"We will transcend all the the limitations of our biology", Kurzweil promised

• Some people are already choosing to self evolve in...

This is a continuation of an an article I quoted a while back that I put a word button above. Google Chrome puts this blacking when you do this for some reason. I don't have control of how Google Chrome does things but it should work if you click on it. The article starts at page 40 of the April 2017 issue of National Geographic.

 "We will transcend all the the limitations of our biology", Kurzweil promised

"that is what it means to be human– –to extend who we are."

Clearly Harbison's antenna is merely a beginning. But are we  on the way to redefining how we evolve? Does evolution now me not just the slow grind natural selection spreading desirable genes, but also everything that we can do to amplify our powers and powers of the things we make––Union of jeans, culture, And technology? And if so, where is it taking us?

Conventional evolution is alive and well in our species. Not long ago renew the make up only a handful of the roughly 20,000 protein – including genes in our cells; today we know the function of about 12,000. But jeans are only a tiny percentage of the DNA and our genome. More discoveries are certain to come– –and quickly. From this trove of genetic information researchers have already identified dozens of examples of relatively recent evolution. Anatomically modern humans migrated from Africa sometime between 80,000 and 50,000 years ago. Our original genetic inheritance was appropriate for the warm climates were first evolved from early hominids to humans, from knuckle – walkers to hunters and gatherers. But a lot has happened since that time, as humans have expanded around the world the man's total spend new challenges have altered our genetic makeup

. Recent, real-life examples of this process abound. Australian aboriginal living in desert climates have a genetic variants developed past 10,000 years, That allows them to adjust more easily to the extreme high temperatures. Pretty historically, most humans, like other mammals, could digest milk only in infancy– –we had jeans that turned off the production of milk digesting enzyme when we weaned. But around 9000 years ago, some humans began to herd animals rather than just Hunt them. These herders developed genetic alterations that allow them to continue making the relevant enzyme for their whole lives, a handy adaptation when their livestock were producing a vitamin rich protein.

In a recent article in the scientist, John Hawkes, A paleoanthropologist at the University of Wisconsin – Madison, Wrote how impressed she was at the speed with which the gene was disseminated:" up to 10% per generation. Its advantage was enormous, perhaps the strongest known for any recent human trait.”


End partial quote from National Geographic April 2017 Beyond Human Page 48 and 49

Bipedalism
Our early ancestors may have adapted to walking on two legs as an efficient way to travel long distances, possibly to find new kinds of food.

Making tools
One of our first cultural adaptations expanded our diets. With better nourishment, we could develop a bigger, More complex brains.

Lack of fur

Early humans may have developed skin without traffic for an order to keep cool on the savanna and make body parasites easier to find.





Blushing
The embarrassment and I'm comfortable tingling of a blush can single remorse and illicit forgiveness from peers in a social group

Tears of emotion
Crying shows vulnerability and increases the chances of receiving help, which in turn, strengthens social bonds in a group.

Bigger brains
As we gather into larger social groups, bigger brains developed along with more complex communication and problem-solving.

12,500 years ago
Evolved to live at high altitudes

Until recently it was thought that our species has stopped evolving far in the past. Our ability to peer inside the human genome has shown that in fact our biology continues to change to suit particular environments. Most of us feel breathless and high mountain air because our longs must work harder to capture the reduced level of oxygen there. But andeans have a genetically determined trait that allows their hemoglobin to bind more oxygen. Tibetan and Ethiopian populations independently adapted to their high elevations, showing that natural selection can take us on different paths to reach the same outcome: survival.

8000 years ago
Adapted to a desert climate
The desert presented an evolutionary challenge for the inhabitants of Sahul, The continent that once united Australia New Guinea and Tasmania. After the ancestors of modern aboriginals made the crossing to Sahula around 50,000 years ago, they developed adaptations that allow them to survive the load – freezing temperatures at night and days often exceeding 100°F. A genetic mutation in a metabolism– regulating hormone provides the survival advantage, especially for him infants, By modulating the excess energy that's produced when body temperature rises.

Present day
Technology versus natural selection
We big brained humans have done much to neutralize the power of natural selection. With our tools, medicine, and other cultural innovations, we have started a potentially deadly race––one that we could lose to a highly evolved super book. Given the speed with which we can spread disease around the globe," we are in a new pandemic era and must take action now to stop it says Kevin Olival, a disease ecologist at echohealth alliance. Point shifts brought about by habitat construction and climate change are also bringing more people into contact with pathogens previously isolated from human hosts.

Present-day and near future
Do it your self evolution
Pairing in vitro fertilization with another process allows us to test embryos for mutations that could lead to serious medical conditions. Now we're developing Powerful new gene editing tools that could bring about human directed evolution. Most research has been on other organisms––four instance, attempting to change a mosquito genome so that the insect cannot transmit Zika or malaria. We could harness the same techniques to design our babies––simply to choose a preferred hair or eye color. But should we?" There's definitely a dark side," says bioethicist Linda McDonald's Glen," but I do think humanity – plus is inevitable, we are, by our nature, tinkerers.”

end quote from page 53 and before

Having studied anthropology at UCSC I look at it a little like this too. Genetics evolved slowly through thousands of years to get us to where we are. Messing with things is for the most part going to kill or drive a whole lot of people crazy in the process. In another article I compared it to the evolution of Motorized flight from the Wright brothers in 1903 in Kitty Hawk to a shot to the moon. Many many people died being test pilots along the way so that you and I can now fly passenger planes literally to anywhere on earth or nearby to anywhere on earth and then to take a taxi, a smaller plane or even a car or dog sled or bicycle to our final destination literally anywhere on earth at this point.

So, likewise a whole lot of people are going to die or go crazy experimenting with all these genetic or add on changes in the next several hundred years. Some adaptations will work and some won’t for a variety of reasons.

Part of the study of anthropology is also the study of genetics which many people don’t know about. So, the problem becomes the fact that every gene (even the ones we don’t like) has a purpose (that we might not know about at present) or it would not exist in our genome worldwide.

For example, the God Gene that about 80% to 90% of people have on earth that makes them believe in God but 10% or more people don’t have that gene. Why is it there? Or why is either gene there?

But, the not believing in God gene I believe is to protect against Bad religions that cause everyone to kill each other or themselves. So, the people who never believe in anything genetically protect the rest of us from crazy or bad people running religions around the world.

This is only one example, but there are thousands that could be quoted that we all need to think about too.

But, knowing human beings some are going to do anything you can think of with also any results you might imagine as well both good and bad an indifferent along the way.

So, many will die to create something useful at each and every point of human evolution along the way.

For example, when you drive down any street think about this:

Any time you see a stop sign or signal light think about how many people had to die at this crossing before someone put up a stop sign or signal light. Because that is exactly how stop signs and signal lights were always put up. They didn’t exist until enough people died or were seriously injured at those cross streets. This is just the reality of life we live with every day.

In Seattle, when I was 2 there were no traffic signals (at least like today in 1950). What they had then looked like train signals with only red or green arms that went up and down. California started the traffic signals you see everywhere across the U.S. now and slowly people realized they were a good idea and it went to all 50 states over time then.