Question for scientist type people.. Evolution

[Weird Harold]

Not outgrown it. There are still tribal chiefs with hundreds of wives in some parts of the world.

However, it's a bit different from wolves or stallions. Among apes, there is an alpha male who gets his harem, but it's been documented that the girls and the lower order guys sneak off and have sex when Alpha-male's back is turned.

Even in those cses where the tribal chiefs have hundreds of wives, there isn't the "alpha-male" drive to keep other males from procreating; high-status subordinates are "rewarded" with a wife or wives of their own. Even the most greedy and jealous tribal chief probably uderstands that completely depriving other human males of the opportunity for progeny is a serious health risk.

Among wolves, only the alpha males genes get passed on. But among humans, the alpha male's genes and those of any other male sneaking around behind his back get passed on...as well as all the females' genes.

Male Lions apparently can tell if a cub is theirs or another males offspring and will kill any they don't recognise as theirs; humans aren't that sensitive to blood relationships so sneaking around is practical.

There are several known genetic traits that are passed strictly through the female line. The original mutant doesn't have to be a male -- males just have the innate ability to pass on a mutation faster than once every nine months. Female linked traits take much longer to spread than male linked or asexual traits do.

 

[elsol]

In ElSol's original premise, "...a failed TV show about a new species of man coming into existence in central america...," Homo Novus was likely the result of conscious planning -- eg Eugenics -- that concentrated and accelerated the speciation.

The show never got into but I would like to have it follow the evolutionary forced mutation.

An isolated population in a civil war... it gives me all the evolutionary requirements for advancement.

I was going to go for the mixing of races in a latin country had started the process and then civil war forced the rest..

i.e. high death rate, a predator (other homo sapiens) to evolve against, war reducing the number of males to a point where fewer and fewer male genetic lines...

Do you ever get the feeling it's more fun to build the structure of the story than to actually write it? 'Cause I know this thing is headed for the 'Whenever I have time pile...' but it's just so cool to think it through to the plausible.

I just can't beat the time thing... I want to work within the span of fifty-seventy five years from the first sign of mutation and new dominant traits to enough interbreeding for the dominant traits to combine into a few representative specimens and arrive at Homo Proficio.

 

[Weird Harold]

I can't help but think there will be a lot of people who will want to go out and fuck the humanoid aliens (or other species) ...

Science Fiction fans even have a term for inter-alien sex -- Rithshatra (sp) IIRC, author LArry Niven coined the term in the mid-sixties and a minor but popular sub-genre of Science Fiction blossomed; Lit labels that sub-genre "non-human."

 

[elsol]

Although Homo Venator might be more accurate for the story...

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Doing the reading... humans culture is counter-evolution.

We carry a lot of otherwise non-advantageous mutations because of our cultural mores.

We're allowing bad stuff to continue to be bred which nature wouldn't do... kinda like with show dogs, Bulldogs can actually *gasp* lack an interest in sex.

These genes we allow to survive are only non-advantageous if you think that humans exist as solitary animals. We don't. A solitary human has just about zilch survival probability in nature. Humans are social animals and only survive as groups, and so anythng that enhances the conhesion of the group enhances the chances of individual survival. We've done so remarkably well as a species not because we're individually strong or fast or have big teeth, but because we're smart and work in groups and have culture - the accumulated wisdom of the group passed down from generation to generation.

So it's in the group's interest to preserve as many of its members as it can, whether they're fast or slow or weak or strong. Maybe it was some skinny weakling who first thought up the bow and arrow, or some helpless schizophrenic who first tried eating an oyster. We care for our elderly because their wisdom and experience have tremendous survival value to the group.

So love and affection have very high survival value. They're built into us for a reason.

That's the big fallacy in Social Darwinism. It ignores the fact that the most rugged individualist can't do squat without people around him.

 

[Weird Harold]

Do you ever get the feeling it's more fun to build the structure of the story than to actually write it? 'Cause I know this thing is headed for the 'Whenever I have time pile...' but it's just so cool to think it through to the plausible.

I just can't beat the time thing... I want to work within the span of fifty-seventy five years from the first sign of mutation and new dominant traits to enough interbreeding for the dominant traits to combine into a few representative specimens and arrive at Homo Proficio.

You might check out Andrew Wiggins' "Death By Fucking" and "New Man University" series. I think they've been pulled from Literotica but should still be available under the Andrew Wiggins pen-name at StoriesOnline and ASSTR.

His "New Man" is the fifth generation of a world-wide selective breeding program.

Fifty years is pushing the underage restrictions at Lit but it's just barely sufficient for a third generation to reach pre-school age and be identifiable as distinctly Homo Proficio (or Homo Venator).

Start with a single Male Mutant -- age 45-50 at the beginning of the story. Give him eight to ten sons ages 18-25 (by several women) and start your 50-year breeding program from that point.

Each son finds four to six "wives" and sires a child every two years on each of them in a roughly 5:1 female to male ratio.

Eighteen years into the program, the daughters from the first pregnancies reach breedable age -- nine sons with five wives each is 45 children every two years for a total of 405 children when the first 45 reach breeding age -- every two additional years adds another 45 children of breeding age. if the ratio is 5:1 that's 38 additional children in year eighteen and when the next batch reaches breeding age, it's 76 children for year 20; and 114 children for year 22 -- and so on.

Fifty years into your breeding program, your original nine sons' great-grandchildren will be aged 2 to 14 in numbers pushing the logistical limits of an endagered agrarian community.

Of course all of that ignores mortality rates and injuries causing infertility in a civil war/ post apocalypse setting and the number would have to be adjusted to reflect casualties. The ratio of female to male births is also a bit unrealistic, but it ignores the probable influx of women captured, rescued or recruited from the "enemy." I think a policy of five wives per man and a child every two years from each wife would work out fairly close the numbers a female to male birth ratio without casualties would predict -- if not higher because a "normal" ratio of births would work out to about 20-22 males per birth cycle in the first group.

You just have to play with the numbers but I think a thousand or two isn't an unreasonable (or unreachable) number for fifty years of a conscious breeding program. If you start with eight to ten progenitors and assume a polygamous society.

 

[phdbio]

i probably should avoid this all together seeing how it will only frustrate me and perhaps be futile. i am trained as an population geneticist and there are all sorts of gaps in what has been said. Dominance of a trait has only part to do with wether an allele is fixed in a population. And advantageous in one environmental condition may not be in another.
The question began with speciation however and this can happen several ways one of which could be prolonged seperation so at that the two populations would evlove some level of fitness (read: mean number of offspring in an individuals lifetime) and when crossed back the fitness would drop. This is really very involved and the idea that one mutation would lead to a new species is not only rare but statistically so slight that i would call it impossible... i think i am giving up on this...nevermind forget i said anything

 

[Weird Harold]

This is really very involved and the idea that one mutation would lead to a new species is not only rare but statistically so slight that i would call it impossible... i think i am giving up on this...nevermind forget i said anything

I was bit simplistic in referring to how a single dominant trait spreads and didn't emphasize enough that it's the confluence of several changes that results in different species.

Don't go away, though -- the input from someone that is a professional in a field is always preferable to my generalist knowledge.

 

[R. Richard]

I was bit simplistic in referring to how a single dominant trait spreads and didn't emphasize enough that it's the confluence of several changes that results in different species.

Perhaps not. If the single dominant trait is of sufficient importance it may trigger other changes.

A specific change I am thinking of is the mutation that allowed one group of proto apes to develop the ability to lock the knee joint, allowing bipedal movement.

 

[phdbio]

i see what you are saying about traits but, traits don't evovle. genes evolve and teh number of base pairs required in evolving this trait must have been huge and taken thousands if not millions of years

 

[JamesSD]

So, I'm a Biochemist with only a cursory understanding of evolutionary biology. There's something I've never quite understood about branches on the evolutionary tree...

My understanding is the definitioni of two separate species is that they can't breed and produce viable offspring. The converse is if two animals can breed and produce viable (i.e. not sterile) offspring, they are by definition the same species.

So, different breeds of dogs are all the same species, because even if mating is impractical (think male St. Bernard, female chihuahua), from a genetic standpoint they can produce offspring. However, horses and donkeys are different species... They can mate and produce mules, but mules are (generally?) not fertile.

Evolution occurs very gradually in animals (as opposed to bacteria and viruses, which go through generatioins in the period of days or hours). So, for two species to actually separate, is some sort of barrier to reproduction required? i.e., a group of some feline predecessor splits in two, and becomes geographically separated, and after many, many generations can no longer produce viable offspring with each other?

Anyways, I'm sort of rambling. From a sci-fi perspective you might just want to go with a sub-species that possesses certain common traits rather than a whole separate species.

 

[Tuomas]

That's if they land in a Latin dominant country... the rest of you all seem to be very xenophobic which puts us latins at an advantage when it comes to whoel fucking thing.

We're a culture and the culture itself is very much into the Borg thing of assimillation.

So if it's got the necessary plumbing... color ain't a reason not to party!

Well, your monopoly on the latino market was shattered when I showed up. Sorry.

Although, I am a bit more picky than most of my fellow countrimen, and continentmen (yay! New word! )

I mean, you do have to draw a line somewhere... sex with cyborgs mmm OK. Sex with dogs.. no thank you... sex with people who have had pig-skin implants..... *coughs*

 

[Tuomas]

I just can't beat the time thing... I want to work within the span of fifty-seventy five years from the first sign of mutation and new dominant traits to enough interbreeding for the dominant traits to combine into a few representative specimens and arrive at Homo Proficio.

Well, since it's an extreme situation, you can have people procreating by age 15, which would give you a good four or five generations. Add some toxic chemicals and maybe some radioactive waste... BINGO!

 

[dr_mabeuse]

i probably should avoid this all together seeing how it will only frustrate me and perhaps be futile. i am trained as an population geneticist and there are all sorts of gaps in what has been said. Dominance of a trait has only part to do with wether an allele is fixed in a population. And advantageous in one environmental condition may not be in another.
The question began with speciation however and this can happen several ways one of which could be prolonged seperation so at that the two populations would evlove some level of fitness (read: mean number of offspring in an individuals lifetime) and when crossed back the fitness would drop. This is really very involved and the idea that one mutation would lead to a new species is not only rare but statistically so slight that i would call it impossible... i think i am giving up on this...nevermind forget i said anything

Well, my ignorance frustrates me as too, so it would be nice to have an expert around and I wish you wouldn't just give up. I'm sure the subject is complicated and it takes a lot of specialized knowledge to even talk about it, but it seems to me that the inability of evolutionary biologists to explain this stuff in a way that people can understand is the main reason why the intelligent design people and creationists are doing so well.

I mean, we've discussed quantum mechanics and string theory and relativity here. Is speciation really that much harder to explain?

 

[Tuomas]

Science Fiction fans even have a term for inter-alien sex -- Rithshatra (sp) IIRC, author LArry Niven coined the term in the mid-sixties and a minor but popular sub-genre of Science Fiction blossomed; Lit labels that sub-genre "non-human."

Thank you for the warning. I will steer well clear of those stories

 

[Tuomas]

These genes we allow to survive are only non-advantageous if you think that humans exist as solitary animals. We don't. A solitary human has just about zilch survival probability in nature. Humans are social animals and only survive as groups, and so anythng that enhances the conhesion of the group enhances the chances of individual survival. We've done so remarkably well as a species not because we're individually strong or fast or have big teeth, but because we're smart and work in groups and have culture - the accumulated wisdom of the group passed down from generation to generation.

So it's in the group's interest to preserve as many of its members as it can, whether they're fast or slow or weak or strong. Maybe it was some skinny weakling who first thought up the bow and arrow, or some helpless schizophrenic who first tried eating an oyster. We care for our elderly because their wisdom and experience have tremendous survival value to the group.

So love and affection have very high survival value. They're built into us for a reason.

That's the big fallacy in Social Darwinism. It ignores the fact that the most rugged individualist can't do squat without people around him.

Alexander Selkirk

No, but seriously, you are right. Not right enough to make it an extreme (which is what a lot of social engineers like doing, and their extremity has spawned the individualist movement as a reaction), but it is definately something that should be considerd.

 

[3113]

speculative rather than science fiction

The show never got into but I would like to have it follow the evolutionary forced mutation.

An isolated population in a civil war... it gives me all the evolutionary requirements for advancement.

Dude, if you're going to go this way (as many a sci-fi book, movie and comic has gone--witness X-Men), then you can pretty much ignore the whole natural selection and millions of years research. The hard and real science, as it were--which you might make possible and workable, but it's going to take more effort than it's worth.

Don't even mention the why. Just say, scientists couldn't explain how evolution had made this jump, but something strange had happened and it had all sped up and what would have taken millions of years only took 50 or whatever.

Some writers and readers want hard science. Some don't. In your case, hard science hurts rather than helps. So do a little hand waving, mention evolutionary science (etc) as little as possible, write it up as speculative fiction rather than science fiction.

 

[elsol]

Well, your monopoly on the latino market was shattered when I showed up. Sorry.

Although, I am a bit more picky than most of my fellow countrimen, and continentmen (yay! New word! )

I mean, you do have to draw a line somewhere... sex with cyborgs mmm OK. Sex with dogs.. no thank you... sex with people who have had pig-skin implants..... *coughs*

I did say necessary plumbing.

I mean I like my dog... quite probably I prefer him to about 99.9999999% of other humans, but human females are definitely where it's at.

 

[elsol]

Dude, if you're going to go this way (as many a sci-fi book, movie and comic has gone--witness X-Men), then you can pretty much ignore the whole natural selection and millions of years research. The hard and real science, as it were--which you might make possible and workable, but it's going to take more effort than it's worth.

Don't even mention the why. Just say, scientists couldn't explain how evolution had made this jump, but something strange had happened and it had all sped up and what would have taken millions of years only took 50 or whatever.

Some writers and readers want hard science. Some don't. In your case, hard science hurts rather than helps. So do a little hand waving, mention evolutionary science (etc) as little as possible, write it up as speculative fiction rather than science fiction.

There's a core of backstory required to build a story outward for me... as I think about the hows and whys the story builds itself.

Plus I have to learn how to do proper research at some point

It's something I hate to do so this is just practice.

 

[elsol]

*deleted*

Fairly pointless as I was looking for an explanation that would fit my story anyway

 

[phdbio]

okay i will give a primer on natural selection, and the balance of it with mutation and random genetic drift. feel free to skip this post as it may bore some of you to tears but outside of lit, this is possibly one of my favorite topics.

in order for natural selection to occur you must have 3 things. differences in the phenotype of individuals (physical manifestation of thier genes could be how they look or strength of thier immune system), 2 these differences must be heiritable (able to be passed on to the next generation), and 3 that this trait or phenotype must have some effect on fitness (overall success of the individual over a lifetime). So to use the example of locking knees. the first ape man thingy can walk upright and then selection can act on it because females may see him eating more because he can reach higher fruit or he can out run predators. So differential reproduction leads to his genes for locking knees to be passed on to more progeny (offspring) in the next generation of that population. Selection can happen very rapidly but infact it rarely does without human interaction in the process. an example of this might be that bacteria downstream of pantyhose factories have evolved the ability to digest and use nylon as thier food source where as nylon doesn't occur naturally and bacteria shouldn't be able to digest it.

So with selection being weak it takes evolution quite some time. now mutation in the truest sense is a change in the genetic code or the A's T's G's and C's of your genome. this rate is slower than you can imagine something like 1 x 10^-6 or -7. so very slow. and selection can only act on those mutations that show up in the phenotype of individuals so if there is a very small change or even a silent mutation (one that doesn't change the protien made) then selection doesn't act on it. Finally random genetic drift is the removal of genetic information from a population due to sampleing error. example....flipping a coin - flip it 100 time it will aproximate 50/50 but if you only sample a small poplulation of flips say 5, it wouldn't be suprizing to get all heads or 4 heads and a tail. that doesn't mean that the coin isn't balanced. it just means you didn't sample enough. through drift in small populations you can have deletarious alleles fixed and beneficial alleles lost. so moral of the story: small populations have problems including drift, inbreeding, and lack of genetic diversity needed to deal with a herterogeneous environment.

My understanding is the definitioni of two separate species is that they can't breed and produce viable offspring. The converse is if two animals can breed and produce viable (i.e. not sterile) offspring, they are by definition the same species.

the idea of species is debated hotly throughout biology. The truth is that we can't define it. the reason for this is that it is a continum (spelling is terrible sorry). so if we took a snap shot right now and then described all the animals that were .3% genetically different as species then we could do it. but what is .3 today might be .5 10 generations from now so we just loosly define it and do our best. As for interbreeding, that can be true but not nessicarily. Hybrids can occur and a lot of hybrids are sterile say mules, ligers (lion tiger), and some types of lizards. but also some hybrids can become thier own third species if they can out perform thier parentals.

as far as dr_mabeuse's comments on sociality and group theory. it is true that some groups have evolved to work together. its the idea that we are just shells that are used to pass on our genetic information. there was a man in my field in the 50's i think who was asked if he saw his brother drowning in a lake would he jump in to save him. this was someone trying to disprove selection and show that it couldn't explain benevolence. the man said back no but if it was two brothers and a cousin..now that was a joke but the point he was making is that if he died but his genes made it to the next generation through is relatives then it was in his best interest. same with hymenoptera (ants etc.) they give up all reproductive capabilities so they can pass on more genetic information. sociality is really neat stuff and has evolved several different times but the idea of giving up your fitness to aid a complete stranger is less developed..

okay this has gotten less than brief but i feel like i may have confused more than i helped and i did nothing for the person trying to write thier sci fi story...sorry

 

[dr_mabeuse]

So to use the example of locking knees. the first ape man thingy can walk upright and then selection can act on it because females may see him eating more because he can reach higher fruit or he can out run predators. So differential reproduction leads to his genes for locking knees to be passed on to more progeny (offspring) in the next generation of that population.

Okay. Here's where I have my problem. For his locking-knees trait to be passed on and expressed, doesn't it have to be a dominant gene?

I'm assuming that X means "locking knees" and x means "non-locking knees" and all Xx progeny will have locking knees. Otherwise the poor guy would have to find a female with the same X gene in order for their progeny to have locking knees and how likely is that?

 

[phdbio]

well with something as important as locking knees it might not matter. but in general it would be easier for selection to act on dominant rather than recessive alleles. the corralary to that is that if there is a strongly benefical recessive allele then selection can still act on it but it will be slower.

 

[R. Richard]

well with something as important as locking knees it might not matter. but in general it would be easier for selection to act on dominant rather than recessive alleles. the corralary to that is that if there is a strongly benefical recessive allele then selection can still act on it but it will be slower.

Locking knees might not seem like an important item. However, locking knees means bipedal movement. Bipedal movement means the ability to not only move from place to place, but also to carry along tools. Thus the possessor of locking knees can move to a new environment, while carrying at least the minimum necessary tools needed to survive in the new environment [perhaps a club and a water gourd.] Thus, the possesor of locking knees will likely encounter really new situations on a day by day basis. Since the possessor of locking knees encounters new situations on a day by day basis, then the ability to solve problems becomes of paramount importance = development of large brain. Development of large brain means more problems, means development of still larger brain. The end result of the scenario is well known.

JMNTHO.

 

[Tuomas]

I did say necessary plumbing.

I mean I like my dog... quite probably I prefer him to about 99.9999999% of other humans, but human females are definitely where it's at.

You did say necessary plumbing...

Bleh, sometimes I'm annoyed by the "fuck first, ask questions later" mentality that seems to permiate our society. It reminds me of something Huxley said about how when personal freedom deminishes, sexual freedom seems to compsatingly increase...

But, then, I'm probably insane anyway...