No way. A selective pressure is a factor in the environment that determines if a trait or a genetic line will continue or not. CO2 emissions are the biggest factor in our environment determining if humans will go extinct, given that business as usual is already producing disruptive climate change and it will steadily get far worse without policy reversal.
I'd like to see what the gene for "climate denial" looks like.
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The jews that were massacred under Hitler shared a common ideology. Do you think there was a common gene behind that ideology? Even though our issue is associated with an environmental factor(co2), the selective advantage for our species is how we handle the problem ideologically. If and when the Earth heats up, then our environment will apply a selective pressure. Or perhaps the selective pressure will be rising sea levels and the tangible effects from that. As it stands right now, the pressure is ideological.
But Robert, that's exactly what I'm saying. Our big brains don't need to change for us to solve this issue. If you claim there is a tangible physical selective pressure that would alter brain chemistry, then I'd like to hear the hypothesis. Because even if "stubborness" is a trait that would be selected against in the upcoming ideological battle, those stubborn people will not die. They will have offspring. When ideas are selected against, it is the death of an idea, not the death of the holder of the idea.Humans are near unique in the evolution of terrestrial life in having language to understand and avoid selective dangers. On the model of baboons having different words for snake, leopard and eagle, we have different words for carbon dioxide and methane. These trace gasses are threats to our survival, but we can turn them to advantage through deliberate evolution of political systems. We can use our brains to adapt to our environment, exactly the same process as humans used over paleological time scales to evolve big brains. Big brains are for making wise decisions about how to survive.
Interbane wrote:
In this respect, genetics and information are distinct. Ideas can be selected for or against, at the same time that no selective pressure is applied to our genes.
Eventually ideas apply selective genetic pressure. Diamond gives the example of state peace. Without a state enforcing peace, humans face very different selective pressures, seen in the culture of non-state societies. But at what point does this become genetic rather than just cultural? On the model of how concern for maternal health is leading to slow narrowing of hips, genetically, it must necessarily be the case that the social structure in which we live ultimately determines long term genetic success. Genes that are incompatible with their niche get weeded out by natural selection. Cultural evolution is so much faster than genetic evolution, but the two are necessarily linked.
In what way would "concern for a sustainable energy source" translate into selective pressure on genes? Concern is an ideological characteristic. If it were concern for "red-haired people", or concern for some other phenotype or phenotypic extension, then the two would be necessarily linked. Or perhaps if the sustainable energy source you had in mind were matrix-style human batteries. But as it stands, the concern you mention is entirely ideological.
Which of us dies when a portion has the correct gene? The genes will not be selected against when one ideological party wins the debate. Unless winning the debate also includes slaughtering the losers. A leopard kills a single person without the gene. The threat you're referring to would be indiscriminate, not causally linked to the gene for threat avoidance. It would affect us all. However, a gene for "paranoia" may in fact be causally linked, showing up in people who survive the coming dystopia in underground bunkers filled with food and sex slaves.The gene for avoiding threats. See leopard, hide or run away. See scientific data, adjust energy systems.
The concept of a permutation is rhetoric. I wasn't speaking of a literal person having an infinite number of ideas, nor the current state of affairs. I was speaking of the environment for ideas, of the possibilities. Possible array vs existing array. In any case, it isn't central to my point.That is absurd Interbane. Our brains are finite entities on a finite planet, with permutation bounded by planetary reality. Not anything like infinite, except as rhetoric.
Is that necessarily the case? I know of all the examples where it has happened, you don't need to list them. But is it a necessity? I don't think it is. I believe that in some arenas, there is no connection in the selective pressure of ideas to the selective pressure of genes. Consider all the ideas that have failed over time. All the old science, all the old philosophy. All that has long since been considered false, or outdated. Has any of this information gone extinct in parallel with genetic change, even in some barely detectable fashion? I would say no, and I'm right there with you on how even the slightest of environmental factors eventually leads to a genetic change. They are simply two different fields of play.The meme/gene boundary is blurred. A meme indicates a change in the niche, the invisible tao, which will eventually filter through to physical structures with real genetic effect, even recognising the very slow pace of genetic evolution.