes of vehement political, social, or religious divisiveness.

[Blue_true]

39. I respect your thoughts on this, but IMO, you are conflating speciation with

with upbringing. Trump is a narcissist who has no empathy because both of his parents seemed to have been that, in particular his dad. His world was about winning and losing during his upbringing, a person in that world either won or got annihilated, there was no place for empathy or seeing your opponent's side of the issue.

[Crunchy Frog]

15. Because no RWer will ever accidentally knock up a woman with different political beliefs.

And they'll certainly never have a child or grandchild or sibling who ends up breaking with them politically.

Even if political cross breeding were shunned, it would still happen, and the cultural underpinnings for it likely wouldn't last more than a couple of generations.

There have been human populations that have been genetically isolated from the rest of humanity for tens of thousands of years, and living extremely different lifestyles, and it hasn't resulted in anything close to speciation.

I also don't see how our current system is selecting for higher intelligence. I think it's probably more like the situation in Idiocracy. JMO.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

16. We'd need less interbreeding with the Trumpians.

If all of them were removed and isolated to, say, Mississippi and surrounding states, then maybe the rest of humanity would observe them losing the ability to talk after thousands of years?

[lunatica]

32. Or we could just ignore them

as they implode into whatever.

[Codeine]

17. Codswallop. nt

[Crunchy Frog]

19. Well put. n/t

[lunatica]

33. LOL!

See? Such an evolved word!

[muriel_volestrangler]

20. Human groups have been genetically isolated for 8,000 years and they weren't a different species

First arriving in Tasmania (then a peninsula of Australia) around 40,000 years ago, the ancestors of the Aboriginal Tasmanians were cut off from the Australian mainland by rising sea levels c. 6000 BC. They were entirely isolated from the rest of the human race for 8,000 years until European contact.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aboriginal_Tasmanians

and as others have pointed out, further back, we also interbred with Neanderthals and Denisovans from whom we had been isolated for tens of thousands of years, maybe hundreds of thousands.

Meanwhile, the human race is more interrelated than it's ever been. There is no separation going on.

So, no, there is no splitting of species happening. There is nothing meaningful in your OP at all. You don't even make clear who you think "we" is. Which part of humanity are you isolating yourself from? Do you really think all your relatives are isolating themselves from the same groups?

[Buckeye_Democrat]

22. This. nt

[lunatica]

24. I wrote it because it was a thought that

has come to me recently, not a science treatise or study.

We is the ones who aren’t brutes in thought patterns.

It was a comment, not a scientifically based paper in need of peer review.

[muriel_volestrangler]

26. So, don't use the words 'species', 'branch', 'lesser' or 'higher evolved', 'higher mind'

because they are the things that make you look like you want to talk about science. You appear to really be saying just "some people are stupid brutes".

[lunatica]

28. LOL! Do only scientists use big words?

I quest I should know my place.

[muriel_volestrangler]

29. You shouldn't misuse the words

It's not that they're big words; they just don't mean what you think they mean.

[lunatica]

34. OK

If you say so.

[dustyscamp]

23. This is the path we are headed if Trumpie wins

[img][/img]

[lunatica]

25. LOL!

It’s worse than I thought!

[dustyscamp]

31. .

[Jamastiene]

35. I have had the same thought.

Too bad evolution takes so long. We won't get to see an end to these right wing lunatics in our lifetimes. They will still be doing this for ages before the rest of the species, the more evolved thinking part of the species, wakes up and toughens up on their low brow way of nonthinking. They are all violence and no logic. That is NOT a good combo for the rest of us to have to endure. It will go back and forth forever and a day before people who can think wake up and figure out what is happening and do something about it.

[appalachiablue]

36. I know one thing, this era is illustrating how many

sociopaths are rising to positions of authority with little accountability, and they're getting over, big.

These monsters have been around for ages but what can be done to prevent them from harming others, the environment, the economy and society is the issue.

Not to mention why, with their destructive behaviors they even exist.

[lunatica]

37. We're having to redefine personality disorders

The Trump example is pretty telling about what it takes to become what society calls a success. Our cultural beliefs that rich people are somehow superior or more deserving needs a major rethink, to say the least.

[Blue_true]

40. History is full of cases where monsters rose to power.

In some of those eras hope was dim given the brutality. But time and change brought about better conditions, and then the cycle restarted. But, as Dr. King pointed out, the long arc of history bends toward Justice.

Being African American, I can point to periods of our country's own history where the outward vestiges of hope were nonexistent, but the thing is, hope exists in the heart, a given person may not live to see better days, but if hope lives within many hearts, better days will arrive.

[appalachiablue]

41. Hope definitely and also action influence the

course toward light and justice. Through history the monsters have ultimately fallen from their own malice or the will of people, that we know.

It's the younger generations that are of most concern to me although they are being conditioned somewhat and not experiencing such a dramatic loss relatively, a blessing in a perverse way.

The steady loss of democracy and the rise of this hard authoritarian movement have been ongoing, effectively sorry to say for 40+ years, an instant in time really but significant in terms of human lifespan.

~ Still we must keep the faith and know that hope springs eternal. Here's to democracy.