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1. You're using profit motive to argue against domestication with the ideal that animals are to be left alone in the pristive wild.

2. The traits are there.



So?
If true, this would then mean humans are using their own intellect nature gave them. And which also means more responsibility.




The dog is breeding it's species and has grown into a very large population.

You'd also have to consider the possibility that humans interacting with animals, especially domesticated animals, alters humans as well. And than interactions in the wild bring about "domesticate" or cooperative relationships.

I am not arguing for or against domestication. My concern is the natural selection argument and if it applies to all instances.



The traits are there regardless of natural selection theory. The theory deals with which traits get passed on to the offspring and why.


One possible argument is that humans did not reach such an intellect through natural selection but by "human selection".



True. With the help of humans, the dog population has steadily increased.


Then humans have accomplished this themselves by breeding dogs and creating a domesticated species which brings us back to the human selection idea...

Okay, I guess I was confused. This thread has gotten confusing for me as the initial post is deleted and I never got to read the whole thing when it was there and the conversation started into an idea I find interesting (but certainly not an expert) and was trying to back track.



I don't understand?





But why are humans being alienated from nature?

To me it just means humans need to take more responsibility.

Perhaps.

Jediscraps~

ooOoOoOAnaOoOoOoo wrote~



I was asking in regard to separating "natural selection" and human selection.

I think I've read animals have also altered the environment and it isn't always for what we would consider "good".

I personally don't see how altering the environment is wrong for humans. I just think that humans have brain, oppossible thumb, tools and science and to be more responsible in using them. I think a lot of the problems we have today concerning animals and the environment has to do with how humans structure society and where our priorities lie.

If someone says we're currently out of balance I'd agree but I don't think that means manipulating the environment or making it more comfortable is in itself wrong and I'd find it hard to believe humans or animals can live in nature without doing so.

Wrong or right, the question remains: Is it natural selection? How much of what we are can be blamed on natural selection? I can see natural selection playing a bigger part in other species but perhaps a limited role in our own...and thanks to us, a limited role in certain other species...when we interfere. I am not arguing for or against natural selection, just question how widespread it really is.

I think it's an interesting topic.

There is research (in discover magazine) that indicates humans have become more domesticated with the advent of agriculture. Hunter and Gatherers were more robust or masculinized. Cooperation became a more important trait than aggresiveness in an agrarian society. Human natural selection for this led to a less masculinized, less robust, more domesticated type of human that was more likely to cooperate than kill.

The cooperation among humans led to increased language abilities, the ability to share and transfer knowledge beyond verbal means, and increased cultural adaptations, for the most part aimed at the increased ability to secure resources necessary for human survival. I think our cultural adaptations are now evolving beyond what our nature is normally capable of handling. I think it has gotten to the point that we are not only alienated ourselves from nature, but in someways alienated ourselves from our own nature.

I have a hard time believing that autism is the next stage in human evolution; it seems that this was suggested earlier in the post in words to the effect that eventually everyone will be autistic. I leave my mind open though, that some of the nature and nurture influences of autism may have something to do with what seems to be a general imbalance of the human condition and associated cultural adaptations.

There seems to be plenty of research that suggest environmental, psychological, and social stressors play a role in human development from embryo on. If this relates to autism there will probably always be many autistic people even if the minority of autistic people decide to have children.

I did some reading up.. Human selection falls under the jurisdiction of "artificial selection" so it's an artificial selection vs. natural selection debate
I agree with you on autistics always being a part of the overall population no matter what, as a response to genetics and environment, both. Maybe our genome gives us plenty of breathing room and allows for a lot of diversity? Maybe we are unique in that way and it has allowed us the opportunity to develop the intellect and thus, technology and science?

It is a false dichotomy. "Artificial" anything is an expression of the human tendency to place ourselves above nature, a hubristic elevation of our status to something better or special. It is a convenient categorization, but has no basis in reality. We cannot separate what we were, are, or are becoming from this universe. Human activity is just as natural as the activity of any other species.

There's a huge gap between humans and other species, artificial or not. We have created this world like none other that we have encountered. Animals might have their unique talents, but none have ventured this far into science and technology (not saying they are inferior but not like humans when it comes to science and technology). One could possibly argue that artificial selection allows for what humans do, science and technology, the higher mind, while, natural selection allows for what wild animals do; catch food, reproduce, basic survival instincts. That's generalizing but it could be a starting point...

The agent of selection can be human in origin or it can be non-human. It can't see the designation of that as artificial or not as beneficial in any way. There is nothing artificial about being human. I don't see how categorizing our activity as artificial clarifies the description of what is actually happening.

A beaver fells a tree and alters the environment. Because it has not calculated the mass of the tree and the trajectory of it's fall, the effect it has on the environment is in no way diminished. And even human activity blindly effects the environment with casual disregard for long term consequences. Even direct manipulation of the genome gives us no knowledge of the long term outcome and the final disposition of us as a species. We operate on our genome with intention, taking educated guesses of the effects, but on a molecular level, change via gene splicing is no different than mutations caused by other means. We are still subject to the same basic rule of evolution - the fittest survive. It is entirely conceivable that we will, intending to improve, make changes to our genome that end our species. The end of our species in such a manner would still be evolution ruthlessly exerting itself as the final arbiter of what survives.

We are part of the "living" part of the planet, so are animals, plants, microbes. I consider us part of the planet, which is like saying we are part of nature. Being a living part of planet earth isn't the same as natural selection. Is it always true that being part of nature automatically means being a part of natural selection? I would argue no.
Beavers can manipulate their environment by building lodges and dams, making ponds out of streams, but do they build freeways and skyscrapes? Do they participate in mass transit? Their scale is quite limited compared to human beings. What they do with their environment isn't as diverse. They do one thing....they make a dam out of sticks and mud. They make their houses out of similar materials. They catch food. They breed. Do they manufacture automobiles or planes? Do they engage in the creation and implementation of weapons of mass destruction? Maybe that is the difference between artificial and natural selection. Human beings do not breed specifically for survival instinct and skills but for other qualities as well. Maybe some animals do this, too? This, too, would dispute the prevalence of natural selection. The field is way open for further study.
Gene splicing is artificial and cannot be considered natural selection.

I respectfully disagree. Nothing you describe is anything more than a matter of degree. All of our activity is part of a closed system. This is inescapable.

We are all confined by our planet
It would be very difficult to live elsewhere, but we can always try.

I suspect we will try. We'll we engineer our species to survive other environments? If so will we still be the same species. Perhaps the "natural" progression is from asexual to sexual to engineered reproduction.