Conference noted::sf

I think we may have stopped a great deal of evolution in the human species.
A species evolves tp meet the needs of a changing environment. We are changing
the environment to fit us. 

Certainly there are some things that will change. Things that used to prevent
a being from growing to adulthood and bearing children are now being cured.
So those genes will now be passed on. liesl

    Let me clarify:  
    
    I understand that intelligence has changed the path.  So, to rephrase
    the question:  Assuming that intelligence (of the human "let's modify
    the environment to suit our needs" type) never occurs, then what path
    do you think evolution might take?  How would nature improve upon or
    supersede the mammalian model?

    Dougal Dixon has written/painted three or four books in this vein.  The
    titles are:
    
    	After Man (evolution after we go extinct and take lots of current
    		   fauna with us)
    
    	The New Dinosaurs (evolution in a world where the dinosaurs never
    			   went extinct and we never existed)
    
    	At least one more, the title of which escapes me.  It dealt with
    	evolution of humans, and so wouldn't fit your bill.
    
    One comment on your question: Very few modern evolutionary theorists
    would countenance the idea of *a* path for evolution.  Evolution has
    always been a branching bush, moving in many different directions at
    once.
    
    Some good ideas from Dixon's books include:
    
    	Penguins that have acquired the ability to retain their eggs 
    	inside, so they never need to come ashore to next.  They turn
    	into feathery, beaked porpoises ("porpins," Dixon calls them), or,
    	in one case, a feathery whale.
    
    	A cat with monkey-like prehensile tail and paws.
    
    	Dixon declares canines extinct (implausibly, in my view) and
    	re-fills their niche with wolf-sized, pack-hunting predator rats.
    	They look a lot like wolves, only their tails are naked, and the
    	fangs are developed from the incisors, not the canine teeth.
    
    Earl Wajenberg

    	Dixon's latest book is Man After Man.  It traces human evolution
    to five million years in the future.  It is not a very happy story 
    from our (or maybe just my) perspective at least - but perhaps that
    was the point of it all, to make us wake up in time.
    
	Larry
    

    I'm familiar with those books, and enjoy them.  What I'm getting at is
    more basic.
    
    The move from fish to amphibian included lungs and legs; the amphibians 
    could colonize the land near water.
    
    The move from amphibian to reptile included a watertight skin and eggs
    with shells.  The reptiles could colonize the dry land, and the desert.
    
    The move from reptile to bird included endothermy (and the necessity of
    feathers) and wings, but maintained the process of external eggs.  The
    birds could colonize the air (far more than any other flying species).
    
    The move to mammals also included endothermy (using hair instead of
    feathers) and also included the new idea of internal incubation of
    offspring. 
    
    From an evolutionary point of view, these new capabilities may be
    viewed as progress.  
    
    Is there another basic capability that may improve the overall chances
    of survival of life on earth, similar to these previous basic changes?
               

    
    ideas and ramblingz......
    
    
    ...more digits?  better suited for more complex, subtle movements.
    
    ... delayed maturity, brought on by longer life span.
    
    ... streamlining of internal functions could could some rearrangement
    of internals.  Appendix is one example.
    
    There are already some "dialects" of the current homo sapiens.  People
    living in the andes have larger lung capacity, are less tall: much
    better suited for high altitude living.  

    That's a hard question.  The obvious answers would do
    away with limitations - eg, bones wouldn't break, or heal
    in hours, reactions would be much quicker etc.  (they never
    did explain just how Superman could do all those things..)

    Tangentially, "intelligence" isn't binary -- a chimp is 
    intelligent compared to a cat; a cat is intelligent compared to
    a fish; Einstein was intelligent compared to you and me (-:
    It's doubtful it can stop evolution.  Actually there's
    reason to belive it may accelerate precisely because of it,
    eg, due to genetic engineering.

    I feel that intelligence "interferes" with evolution when its
    modification of the environment allows survival of those who
    otherwise would die.
    
    					andrew

RE: .8

>    I feel that intelligence "interferes" with evolution when its
>    modification of the environment allows survival of those who
>    otherwise would die.
    
I think I must dis-agree with that.

Humans use intelligence as a tool in order to maximize survival of the
individual, and hence, the species.  Other animals use other tools to
maximize survival of their species.

Is there really a difference between humans using intelligence to invent
and build well insulated houses with refrigerators to store food, and 
squirrels using sharp teeth to burrow into trees to have shelter and store
food?  Both intelligence and sharp teeth are the end result of evolution,
since the more intelligent humans and the squirrels with sharper teeth (and
the intelligence to use them) tended to modify the environment to ensure
their personal survival and fecundity.

I grant you one major difference:  a more intelligent human can make it
possible for other (less intelligent) humans to survive and reproduce by
the invention of things like penicillin and surgery, whereas a squirrel
with sharper teeth is not helping other squirrels survival significantly.

But that difference (IMHO) is minor, because evolution is irrelevant to 
the survival of the individual:  it is the survival of the species that is 
significant.  All individuals die, but species (through evolution) live.
Does it matter whether it is the few geniuses who invent penicillin and
such that survive, or is evolution simply using them to further the
survival of the species?

In effect, squirrels ensure the survival of the species by each individual
having lots of baby squirrels (many of whom will survive only a short time,
but enough will survive to ensure greater numbers in the next generation), 
while humans ensure the survival of the species by modifying the environment 
to ensure survival of large numbers of the less well-adapted members (the
old, sick, less intelligent, premature babies, etc) of the current generation.

But in both cases the species is using the tools developed by evolution for
that species to ensure the survival of that species.  No difference.

-- Ken Moreau

RE: .2 <How would nature improve upon or supersede the mammalian model?>

All of the changes you mentioned (invertebrate to vertebrate, cold blooded
to mammalian) seem to increase the number of environments in which the
species can flourish.  Breathing water gets you 75% of the living space
on this planet (more if you take different depths of the oceans into
account), but there is lots of competition down there.  Breathing air
gets the first animals who did it lots of living space with little or
no competition.

Therefore, it seems to me that the next step beyond mammalian is toward
even greater environmental range:  ie, a single organism which can live
(without modifying the environment with things like clothes or shelter)
in the Arctic and the Sahara, and be active in those environments.

To me this means a *much* better method of regulating internal temperature,
as well as better defense against solar energy (sunburn etc).  Better eyes
would help, in order to distinguish predators/prey at greater distances
against neutral backgrounds (white polar bears lying on snow, for example).

Included might be one step beyond amphibian:  the ability to change in 
seconds between air breathing and water breathing, as well as the ability
to breath both fresh and salt water.

-- Ken Moreau

re: .9

>But that difference (IMHO) is minor, because evolution is irrelevant to 
>the survival of the individual:  it is the survival of the species that is 
>significant.  All individuals die, but species (through evolution) live.
>Does it matter whether it is the few geniuses who invent penicillin and
>such that survive, or is evolution simply using them to further the
>survival of the species?

If i understand the original point, it's that penicillin allows not the
"few geniuses" to pass on their genes but the beneficiaries of those
geniuses' discoveries.  A better example would be eyeglasses.  I'm pretty
blind without them, but with them i can survive and potentially pass on
my "inferior" genes to subsequent generations.

I think the issue is less one of "intelligence" than of any sort of
co-evolution of an advanced society of some form that permits the
propagation of genes that would be sub-optimal in a non-social species.
So societies simply provide a second order ecology beyond the so-called
"natural" environment of an individual member of a species.

So i'd respectfully argue that the proposed restriction against intelligence
(etc.) is a red herring.  Most of the interesting evolutionary adaptations
will be social...although they make the individual member of a species
more dependent on the social order and hence individually weaker, they
give a species an overall advantage in adaptability akin to the supposed
"hybrid vigor" of heterozygous offspring.
								- paul

    
    It seems to me that Homo Sapiens' use of intelligence is currently 
    aimed at keeping more of us on the planet. This is not necessarily the 
    best way, I would have thought, to ensure long term survival of the 
    species. There are too many of us, we're changing the whole environment 
    in completely unintentional ways. 
    
    I can't think of a single large problem facing the planet that wouldn't 
    be helped by fewer people on it.....
    
    Therefore I take the reported 50% drop in human sperm count in the last 
    30 or so years as being an encouraging sign. I think that the best 
    thing that could happen in evolutionary terms would be for it to become 
    harder for us to breed. This will be a bummer for those of us who will 
    have to cope with old age without a bunch of spry kids around to look 
    after us, but it's for the good of the species, right?.......
    
    Well, just my opinion, of course! Mind you, can't help feeling there's 
    a good story in here somewhere. 8^)
    
    Nigel.

    Re .5
    
    The was no move from fish to amphibian. Fish still exist, and are
    probably more successful than amphibians. Also, I believe, the normal
    theory is that birds evolved after mammals.
    
>    From an evolutionary point of view, these new capabilities may be
>    viewed as progress.  
    
    I doubt Darwin would have thought so, nor most of the scientists who
    study evolution. Viewing the history of evolution as a progression is,
    I believe, misleading.
    
    Peter

    Whether or not there can be objective progress in evolution is One of
    Those Questions that goes around and around.  For the purposes of this
    topic, I'm willing to assume that there can be such progress.
    
    The ideas already mentioned, of breathing both air and water, and a
    superior heat regulation system, both strike me as good ones.  I'll add
    that there are, after all, really three models of mammal -- monotremes,
    marsupials, and placentals -- and I think marsupial reproduction is
    perhaps better than placental.
    
    The main problem with V1.0 marsupials is that the newborn must climb
    from the birth canal to the pouch, generally without help or even
    notice from the mother.  If the birth canal emptied directly into the
    pouch, marsupials would have the same protection as placentals,
    without the complications of placentalism.  Placental animals have to
    provide for oxygen supplies to the embryo and must go through gyrations
    with their immune systems to keep the mother and baby from rejecting
    each other as foreign tissue.  Also, male fetuses have to buck the
    feminizing hormones that cross from the mother's bloodstream. 
    Marsupials avoid all that.
    
    Marsupials (kangaroos, at least) also have an interesting assembly-line
    trick with gestation.  A mother kangaroo can mate and conceive while
    still nursing a joey.  But the new embryo goes into a kind of
    hibernation until the joey stops nursing.  Variations on this trick
    could mean that a V2.0 marsupial female would almost always have a baby
    handy when she "wanted" one and never be stuck with one when she
    didn't.
    
    Earl Wajenberg

    In a different and more radical departure from the standard mammal, how
    about a process I will call "somatotype selection"?  To explain:
    
    Some organisms produce different offspring under different
    circumstances.  For instance, rotifers exist as parthenogenically
    reproducing females until adverse conditions (like approaching winter)
    show up.  Then males get produced along with the last generation of
    females.  These reproduce in the way we are accustomed to and produce
    specially reinforced eggs for wintering over.  Aphids do even better. 
    They reproduce parthenogenically until their locale gets crowded or
    otherwise undesirable.  Then they produce some males, and the results
    of these unions are winged females, who can fly away to other locales
    and start the cycle over again.
    
    So imagine this imported to mammals, in a suitablly different form. 
    E.g., the species exists as lions when there's plenty of big game. 
    When the big game diminishes, the next generation are dwarf forms --
    bobcats, who can subsist on smaller game.  Meanwhile, their prey are
    grazers like wildebeast, until the grazing gives out, whereon the next
    generation are smaller, antelope-like browsers until the grasses
    recover.
    
    And of course one can imagine more phases than two, and even more
    radical shifts of form.
    
    Earl Wajenberg

    
    >E.g., the species exists as lions when there's plenty of big game.
    >When the big game diminishes, the next generation are dwarf forms --
    >bobcats, who can subsist on smaller game.  Meanwhile, their prey are
     
    Wanna bet the lions'd eat the bobcats if the going was really tough?
    
    8^)
    
    Nigel.
    

    Maybe they would.  That wouldn't spell the end of the species,
    necessarily.  As it is, male lions often kill the cubs in a pride
    they've just taken over.  Langur monkeys have the same disagreeable
    habit.  Mother guppies are notoriously unable to distinguish their fry
    from snacks.
    
    Earl Wajenberg

    Re .17: Digression alert. I think it was really, really cold of whoever
    it was to designate baby fish as "fry". Kind of like calling baby
    chicks "drumsticks". [Or baby people "survival rations". ;-)]
    
    Re evolution: seems like there are a couple of ways species could
    evolve nowadays to promote their own survival. Either they evolve to
    make use of the higher levels of pollutants and the thinning ozone
    layer, or they evolve to be able to leave the planet. [Either of these
    could relate to the evolution of human intelligence as well as
    physical changes in humans or other species. And it may not require
    intelligence to be able to spread to other planets - though a
    well-designed spore, say, might have to wait until the earth blew up or
    got struck by a huge meteor or something in order to get
    transportation.]
    
    -b

    Re .18:
    
    There's a challenge -- thinking of an anatomical design to achieve
    escape velocity.  James White did it in one of the "Sector General"
    stories ("Space Bird"), but it was done by surgical alteration and 
    combination.
    
    Concerning evolution in a technical environment, I understand there is
    a cockroach species that often infests televisions, feeding on the
    insulation on the wiring.  (I suppose it must infest other
    environments, too.)  "After all," as the nature-show narrator said,
    "it's an ideal environment.  It provides warmth, shelter, food,
    entertainment..."
    
    Earl Wajenberg

>    The was no move from fish to amphibian. Fish still exist, and are
>    probably more successful than amphibians. Also, I believe, the normal
>    theory is that birds evolved after mammals.
   
   So do amphibians -- as Ken pointed out earlier, the point I was trying
   to make about the evolution from fish to amphibians was the increase in
   their range, not that amphibians superseded fish.
   
   No.  Birds evolved from reptiles.  And as far as I know, it has never
   been postulated that mammals were the ancestors of birds.
    
>>    From an evolutionary point of view, these new capabilities may be
>>    viewed as progress.  
>    
>    I doubt Darwin would have thought so, nor most of the scientists who
>    study evolution. Viewing the history of evolution as a progression is,
>    I believe, misleading.
   
   I specifically said "MAY be" to avoid the philosophical rathole that
   that statement might lead to.
   
   Ken got closest to the question I wanted answered.  Is there a basic
   mechanism that would improve the chances of life, or increase its range?
   Note, I'm not speaking of individual or even species -- I mean life in
   general.  
   
   Marsupial V2.0 sounds like an interesting idea, but is there something
   even more outlandish -- something that hasn't been tried yet?

    	I have heard the theory that the next level in human evolution
    are the machines we make, especially self-aware, replicating systems.
    
    	Larry
                     

    Re .20
    
    Sorry, I misunderstood. Rereading .5 I see that it does not actually
    say that mammals eveloved from birds, though it does imply so. On the
    other hand, I did not say that birds evolved from mammals, just that
    they came later.
    
    My point was that I don't think that movement from one type of species
    to another is a valid way to describe evolution. Movement to me implies
    replacement, which in a way opposes the idea of an increasing 'variety'
    of lifeforms adapting to more habitats
    
>   Is there a basic
>   mechanism that would improve the chances of life, or increase its range?
    
    Yes, evolution :-) Actually, this is a serious answer. Evolution is the
    mechanism by which 'life' changes. A consequence of Darwin's theory is
    that 'the chances of life' will be improved by evolution, though only
    in certain ways. Population preasure with the existing range, will
    force creatures to the margins, where if they can adapt they will
    increase the range.
    
    Peter

Several observations keyed from all the foregoing......

- Evolution is a process of optimization, resulting in organisms
that fit in the niches available with the best overall chances
for species survival.  Bird's eggs, for example, are round enough 
to be rolled around easily by the parents (for uniform warming)
but not so round that they will easily roll out of the nest.

- Evolution, as Darwin explained it, is actually a combination of two
very distinct factors:  1) the ability of offspring to differ
from their parents by random genetic changes, mutations;  2) the process
of natural selection, in which the results of mutations confer 
advantage, disadvantage, neither, or both.

- Even considering artificial breeding, evolution is primarily a random process.
While we can  breed dogs  with short legs and long thin bodies to hunt rabbits,
we are unlikely to breed six legged dogs with feathers, or marsupial V2.0.
Genetic engineering can change this, of course, by removing the randomness
from trait creation.

- Evolution does not create traits to exploit niches, it can only select 
among traits that arise.  A chilling of the climate will not "cause"
hair to grow on creatures that have never had hair, but if some members
of the population have a propensity to grow hair, they may be somewhat
more prolific survivors, leading to more hair several (many?) generations
later.  Remember, Lamark has been deemed wrong for along time now.

- Individual survival and species survival are two VERY different things.
Of course, in the extreme, if no individuals survive, the species can't,
but only a relatively small number of individuals need to survive
to propagate a species.
"Good times for the individual are bad times for the species, and vice versa,"
as Heinlein and others have quoted.

Finally, read the articles by Jared Diamond in Discover magazine about
evolutionary optimization, including human.  (sickle cell anemia
is an evolutionary adaptation that protects populations against malaria;
diseases that kill you too fast die out because their vectors do)
Also, the monthly column by Steven Jay Gould in Natural History is based
on his career as an evolutionist.
(life is profligate - look at all the dead ends in the Burgess Shales)

- tom]

PS:  Speculate on, but recognize that we rarely get to see SPECIES created
by evolution.  Next up the line is GENUS, and we're extrapolating here
to CLASSES and ORDERS!

>PS:  Speculate on, but recognize that we rarely get to see SPECIES created
>by evolution.  Next up the line is GENUS, and we're extrapolating here
>to CLASSES and ORDERS!
    
    Exactly!  I figured, if we're gonna speculate, think BIG!

    I swa a movie that touched on this kind of subject last night...
    
    Altered States...
    
    a film by Ken Russell... 
    
    It is more Horror than SF, but the basic premise is a Doctor (name
    escapes me) is experimenting with Isolation Tanks and the use of a
    halucinagenic drug, and suffers physical regression to the first
    "proto-man".
    
    Story was interesting enough and the explanations regarding the physics
    of bodily physical regression to an earlier species was thin but non
    the less it may interest those of you who are into this sort of thing.
    
    Bob

    There was an SF story on the slant of reproduction based on
    environmental crowdedness.
    
    the analogy was to grasshoppers/Locusts.  Occasionally, the benign
    grasshopper reproduced in such numbers as to becaome a swarm of
    agressive, fierce locusts, which would travel,
    eating/consuming anything edible until the environment could notsupport
    them.
    
    in teh SF version, mankind had emerged from its terran cradle to
    colonize several planets. When these pioneers reproduced, their
    offspring had evolved "backward" to more apelike beings. Concurrentky
    on terra,. where the population crunch had vanished, the same thing was
    happening.
    
    Brings new meaning to the phrase
    "you must learn, Grasshopper."
    Jamd
    
    

    I've forgotten the name, but I think it was by Larry Niven and
    Stephen Barnes.
    
    						Ann B.

    
    re .27  -  "The Legacy of Heorot" comes to mind, but if I recall correctly
    it's more about balanced predator/prey relations than evolution.
    
    len.
    

    re .28
    
    "The Legacy of Heorot" is not the story mentioned in .26. I have read
    both, but can't remember the title of latter. I believe it was a short
    story.
         
    There was an article in New Scientist not long ago, written by a
    biologist who has helped several writers with developing 'realistic'
    aliens and their evolutionary history. He helped Ann McCaffrey with
    the background to Pern (after the first few books were written). I
    think he also helped with Legacy of Heorot.
    
    Peter

    Right now, we use intellegence to predict future actions based upon
    what we have percieved in the past.  Mike Resnik proposed a type of
    evolution where the individual could predict with absolute certainty
    what actions to take now in order to cause certain events in the
    future.  This is my guess of a future step, intellegence moves from
    prediction of consequences, to being able to know what an the 
    consequences of an action will be.
    
    

    >Right now, we use intellegence to predict future actions based upon
    >what we have percieved in the past.  Mike Resnik proposed a type of
    >evolution where the individual could predict with absolute certainty
    >what actions to take now in order to cause certain events in the
    >future.  This is my guess of a future step, intellegence moves from
    >prediction of consequences, to being able to know what an the 
    >consequences of an action will be.
    
    Nah -- the Uncertanty Principle and Chaos Theory tell us that the
    future, beyond broad sweeps and generalizations, is unpredictable.

The problem with an individual being able to predict exactly what will happen is
that there are too many other individuals to mess up the equation. Is Chaos
theory a real thing? liesl

    "predict exactly" is a bit of a stumbling block.  "predict fairly
    accurately" would leave a bit more elbow room for theories 8*)
    
    Donal Graeme in "Dorsai!" was held up as an intuitive superman.  If
    individuals with this sort of capability started popping up everywhere,
    we'd really have a problem.  People who can predict the future don't
    necessarily have to come to different conclusions, either.  A good
    instance is Larry Niven's "Protector", where the various protagonists
    deduced all the logical conclusions so rapidly and so completely that
    they were forced to kill each other (very loose synopsis but you know
    what I mean).
    
    All the above supposes that the person blessed with these abilities has
    the drive/determination/fanaticism/maturity or what you will to act on
    their own predictions.  Maybe they'll just take a hard look at the
    future and blow their brains out...
    
    ...um.  Perhaps also blowing away a few key people whose absence will
    make tomorrow less worse.  Suddenly this sounds familiar.
    
    Richard
    

RE: .-1

>    ...um.  Perhaps also blowing away a few key people whose absence will
>    make tomorrow less worse.  Suddenly this sounds familiar.

Stephen King's "The Dead Zone" was a fairly good treatment of this.  There
is a very good scene where the main character (who can see into the future
of someone with whom he has physical contact, such as a handshake) has
discovered that a certain person will do fairly horrible things in the near
future (no spoilers).  He is discussing this fact with a friend, who is a
pacifist and had survived the Nazi concentration camps.

The friend says (my paraphrasing) "I am totally opposed to killing human
beings, and believe it to be unalterably wrong.  But if I had known the
consequences of it, and had had the chance to kill Hitler when he was a child, 
I would have done so without question".

But this gets into the whole time travel paradox, where if the friend *had*
killed Hitler, then (potentially) the concentration camps would not have
existed, and the reason for killing him did not exist.

-- Ken Moreau

RE: .31

>    >future.  This is my guess of a future step, intellegence moves from
>    >prediction of consequences, to being able to know what an the 
>    >consequences of an action will be.

So the next step in human evolution will be Hari Seldon?
>    
>    Nah -- the Uncertanty Principle and Chaos Theory tell us that the
>    future, beyond broad sweeps and generalizations, is unpredictable.

Well, he couldn't predict the Mule, but he did pretty well up to that point...

-- Ken Moreau

    re: .34
    
    When I said it sounded familiar, I meant that there seems to be a fair
    amount of it currently going on out in the real world.  I ended up on a
    bit of a downer yesterday afternoon.
    
    Richard
    

    
    	Perhaps we are looking in the wrong area
    maybe something to be considered is the environment
    surrounding the human race and the changes occurring 
    in it. The increase in global temp., the increased
    amount of green house gases, the increase in uv radiation,
    and the rising sea levels will all possibly contribute
    to the adaptations (evolution) of several species on the 
    planet. 
    	The increase in people suffering from asthma
    due to, say, pollution will possibly decrease the population
    of people with weak lungs or subject to lung disorders.
    Increased uv will cause a decrease in the amount of people
    with cancer prone genes due to skin cancer,etc 
    
    	Look at the environmental changes to decide the evolutionary path.
    
    
    							Mike N.

     The problem with predicting physical evolution of the human species is
    that we don't like to see ourselves puches out of the gentic matrix due
    to mere physical disability so we develop ways to compensate such as
    mechanical or chemical airfilters, water filters, drugs to fight
    diseases, etc.  We are so intellectually successful as a race that we
    are dismantling, one by one, the natural systems put in place to keep
    our population in check and to select only those individuals whose
    genes contribute to the gene pool.  The first thing to happen along
    these lines was the development of long ranged weapons such as the
    spear and later, the bow.   These weapons allowed physically inferior
    humans to defend themselves against larger, stronger, more
    environmentally attuned predators such as early canids (dire wolf) 
    cave bears, and early felines like the sabre toothed tiger and its
    relatives.  As humans had to worry less about defense and food
    gathering, they had more time and longer lives to deal with other
    things, developing intellectually as they went until now, we sit firmly
    atop the food chain as long as we keep our technology at hand.  So now,
    when a disease singles out a segment of the gene pool, instead of
    allowing it to cull the herd so to speak, we fight it and defeat it
    either through prevention, or treatment that allows the vulnerable
    genes to be passed along to later generations.  Likewise, we adapt to
    environmental changes through tech often causing them ourselves.  Human
    beings are adapted optimally to survive in a fairly narrow geographical
    band basically between the two tropics and a little on either side. 
    this is not to say that we cannot live beyond those areas, but that it
    is unlikely that any but the hardiest humans could survive the
    conditions of temperature and habitat, in absence of any technology and
    clothing, outside of those regions.    
    
    An intellectual evolution needs to take place before humans can pass on
    to physical evolutional progress.  That change is for humans to allow,
    by choice, the genetically inferior to fall out of the gene pool, not
    by mechanism of allowing the individual to be culled from the gene
    pool, but by mechanism of preventing those inferior genes to continue
    down the line.
    
    Human population will also not have to worry about this issue if it
    continues as it does, because we are damaging our environment, beyond
    adaptable perameters very fast.  Homo Sapiens is really little more
    than a flash in the evolutionary pan.  We have existed on this planet
    for perhaps a few hundred thousand years in our present species,
    probably much less, I am not certain of the figures, but in terms of
    biological time,  the T-Rex is closer to us than it is to it's first
    dino-ancestors and the space between us and T-rex is 65million years.
    What is more, the human race offers little to the system that is Earth,
    we have evolved out of the position of an integral member of the system
    to a position outside of the system.  We have become a parasite on the
    planetary ecosystem drawing ever increasingly large amounts of
    resources out of the system while we return nothing to it other than
    waste products and pollution.  In the past 100 years human population
    has contributed directly to the extinction of roughly half of the
    planets species, in short, we are killing our planet.
    
    
    Andrew
    

    	Commenting on the last sentence of your posting, I would be
    inclined to agree with Michael Chriton in JURASSIC PARK (speaking
    through Malcolm the Chaositician) that we are really destroying the
    human race.  Earth has survived far worse than us for five billion
    years and will probably keep right on existing long after we are
    wiped out if we're not careful.
    
    	Larry
    

    It's a sobering thought that human action will be visible in the
    geological record a hundred million years from now:
    
    o	A "great Extinction" episode, and
    o	A radioactive-enriched layer (of which the daughter products will
    	be visible), and
    o	Bigger annual layers in sediment due to greater erosion, and
    o	Fossilized materials (especially plastics), and
    o	Exploited ore bodies.
    
    Life on Earth could survive a massive meteor strike or thermonuclear
    war--as long as a few bacteria survive, after all, there's enough 
    time to re-evolve advanced multicellular land life before the Sun 
    leaves the stable part of its life.  On the other hand, there isn't
    enough time to do that twice.  And there's no guarantee that anything
    beyond bacteria would evolve--as far as we know!
    
    		-John Bishop

    People who know me well, know that I have little sympathy for the human
    race in general amd really do not care all that much if we become
    extinct, if we do, we will have brought it on ourselves.   What I do
    care about is all the other species who have no control over their
    situation and who will go down with us, not because of any failing on
    their part, but purely because Homo Sapiens, taken as a whole, is
    stupid, careless, selfish, shortsighted, arrogant, and in general,
    demonstrably evil.  I cannot and will not forgive the human race for
    the evils it continues to perpetrate upon other beings on this planet.
    We are beginning to understand the scope of the dangers, to hide our
    heads in the sand, or even worse, to rationalize them and ignore the
    dangers in favor of maintaining our comfortable way of life, is
    unconscionable.  Each day that goes by when corporations and
    individuals continue to rape the land and the birthright of countless 
    generations of species, for the profit of a few, stupid humans, I grow
    less and less interested in the survival of humanity.  To my mind, we
    have blown our chance and nothing short of a miracle can save us now.
    
    Forgive me if I rave, but this is one really sore point for me.
    
    Andrew
     

    If we survive, we survive.  If we don't, life will continue, oblivious
    to our passing.  
    
    The basic question wasn't about human evolution, it was more general.
    
    So, let's assume man does become extinct: any other thoughts about what
    might strengthen the chances for the continuation of Life on Earth?

    A wide variety of mutations caused by excess radiation and chemical
    pollutants might eventually turn out some positive mutations over time,
    leading to hardier species of flora and fauna.
    
    The absence of the human race would give other species a chance to
    expand into the void and develop to their highest potential.  Who
    knows, telepathic cetaceans could end up the most intelligent species
    on earth.  And they don't do much to hurt anything.
    
    Andrew
    

    Re .42:
    
    If you just want "Life," then Earth is pretty safe.  Consider that they
    have recently discovered bacteria that live in oil-bearing shales, far
    underground.  Even under the grimmest post-human scenario, there will
    be some kind of life around, I'd think.  It would take a really large
    asteroid or a major change in the sun to completely wipe it out.
    
    If you want *interesting* life, that's something else.  A few notes
    back (.14), I recommended "marsupial V2," with the newborn delivered 
    straight into the pouch.  I also suggested (in .15) a variable form, 
    whereby environmental stress would cause the organism to reproduce as 
    one of two or more forms, whichever was most appropriate to the
    environment.
    
    To this, I'll add another kind of variability -- litter & offspring size.
    Most animals have extremely constant sizes of litter and offspring --
    the two usually being related, so that there are either a lot of little
    ones or a few big ones.  But whatever it is, it's usually constant for
    the species.  But imagine a creature that could vary the number and
    size of its offspring according to conditions -- having lots of small
    (metabolically cheap) ones in easy times or a few larger (more
    expensive) ones in hard times, or a few small ones in *very* hard
    times.
    
    Combine this with the variable-form idea and you have a species that
    can be very tough in a wide range of habitats.
    
    Earl Wajenberg

    >But imagine a creature that could vary the number and size of its
    >offspring according to conditions -- having lots of small
    >(metabolically cheap) ones in easy times or a few larger (more
    >expensive) ones in hard times...
    
    Great idea!  (As was the earlier Marsupial V2.0) 
    
    As I read the above paragrapg, I realized: "I've been doing this too
    long."  It reminded me of the differences between UNIX process creation
    and OpenVMS process creation -- too dweeby for words!
    
    					andrew

    Re ,45:
    
    Thank you.
    
    For a really radical for of "somatotype selection" (.15) or maybe just
    alternation of generations, there are the flower-insects depicted in
    the book "Amarant," a fantasy art book produced a few years back.
    
    Example -- a caterpillar hatches from an egg and goes through hte usual
    wort of caterpillar life, including burying itself  and turning into a
    chrysalis.  However, the chrysalis doesn't hatch into a butterfly; it
    sprouts into a plant.  The plant flowers and eventually produces pods. 
    *These* produce the buterflies which lay the eggs that hatch into
    caterpillars.
    
    Exotic, but I'm not sure what advantage it is.  The artist-author of
    the book didn't care.  I can imagine a couple, though.
    
    First, as a form of semi-cannibalism, the caterpillar might feed on the
    plant phase of its own species.  There could easily be triggers in both
    forms to keep the caterpillar from killing the whole plant or from
    attacking the butterfly-bearing pods.  The caterpillar could even
    defend the plant from other insects.
    
    The butterfly forms might pollinate the flowers of the plant form, or
    the plant form might not need flowers at all, depending on the buterfly
    forms to mix the genes.  (In the book, the butterflies *were* flowers,
    as well as insects.)
     
    In that case, the species becomes, in essence, a form of plant that 
    defends itself by producing guardian caterpillars and spreads its seeds
    via the butterfly forms.  A very self-sufficient kind of plant.
    
    Second, we could bring back somatotype selection.  A bloodline might
    remain in plantform, reproducing by runners perhaps, until it has built
    up enough reserves, then flower into butterflies to spread its genes
    further afield.
    
    Earl Wajenberg

re: .44

I thought in "Watership Down" it mentioned that rabbits did something like
this (reabsorbed embryos rather than bearing them if the environment was
too stressful).

								paul

    Re .44--you reminded me of one of my favorite Star Trek episodes:
    
    McCoy: "What do you get when you overfeed a tribble?"
    Kirk:  "A fat tribble?"
    McCoy: "No, you get lots of hungry little tribbles."

    Re .47:
    
    Yes, they do, but I thought it was the whole litter that got resorbed.
    If not, then we do already have an animal that adjusts its litter size.
    Oh, well.
    
    ESW

Actually, vague memories from anthropology class are emerging. Don't humans
adjust their birthrate and gender selection in a gross form? I seem to remember
that over a society there will be increases and decreases depending on whether
they are at war etc. liesl

    species in general "adjust" their birthrate during times of stress and
    of plenty through simpler mechanisms than exertion of will over
    biology.  In difficult times when food, water, medical care and other
    life-enhancing resources are scarce, fewer children are brought to
    term, there are more miscarriages, more still-births, and fewer
    children will survive infancy.  In times of plenty, more babies are
    brought to term, they survive infancy and grow healthier.  The
    war-related birth adjustments have more to do with the presence and
    absence of males in the rear areas.   During the time of war, men tend
    to be away from the women, making it more difficult for conception to
    take place.  When they return, conception rates skyrocket from the
    release of all that pent up sexual desire, relief from loneliness,
    happiness that they are not on the front anymore, etc.  The baby boom
    is said to be the result of this phenomenon as servicemen returned from
    WWII and then Korea, they settled down to have families and live their
    part of the "American Nightm... I mean Dream".  
    
    Andrew
    

    Re .51:
    
    Species in general may "adjust" birth rate in the passive form you
    suggest, but it remains true that there are several species with a more
    active form of birth-rate control.  (Not that it is an exertion of
    will.  It's unlikely that many animals think to themselves, "Whoa, hard
    times! Better not ovulate much this breeding season.")  Such an active
    control can be a useful survival feature, since it spares the mother
    the wasted energy of pregnancies ending in miscarriages and
    still-births, thus raising her chances of lasting until easy times,
    when she can breed freely.
    
    Earl Wajenberg

�   During the time of war, men tend
�   to be away from the women, making it more difficult for conception to
�   take place.

Not really, it's just that most of the babies tend to resemble the milkman.
;^)

The interesting thing about human intelligence is that it allows for 
behavioral traits that inherit in Lamarkian fashion rather than Darwinian. 
Becoming intelligent allows for rapid changes in behavior over time which is 
certainly the case for Humans. In the process, the human gene pool is 
evolving in the sense that the gene pool is diversifying. Gene combinations 
that might in the past have been lethal now survive to sexual maturity and 
can be passed on to subsequent generations.

The effect of the diversifying gene pool is unpredictable. There may be an 
environment, perhaps space, where some of this new genetic material will 
prove advantageous. We won't know until we try to live there. Meanwhile, the 
gene pool will continue to drift. If the frequency of lethal combinations 
gets too great, then there will be a period of higher death rates or lower 
birth rates. There is also the possibility of new pathogens or genetic 
incompatibilities that will create selective pressure on Human populations. 
This could produce speciation over time. It's possible that this sort of 
thing was beginning to happen with the rh blood factor, but the isolation of 
populations wasn't long enough to cause full speciation. Instead, we get 
certain combinations of individuals that have potentially lethal mating 
consequences which we ameliorate with antibody treatments.

Mobility seems to be the bane of speciation.

Wook

Article: 377
From: [email protected] (Dani Zweig)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews
Subject: Belated Reviews PS#1: Shiras/Smith/Plauger/Neville: Unusual Children
Organization: Netcom Online Communications Services (408-241-9760 login: guest)
Date: 27 Sep 93 22:56:19 GMT
 
I'd intended to continue the run of Belated Reviews longer, but many of
the authors I'd thought to cover didn't fit in for various reasons.  So
I've ended the 'series' at a round number (thirty-two).
 
Postscripts to the Belated Reviews cover authors of earlier decades who
didn't fit into the original format -- whether because the author seemed
an inappropriate subject, or because I was unfamiliar with too much of the
author's work, or whatever -- or sometimes just isolated works of such
authors.  The emphasis will continue to be on guiding newer readers
towards books or authors worth trying out, rather than on discussing them
comprehensively or in depth.  I'll retain the rating scheme of ****
(recommended), *** (an old favorite that hasn't aged well), ** (a solid
lesser work), and * (nothing special). 
 
  Belated Reviews P.S.#1: Shiras/Smith/Plauger/Neville: Unusual Children
 
These are four authors with a number of things in common.  Each produced a
single work which I'd particularly recommend.  In each case, that work is
about children who are different, and need to fit into ordinary human
society.  And each of the works in question is notable for its relative
lack of melodrama.  Instead of the cliche bloodthirsty mobs, fanatical
terrorists or faceless kidnappers, we get children growing, talking,
thinking.  (The four works combined yield a total of one abortive mob and 
two possible murders.)  
 
Wilmar Shiras was a one-book author, but the book was "Children of the
Atom" (***+), one of the better workings-out of the theme of superior
mutant children.  The children are the scattered orphans of parents who
died of radiation poisoning after an major accident.  All are superhumanly
intelligent, which isn't necessarily a survival characteristic in very
young children, and most of them have learned to hide their intelligence.
The first part of the book originally appeared in 1948, as the novella "In
Hiding", in which one of the children decides to trust a doctor with his
secret.  The subsequent portions of the novel, written over the next two
years, have the children seeking each other out, and trying to decide what
to *do* with their gifts.  
 
The writing is thoughtful, entertaining, and low-key -- except near the
end, when a televangelist attempts to drum up a panic.  (Shiras wimps out
a bit at this point, essentially deciding that the way to deal with
ordinary folks is to really *be* ordinary.  Books can age as much because
opinions about, say, how to bring up children change as because technology
passes them by.)  By and large, though, the book is remarkable for its
lack of histrionics.  The children spend their time talking or writing to
each other, not cowering from mobs with pitchforks and torches.  
 
	Elsie turned on him swiftly and snapped:  "I don't know
	how to talk about people like that if I can't say either
	'stupid' or 'crazy'."
 
	"Well, don't bite me; I'm a Thomist," replied Wells mildly.
 
	"What's that?"
 
	"I'll lend you the Summa tomorrow and you can read it
	through before lunch."
 
I suppose George O. Smith a *is two* book author.  Aside from minor stuff
I wouldn't wish on many readers, there's the series of "Venus Equilateral"
stories (***) and there's "The Fourth R" (***+).  The former is WWII-
vintage fiction centering on an interplanetary radio network.  I liked it
well enough, but I wouldn't recommend it to a new reader because the stories'
obsolete technological superstructure keeps getting in the way:  Reading a
story about people improvising a vacuum tube isn't as thrilling as it used
to be.  "The Fourth R" is more recent (1959), and in any case less subject
to obsolescence.  
 
Jimmy Holden is *effectively* super-intelligent, because he's inherited a 
gadget from his murdered parents which grants perfect memory.  His problem,
aside from escaping the killer, is that society only grants children limited
status.  Announcing to the world that you've decided to set up on your own 
isn't an option for a five-year-old, however bright.  "The Fourth R" has a 
narrow focus -- primarily upon Holden's growth towards autonomy; Smith only 
looks superficially at the longer-term social implications of the gadget -- 
but, like Shiras, he does a thoughtful and low-key job.  (If the book doesn't
work as well as Shiras's, it's partly because Holden's specific problem is a 
largely artificial one, which is fairly certain to solve itself with time.)  
The effect of this book, like that of "Children of the Atom", is somewhat 
weakened by changing times, but it's still a solid and interesting read. 
 
	"...I am not going to establish a dangerous precedent that
	will end with doctors qualified to practice surgery before
	they are big enough to swing a stethescope or attorneys to
	plead a case before they are out of short pants.  I am going
	to recess this case indefinitely with a partial ruling."
 
P. J. Plauger's sf output has been largely unexceptional (you might say
that English isn't his native language :), except for the short story
"Child of All Ages" (****).  (I've been concentrating on novels, rather
than short stories, but for something like this I'll make an exception.)
It's also the best handling I've seen, in sf, of the theme of the
exceptional child in a society in which children are second-class
citizens.  This is more of a problem for Melissa than for most exceptional
children, because she's been a child for twenty-four centuries, always
having to move on after a few years (when people start noticing) and
find a new town or country into which to fit.  Most societies can find
a place for a strange orphan, but it's rarely a comfortable one.  And
societies that do have more comfortable places sometimes like to see
documentation.  And then it's all to do over again, before she's
recognized for what she is.  (The source of her longevity will not work on
adults, but her experience suggests that she's not likely to survive the
process of convincing people of this, once they realize that she's not
aging.)  The story appeared in the 3/75 Analog.  I assume it's been 
anthologized since, but don't know where. 
 
	"It was King George, and you know it.  Look, before I came here I
	lived in Berkeley for a while."  She caught May's look.  "I know
	what my records say.  After all, I wrote them..." 
 
	"...Kids don't get invited to the events that make history. 
	Until very recently all they ever did was work.  Worked until
	they grew old or worked until they starved or worked until they
	were killed by a passing war.  That's as close as most kids get
	to history, outside the classroom."
 
Since I'm looking at authors who only have a single work I'd really
recommend here, I thought I'd include Kris Neville's "Bettyann", though
it stretches the theme somewhat.  Actually, there are two works by that 
title.  The original 1951 story (****) tells of a pair of alien shape-
changers, in human form, who are killed in a traffic accident, leaving 
behind a human-shaped infant who is too young to know she is an alien or 
a shapechanger, and who is adopted and brought up human.  In some ways, 
mostly psychological, she remains different, but those differences grow 
smaller with time.  Then, one day, relatives come to take her home.  Another
highly recommended short story.  The 1970 fixup novel (***) is weaker -- it
is diluted by the uninteresting parallel story of her kinfolk in space, and
simply by extra detail -- but it still retains the powerful core story.  
(There is a semi-sequel short story titled "Bettyann's Children" (***), by 
Lil and Kris Neville, in Roger Elwood's 1973 anthology "Demon Kind".) 
 
	"Alone, one hot summer afternoon, she went to a flock of
	English sparrows on the lawn before the house and picked
	one up gently in her hand and held it to her face and
	answered its puzzled chirping by imitating the conversation
	of the flock.  Dave came out, letting the screen door slam,
	and the birds flew in terror.  "How the devil did you manage
	to slip up that close to them, Bettyann?"
 
	She answered, "I guess I just did."  It occurred to her then
	to ask the question of herself: but there was no answer other
	than the one she had given.  "I must have just been thinking
	right," she said...
 
One of the cliches of the genre is that the best way to portray super-
intelligent people is to portray them as children, while they're still
comprehensible.  An often-overlooked difficulty is that children don't
make the rules, no matter how bright they are.  Before they can take the
world by storm, they have to go through years in which they must fit into
society on its own terms, without being too badly mauled in the process.
The books in which such children help themselves along with atomic ray
guns or black belts in karate or supertelehypnosis can be good fun, but
it's nice to have more restrained works, such as these, to balance them.
 
%A  Shiras, Wilmar
%T  Children of the Atom
 
%A  Smith, George O.
%T  The Fourth R
 
%A  Plauger, P.J.
%T  Child of All Ages
 
%A  Neville, Kris
%T  Bettyann
 
-----
Dani Zweig
[email protected]
 
    "The death of God left the angels in a strange position."

 	  --Internal documentation, programmer unknown
 

    I've seen "Child of All Ages" and liked it a great deal.  The 
    anti-aging gimmick (stop before puberty) sounds reasonable.
    
    I realized that _now_ there is an alternative: she could claim
    she was a victim of FOO syndrome, which prevents puberty (I'm
    sure there is such a syndrome).  Use the last-but-one documents
    to show she's 21, and use make-up or scarring to look older.
    Even if the scars vanish in a few years, you could probably
    fake up some wrinkles.  And she already had a non-child attitude
    ("people are manipulatable scum").
    
    This'd work until medicine gets good enough that FOO syndrome
    is automatically cured at birth.  But in the interval between
    knowing about FOO and curing it automatically she could present
    herself as an adult.
    
    		-John Bishop

    OK, Here's another idea.
    
    We (and it seems to me that a lot of 'higher' life) spend a lot of
    time 'sleeping'.  Think about the advantages that you would have if you
    didn't need sleep.  Could this be a step in evolution.
    
    I recognize that there are advantages to sleep, in a purely physical
    way:  more sleep means less energy spent and less food to eat, but I
    also would think that if you didn't have to sleep, that you would be
    able to spend more time looking for food.  There must be some sort of
    evolutionary problem with this, because I am not aware of any animals
    that can stay up without sleep for days, weeks, and months.
    
    From a mental standpoint, if we could eliminate the requirement of sleep,
    then you could effectivly double your lifespan!
    
    think about the advantage the nonsleepers would have over the sleepers
    in our society.  They could work two jobs and still have personal time
    left over.
    
    Brian.

Sleep is probably just a holdover from having a portion of the day that 
you weren't adapted to. We don't see well at night but other predators 
do so we stay low and quiet until we can move about safer in the daylight. 
It'll probably take some time for our metabolism to allow continuous 
all-nighters 8^)

    
    See Nancy Kress's "Beggars in Spain."
    
    DFW