Evolution is a never-ending process; we are not the finished models, but merely prototype for future lines. Every generation is a refinement of what came before. The ultimate goal in all of this is survival. The key to survival has always been adaptability. When a group gains an evolutionary edge by changing faster than the competition, they reproduce, then thrive, then conquer. This is most evident in biology, but can also be seen in business, and warfare. However, these are only small sections of society. Society as a whole has been painfully slow and sadly resistant to adaptation. Unless humans learn the lesson of adaptability, we shall all perish clinging to survival instincts which are obsolete.

The very first life forms on this planet were single celled organisms, which consumed resources (and each other) to survive. Eventually, these cells began to work together for the same function, forming tissue masses in multi-cell organisms. Tissue masses worked together to form organs, all of which combine to form complex organisms. From there, life as we know it sprung. These amoebas gave up struggle against each other in order to be come co-operatively stronger. Currently, bacteria are the most basic and primitive form of life existing, yet, as a group, they are the most powerful organisms on the planet. They win battles not by complexity, force, or intelligence, but sheer numbers and flexibility to changes in their environment.

Similar is the evolution of man. From groups, to tribes, to towns, to cities, to states, to nations, but that is not the end. Currently, every nation acts as an organ, but these organs are not working towards the same purpose; they consume, destroy, and weaken each other, and the species as a whole. This is not the fault of the institutions in place, but rather, the problem traces all the way down to the cell, the individuals which make up these organs. In an organism, all it takes is one cell to destroy the entire body. This cell is a cancer cell; a cell that disregards its function, and, instead, exists solely for itself; it consumes resources, kills neighboring cells, and grows; it grows so much that its destructive influence becomes so great that the body can no longer compensate for it, and the organism and the cancer die together. So too is the fate of society. The most common enemies to a functioning government are greed, corruption, and ambition. All of these stem from the basic instinct of survival. All of these attributes place the individual higher than the community, and all of these lead to disaster.

Business is subject to the same rules. Companies promote innovation on the part of management and employees, but only so long that it benefits the company. When infighting between managers, departments, and even individual employees occurs, the business suffers. Observing market changes and changes in management styles shows great insight for the need for cooperation and adaptability. The most effective management styles have promoted cooperation among all parts of the business, and they intentionally tie the success of the business with the success of the individual

In military affairs, this is even more pronounced, on both a micro and macro scale. On the micro scale, armies are divided into strictly controlled groups ensuring focus and efficiency. Within those groups, cooperation and interdependency; if one person breaks rank, then he condemns his comrades. Moving onto a wider view, no nation ever won a war by itself. Even the strongest empires were eventually conquered by an alliance of opposing nations; the fact that ambition eventually overshadows this need for alliances is what entraps nations in endless cycles of warfare.

Individualism has its uses, but in order to maintain survival, it must remain subordinate to the collective. This is depressing and outrageous for some; throughout the countless volumes of literature and philosophy, the individual has always been praised and admired; the individual is the hero. However, the individual is always the tragic hero; no matter the individual’s accomplishments, he is doomed to die and his memory ebbed out by time. To achieve immortality, one must become a part of that which is immortal. As long as there are members, the group will survive forever, but when all the members leave, the group dies, followed soon after by the ex-members, and all is lost. The impact which an individual can make in the universe is so infinitely small, the prospect is utterly demoralizing and ultimately fatal. With a finite lifespan and resources, the effect upon an infinite universe is zero, yet by transcending beyond oneself, and beyond death, mankind is suddenly found with infinite time and infinite resources, and thus becomes omnipotent.

Sorry if it was confusing. Still, no thoughts?

Communist propaganda!!!

Society as a whole has been painfully slow and sadly resistant to adaptation.
You are taking a needlessly critical view here. Humanity is over a million years old, and we've only had recorded history for the last two thousand.

Advances are taken as they are needed, it is rare that cultural issues preclude social or technological advance.

Still, no thoughts?

Evolution??........single celled organisms becoming tissue masses leading to multi-cell organisms?!?!.......those masses working together to form more complex organisms...........?!?!?!?

That's preposterous.

Everyone knows that all the higher life forms were magically created --in an instant-- by the unseen all powerful Sky-God.

:rolleyes:

Evolution??........single celled organisms becoming tissue masses leading to multi-cell organisms?!?!.......those masses working together to form more complex organisms...........?!?!?!?

That's preposterous.

Everyone knows that all the higher life forms were magically created --in an instant-- by the unseen all powerful Sky-God.

:rolleyes:

what's with the religion bashing? and people wonder why they can't take you seriously....


As for the original topic.. i have often wondered when we will do what's best for MANKIND and not what is the best business decisions. Business is the only thing keeping up from taking a giant leap in technology. Take cars for example... I've seen em run on fuel cells, water, ethanol, food grease.... but there's no money in it, so they don't get put into work. Many people come up with great ideas on easier way to do things, but get bought out by the "old-school" people who have all the money, or just merely squashed by the corporation. The way things will be are the situations that gather the most profit... and that is just weighing humanity down like a concrete block as we try to swim towards the surface of a better human race.

Evolution is a never-ending process; we are not the finished models, but merely prototype for future lines.

>> This may not be true. Widespread, numerous species tend to reach a stable state and don't really evolve. Change happens when subgroups of a population become isolated or when a population is decimated and under serious environmental pressure. There is also the effect of culture to consider--adaptations are so much easier and faster via technology than via evolution (such as our ability to invade cold climates using fire and clothing) that human adaptive pressure is substantially reduced.

Every generation is a refinement of what came before. The ultimate goal in all of this is survival.

>> This can be misunderstood. There is no goal. It is just that species that have characteristics that enhance survival tend to survive (naturally enough), so that they are around while others are not.

The key to survival has always been adaptability. When a group gains an evolutionary edge by changing faster than the competition, they reproduce, then thrive, then conquer.

>> What is this with "conquer?" The vast majority of species get along with each other fine--even most prey/predator relationships are stable, with neither destroying the other (kill all the prey and you starve). Extinctions come mainly from the short-sighted nature of natural selection (it enhances the survival of immediate descendents, but not long term survival).

This is most evident in biology, but can also be seen in business, and warfare. However, these are only small sections of society. Society as a whole has been painfully slow and sadly resistant to adaptation. Unless humans learn the lesson of adaptability, we shall all perish clinging to survival instincts which are obsolete.

>> That is speculation based, if on anything, on a misunderstanding of natural selection. While selection can be observed among cultures and businesses, it is not biological. Even memes can compete. In fact, cultures and businesses and memes and even species usually do better by specializing than by becoming adaptive generalists.

They win battles not by complexity, force, or intelligence, but sheer numbers and flexibility to changes in their environment.

>> Again, you use this misleading "battles" analogy. Bacteria are so diverse that it is almost impossible to speak of them as a single thing. Also, the concept of "species" among such life forms is very different.

Similar is the evolution of man. From groups, to tribes, to towns, to cities, to states, to nations, but that is not the end. Currently, every nation acts as an organ, but these organs are not working toward the same purpose; they consume, destroy, and weaken each other, and the species as a whole.

>> This is just simply not true. The similarity between national competition and biological natural selection is nothing more than a stretched analogy. Sometimes analogies clarify, but they never guide and often, as in this case, confuse the issue.

This is not the fault of the institutions in place, but rather, the problem traces all the way down to the cell, the individuals which make up these organs. In an organism, all it takes is one cell to destroy the entire body. This cell is a cancer cell; a cell that disregards its function, and, instead, exists solely for itself; it consumes resources, kills neighboring cells, and grows; it grows so much that its destructive influence becomes so great that the body can no longer compensate for it, and the organism and the cancer die together. So too is the fate of society. The most common enemies to a functioning government are greed, corruption, and ambition. All of these stem from the basic instinct of survival. All of these attributes place the individual higher than the community, and all of these lead to disaster.

>> GIGO. The argument goes from a false premise to false conclusions. What about instincts for cooperation and compassion and altruism? While our instincts do often work against us, they can and are managed.

Business is subject to the same rules. Companies promote innovation on the part of management and employees, but only so long that it benefits the company. When infighting between managers, departments, and even individual employees occurs, the business suffers. Observing market changes and changes in management styles shows great insight for the need for cooperation and adaptability. The most effective management styles have promoted cooperation among all parts of the business, and they intentionally tie the success of the business with the success of the individual.

>> Businesses naturally try to avoid competition. That is why we have anti-trust laws and collusion conspiracy persecutions. Competition is the last thing a businessman wants. Businesses also try to stick to a narrow focus so that management expertise provides an advantage.

Moving onto a wider view, no nation ever won a war by itself. Even the strongest empires were eventually conquered by an alliance of opposing nations; the fact that ambition eventually overshadows this need for alliances is what entraps nations in endless cycles of warfare.

>> Nations can and will and do win wars by themselves if they are significantly more powerful and better run. That statement strikes me as absurd. Democratic states here are at both an advantage (better morale and stability) and a disadvantage (less unity and discipline).

--Martin

Business is the only thing keeping up from taking a giant leap in technology. Take cars for example... I've seen em run on fuel cells, water, ethanol, food grease.... but there's no money in it, so they don't get put into work. Many people come up with great ideas on easier way to do things, but get bought out by the "old-school" people who have all the money, or just merely squashed by the corporation. The way things will be are the situations that gather the most profit... and that is just weighing humanity down like a concrete block as we try to swim toward the surface of a better human race.

I think you speak out of naiveté. There are hundreds of cures for cancer that work remarkably well in a petri dish. Reality is difficult.

Corporations do not squash true advances; they use them to make money. What you assert is a myth. In fact corporations do a much better job of getting innovations to market than governments. How many cures for anything came out of Russia during the Communist era?

I dont think the future of the human race is one of biology. We have the power to shape our own futures, at least in some small way right now.
Before too long there wont be anything to stop us from completely shaping our own destiney, as a race in general, and in the evolutionary sense.

Humanity is over a million years old, and we've only had recorded history for the last two thousand. Ummm...wrong and wrong (shorter, 150,000 years ago, and longer, 40,000 years ago, repectively)

Corporations do not squash true advances; they use them to make money. What you assert is a myth. In fact corporations do a much better job of getting innovations to market than governments. Yeah right. Thats why the Highway Lobby destroyed Americas public transportation systems...

"At times the lobby has to resort to crime to achieve its assaults on public transit, while at other periods, it just used its money, muscle and propaganda with state and Washington lawmakers. Twenty eight crimes were committed by General Motors and its oil and tire company co-conspirators in the Thirties and Forties leading to their convictions in federal district court in Chicago during the late Forties. The U.S. Justice Department's charge, upheld in court, was that these large companies, inorder to eliminate their major rivals -- the trolley industry -- bought up these firms, tore up the tracks in and around 28 major cities in the U.S., including the biggest one in Los Angeles, and lobbied legislators to build more and more highways to sell more and more vehicles, gasoline and tires. Earlier, GM tried to pressure banks to reduce credit to these trolley companies and when that did not succeed sufficiently, the conspiracy to buy out their competitors and shut them down was hatched." http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0830-05.htm

How many cures for anything came out of Russia during the Communist era? That was not just communism. It was indoctrination.

Advances are taken as they are needed, it is rare that cultural issues preclude social or technological advance. Dark Ages, Communist Russia, cultural issues are in fact the one of the main reasons things do not advance (behind only funding, which is interlinked with culture).

get this -
"A third of American biomedical scientists have engaged in questionable research practices, according to survey results released yesterday that raise questions about the integrity of the nation's multibillion-dollar quest to understand the human body and cure diseases."
http://www.boston.com/news/science/articles/2005/06/09/surveyed_scientists_admit_misconduct/

Ummm...wrong and wrong (shorter, 150,000 years ago, and longer, 40,000 years ago, repectively)
Where are you getting your numbers from? It is true, anatomically correct modern humans have only been around for 130,000 years, but homo habilis evolved larger brains and started using elaborate stone tools around a million years ago. That's a better starting point for Human evolution than the speciation of homo sapiens. 40,000 years ago, humans were just finished with colonizing Eurasia and Oceania.

Yeah right. Thats why the Highway Lobby destroyed Americas public transportation systems...


I will respond to this because it was your words. I don't post or read cut and paste jobs, especially from propaganda sites, so I don't know what it said. Present your own argument.

You probably got that idea from the movie "Who Killed Roger Rabbit." I don't know how good a source Hollywood movies might be, considering the farce at the latest Academy Awards presentaiton. The trams in Los Angeles were not being used and were generally detested. Fictional presentations can always change the facts, as we see in most of what Hollywood produces today.

It is to be expected that General motors would favor building highways, and I think they perform a public service in looking after their interest. A free country is the amalgamation of interests.

In most cities there are heavy subsidies on public transit systems--they can never pay for themselves because if you set the fares high enough for that people don't use them.

Where are you getting your numbers from? It is true, anatomically correct modern humans have only been around for 130,000 years, but homo habilis evolved larger brains and started using elaborate stone tools around a million years ago. That's a better starting point for Human evolution than the speciation of homo sapiens. 40,000 years ago, humans were just finished with colonizing Eurasia and Oceania.

He is right and now you appear to be nit-picking to save face. How long "we" have been around depends on definition. I would probably argue that "we" (defined as sentient life) has been around since the dinosaurs appeared, since the evidence indicates they were probably sentient.

The fuck? I'll give it to him on 150,000 years, that's close enough to the speciation of homo sapiens to be considered superficially adequate, (the real number is 250,000) but humanity is better defined by the genus than by the species. Unless you don't consider Neanderthals human. The 40,000 years was so far off I think he probably meant to say 4,000. But even that's wildly inaccurate, having been only 1,000 years after writing itself has been invented.

The fuck? I'll give it to him on 150,000 years, that's close enough to the speciation of homo sapiens to be considered superficially adequate, (the real number is 250,000) but humanity is better defined by the genus than by the species. Unless you don't consider Neanderthals human. The 40,000 years was so far off I think he probably meant to say 4,000. But even that's wildly inaccurate, having been only 1,000 years after writing itself has been invented.

You have the date for the appearance of anatomically modern Homo sapiens fossils, but these may not tell the whole story. Human industry may tell a different tale.

First, the Acheulean industry of Homo erectus lasted for about one and a half million years, essentially unchanged and uniform through the species' range. Then about 200,000 years ago, coinciding with the appearance of modern Homo sapiens fossils, it was replaced by the Mousterian industry, which itself was similarly unchanged until about 40,000 years ago.

I am not alone in reading into that data a suspicion that these two industries were part of the species--essentially if not entirely instinctive--or they would have changed more and shown more diversity.

Then the Mousterian ends 40,000 years ago and is replaced by an explosion of new artifacts that show regional variation and continuous change. At about the same time domestication of animals and ceramics also appear.

The tale, then, may be that while anatomically moderns (as far as we can tell from fossilized bones) appeared as you say, "real" human beings did not appear until later.

That's very nice. One more nitpick. Mousterian industry is associated with homo neanderthalensis, not sapiens. Neanderthals co-existed with modern humans for 90,000 years. The newer, updated Cro-Magnon version of homo sapiens killed them off.

My main point in all of this is to show that we have 2 sets of conflicting instincts. One lends itself towards personal gain, the other lends itself towards cooperation and individual survival through survival of the group.

I see our individualist instincts to be, in fact, quite dangerous. No longer have these instincts been used to further the species, but now they have turned against it. In the cases of nature, business, and war, the winner invariably ends up being the group that can cooperate best.

Rome was a mighty empire which ruled for centuries, but eventually it started to devour itself, and was conquered by outside forces. While these forces were individually weaker, their combined attackes ultimately brought down the giant.

As you pointed out Thislin, corporations seek ways to reduce competition, in this way, they become more powerful. This is precisely why anti-trust laws exist; to keep the leash on the corporations.

I don't see the development of civilization as being an analogy for evolution, I see it as a part of evolutions. Humans evolved into being social creatures, it's only natural that our systems of society would evolve too in order to become more efficient.

The analogy which I did put in there was that of Cancer. All cells, like people, want nutrients and space and the chance to survive and spread. However, the only way they can do this is through cooperation and mutual sacrifice. Cancer cells abandon this and exist only for their own existence, and nothing higher. Individuals in society are very similar. We all have our wants and needs, but, as we are largely unable to meet these desires on our own, we sacrifice a little and get what we can by contributing to the group. Still, we all have this little cancerous streak inside of us which says, "Fuck them, I'm gonna get what's mine."

The trend I am beginning to notice is the gradual shedding of these Individualist instincts and a shift towards collective "hive" instincts. Oddly though, I don't find it frightening at all, simply another step in evolution. Anybody else seeing this?

All is temporary, and what works today may not work so well tomorrow. Isn't that what evolution is about?

Just my 3 cents.

That's very nice. One more nitpick. Mousterian industry is associated with homo neanderthalensis, not sapiens. Neanderthals co-existed with modern humans for 90,000 years. The newer, updated Cro-Magnon version of homo sapiens killed them off.

It is easy enough to Goodle the word; I suggest you do so. Yes it is associated with the Neanderthals. This is something of an issue since it also appears with Homo sapiens.

It is easy enough to Goodle the word; I suggest you do so.
Why Google? I used Wikipedia.

Response to "Evil Homer," Message 18

The common thread running through any competitive situation is selection. (Although random elements also enter the picture when there is no clear competitive advantage).

I would not include human social events, such as nations or corporations or dynasties or cultures, in "evolution," although this is sheer definition.

As a branch of biology, "evolutionary theory" has to do with living organisms and populations of living organisms, specifically how new variants arise in the genome, how they get into the characteristics of a living organism, how they then get into a population and how one population thrives while another becomes extinct.

The governing principle, once something new has appeared via mutation, is natural selection, which is a simple concept (although the details can get hairy).

I think it may be that I balk at extending natural selection ideas into the corporate or cultural world because of its misuse early in the twentieth century by the likes of Ford and Mellon on the corporate side, by the eugenics movement, and, of course, by the Nazis.

This is my problem--these movements all utilized the analogy of biological natural selection to argue that "survival of the fittest" was natural and ethically a superior doctrine than that of help and compassion.

They made three mistakes. The first was taking an analogy as proof. Because children playing in a tree may be comparable to monkeys playing in the tree does not make the children monkeys (well, not always <grin>).

The second mistake was connecting "natural" with "ethical." Often the unnatural thing (such as turning the other cheek) is the ethical thing. The two are not connectible (although I notice the same mistake being made here by those who would condemn homosexuality).

Their third, and most important mistake, is that they mistook Darwinism (not because of Darwin but because of some of his younger, less thoughtful, exponents) as being "survival of the fittest," the "fittest" out competing and destroying the less fit.

This is not what happens in nature. If the predator destroys its prey, it has done itself no good. Instead, species tend to specialize more and more to avoid, not win, competition.

For example, I watched a TV documentary last evening about two species of termite living in a jungle. One is specialized to utilizing fallen leaves as food, the other to utilizing fallen wood. Neither interferes with the other. They each occupy a separate niche and avoid competition.

This, rather than a new competitor, is the cause of extinctions. Natural selection chooses for specialization, but this has a danger--when a species is specialized it is often not able to adjust to a sharp change in the environment.