optimist

Oolon -

"There are no standards against which to judge more and less. Just because humans can live in a wide range of environments does not make them more evolved."

If humanity survives the next few hundred years, we will some day reach other planets. The first colony humans establish, puts them far above any other species on earth as far as survivability goes. Every other species that has evolved on earth will be dependent on the Earth...well except for the ones we take with us...hmmmm...maybe I need to think about this more. But you see where I am coming from.

My criterion was "A species is most evolved when it is the one that would be able to survive and prosper if the environment drastically changed." A human can survive in many environments here on Earth, and even if our environment on Earth drastically changed humans may still survive. But that is a pretty arbitrary standard. It definitely does not fit what yygke means when he says "more advanced."

[ February 27, 2002: Message edited by: optimist ]</p>

hyzer

Yygke “. . . . than (sic) why aren't insects (or any other earlier-evolved species) ruling the planet?”

Define ‘ruling’. Insects do rule the world, at least in a sense. They’re ubiquitous (they are everywhere we are). They’ve been around longer than we have and they’ll probably be around long after we are gone (if we do something stupid). So you see, attempting to judge primitiveness of a species is a fools errand unless you define all of the standards to be used. As has been suggested, monkeys are not more primitive than we are in many respects – they are far better adapted to living in trees, their young reach maturity far faster than ours do, the list goes on and on. Humans have evolved into perhaps the ultimate un-specialized species. But it is not a question of being ‘more’ or less’ evolved. By definition, each species today has evolved as much as it needed to in order to survive thus far, dealing with the changes that our planet home deals out as time progresses.

MrDarwin

Can you give any examples or citations of an evolutionary biologist saying that one race is "below" another within the human species?

Actually, I wouldn't claim that insects are "inferior" to humans. (BTW I got news for you, insects are ruling the planet.)

The problem with your interpretation is that "primitive" is an exceedingly imprecise term. When biologists use the word "primitive" (not "inferior") with regard to two or more lineages sharing a common ancestry, they generally use it to mean that one of those lineages is more similar to (i.e., has more of the characteristics of) the common ancestor than is/are the other lineage(s), and has not evolved numerous unique characteristics of its own. Moreoever, there is nothing about evolutionary theory that says that either of these lineages is either superior or inferior with respect to the other.

So in a biological sense, in order to assert that african humans are somehow "primitive" with respect to non-african humans you would have to show that african humans are more similar to the pre-human common ancestor than are non-african humans, i.e., that they have more characteristics of this common ancestor than do non-african humans. Can you suggest any such characteristics?

Biologists are always cautious about making such judgments about lineages within a species, because the lineages have not evolved in isolation from each other; one of the characteristics of a species is that its internal evolution is reticulate, i.e., there is genetic interchange between populations. When biologists make comments about "primitive" lineages, it is nearly always about one species (or higher taxon like genus, family, etc.) with respect to another of similar rank.

[ February 27, 2002: Message edited by: MrDarwin ]</p>

LiveFreeOrDie

What metric are you using to measure the superiority of one species over another?

Does natural selection act on that same metric?

yygke

I will try to respond to all the arguments soon, but this one seems particularly interesting:

Well, let's take for example bacteria immunity. When we develop an anti-bacterial, and expose a population of bacteria to it, those bacteria with a mutation that allows them to survive the substance will live, pass on the trait to their offspring, and, then the whole population will possess the immune trait, rendering the anti-bacterial useless.
This is a very simple example of natural selection. And I would venture to say that the second (immune) bacteria, is superior (defensively) than the first. That is not to say that the first population will cease to live, but that they will not live in that particular area at that particular time. So then you could say that the first population might have some advantages over the second (that it encountered somewhere else), but that, too, is an example of one population becoming superior over the other.

That is how two different populations of the same species can be superior, or inferior. Of course similar advancements take place in sexual selection, as well as food gathering abilities (giraffe), and almost any other area of an evolutionarily capable system of a body.

So, insert the word "race" for "population", insert the word "human" for "bacteria", and present the first population with a different challenge specific to humans, and there you go.

LiveFreeOrDie

So would you agree that the measure of superiority vs. inferiority, as it relates to natural selection, is a relative judgement based on context and not an absolute judgement?

[ February 27, 2002: Message edited by: LiveFreeOrDie ]</p>

theyeti

So why then aren't all bacteria antibiotic resistant? Why do the resistant ones fair less well than their non-resistant brethren when antibiotics are absent? Non-resistant bacteria outnumber the resistant ones by at least a quintillion to one. It's absurd to call them inferior.

If you answer this question, I think you'll see that your criterion for "superiority" is useless. A certain species, subspecies, or subpopulation may be better adapted to a certain environment than others; those others are best adapted to given environments too, but just not the same ones as the first. This in no way implies that any of them are "superior" in some sort of universal sense. Quite the contrary, all organisms, by virtue of their being here, have demonstrated a remarkable ability to survive and reproduce against tremendous odds, and are no less remarkable in this regard than any other.

theyeti

daemon

The problem here is that racism is characterized by unfounded assumptions about a person based on external characteristics, and convictions that personal opinion correlates to some objective truth. Racial superiority is a matter of opinion, not an objective fact. Saying that evolutionary theory supports racism is analogical to claiming that physics supports your opinion that blue is better than red, since it shows that blue has a higher frequency than red. How was it proven that higher frequency colors are superior to lower?

Evolutionary theory simply states that there are evolutionary differences between the races. To derive the overall superiority of a race based on those differences is a non sequitur.

MrDarwin

"Success" in evolution is measured by staying alive and continuing to breed. But even in the bacteria example, superiority in one environment is not necessarily superiority in another. Are the ancestral non-antibiotic-resistant bacteria also successful, or more so, in environments where they are never exposed to antibiotics? There are always trade-offs.

Here's another analogy: there are 2 successful companies in related fields that make similar, but not exactly the same, products. 50 years ago, one of them was founded by employees who left the other company, which is much older and hasn't changed much in 50 years. So, is one of these companies "better" than the other? Is one of them "inferior"? How would you measure? Gross income? Profits? Number of employees? Numbers of product produced and sold? Innovation and introduction of new inventions? How about if the older company tended to foster new companies, with its employees gaining experience and leaving to found new ones every few years?

"Superiority" is subjective, and depends very much on what is being measured.

RufusAtticus

You need to do a little more work to make your point. You have used only one metric to determine "superior" versus "inferior." However, humanity is much more complex than you seem to think. Try actually applying this same test (resistance) to humans. What do you find? That no race is more superior than any other one because resistance is a characteristic of individuals, not races.

What else are you missing? Any actual evidence that there are even significant genetic differences among humans. It is virtually impossibe to determine a person's race or ethnicity via a genetic test. Why is this? Evolutionary biologists (the people you'd like to claim are supporting racism) have studied human diversity. It has shown that over 80% of human diversity is found between individuals within
populations and less than 20% of genetic diversity is found between populations. This indicates a high degree of gene migration and genetic uniformity across humanity. Thus the evolutionist camp, not creationists, has shown that racism is a bankrupt philosophical position.

-RvFvS

Like I said before, go back under your bridge troll.