Rich 'may evolve into separate species'

[snopes]

The super-rich may evolve into a separate species entirely in the future due to enhancements in biotechnology and robotic engineering, American futurologist Paul Saffo has said.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/e...e-species.html

[Not_Done_Living]

And an artists rendering of what such class would evolve into:

[Pudding Crawl]

Oh, like this?

[CannonFodder]

Didn't H.G. Wells cover this pretty thoroughly?

[Beejtronic]

*sigh* Robotics are not genetic. A species can't evolve on the basis of non-genetic advantages. This makes less sense than the "OMG stupid people are outbreeding smart people! We're all going to evolve to be idiots!" argument.

[Amigone201]

Originally Posted by Beejtronic

*sigh* Robotics are not genetic. A species can't evolve on the basis of non-genetic advantages. This makes less sense than the "OMG stupid people are outbreeding smart people! We're all going to evolve to be idiots!" argument.

I thought that was a dumb thesis also (albeit a funny movie). But I can't really articulate a good critique. What are you thinking?

[crocoduck_hunter]

Anyone else find it ironic that to back up his argument, the author cites personal computers and the internet- two things that are absolutely not things that are used exclusively by rich people.

Seriously, this sounds like someone decided to try to write a science article based off the plot of Surrogates.

[FormicaArchonis]

Originally Posted by Beejtronic

*sigh* Robotics are not genetic. A species can't evolve on the basis of non-genetic advantages.

Not only that, but to the best of my knowledge evolution doesn't work with inconsistent pressures. The pressure placed by technology is constantly shifting and is rarely fatal. If not being a technophile killed you then, yes, technophiles would eventually be all that's left. But it doesn't. No pressure.

And for sake of argument, let's say being able to look at a CRT for hours at a time without inconvenience provided a major advantage to the point where the intolerant for some reason usually went sterile. Over many generations, the CRT-tolerant genes would spread further than the CRT-intolerant ones.

Except it hasn't been many generations and CRTs have already been mostly replaced by LCDs. And will in turn be replaced, and replaced, until eventually everything will be patched right into your optic nerve or something. A skilled computer user of 50 years ago knew how to replace vacuum tubes. A skilled computer user today knows how to avoid damaging pins when he replaces the half-billion vacuum tube equivalents that make up a processor.

Originally Posted by Amigone201

I thought that was a dumb thesis also (albeit a funny movie). But I can't really articulate a good critique. What are you thinking?

Why the idea of stupid people outbreeding smart people is a flawed idea? Off the top of my head: If people have been getting consistently dumber, why does the average IQ consistently creep UP?

Also, it assumes the children of intelligent people are always intelligent and the children of idiots are always idiots. While upbringing has an influence, it's not an absolute, no more than the daughter of a general always has a good military mind or the son of a baker automatically makes good bread.

[Logoboros]

Originally Posted by Beejtronic

*sigh* Robotics are not genetic. A species can't evolve on the basis of non-genetic advantages. This makes less sense than the "OMG stupid people are outbreeding smart people! We're all going to evolve to be idiots!" argument.

However, technology reduce the impact of genetic weaknesses, thus impacting the genetic pool. One certainly wonders if human eyesight has, on average, become weaker, since it has been relatively easily remedied for the past couple of centuries (as well as by food cultivation technologies that make the citizenry less dependent upon hunting).

Of course, I'm talking about prosthetics more generally (be they prosthetic "eyes" or wheelchairs or even insemination methods), but robotics certainly fall into that category.

ETA: All of this is also just to note that "evolution" need not equal advancement or progress. Change under the reduction of selective pressure (such as in an island population) is still a form of evolution.

[Silas Sparkhammer]

Is there any evidence that rich people and poor people are reproductively isolated? Yeah, they do tend to live in different neighborhoods, but it seems like there's significant cross-population breeding. Modern populations are highly mobile.

Silas

[llewtrah]

I could tell this was a Telegraph story from the thread title!

Dougal Dixon followed this line of thinking in his lovely Man After Man: An Anthropology of the Future where the rich/poor divide initially led to 2 very different types of human.

[Beejtronic]

Originally Posted by Amigone201

I thought that was a dumb thesis also (albeit a funny movie). But I can't really articulate a good critique. What are you thinking?

It's not so much the idea that the population would get stupider if the stupid people outbred the smart people. (That's itself is pretty solid.) It's the assumption that the stupid people are outbreeding the smart people. Correct me with some peer-reviewed studies if I'm wrong, but I haven't seen any evidence that this is true. I could buy that less educated people may be more likely to have more babies, but education level is not genetic. Without a genetic basis, there's not going to be any change in gene frequency one way or the other.

Originally Posted by Logoboros

However, technology reduce the impact of genetic weaknesses, thus impacting the genetic pool. One certainly wonders if human eyesight has, on average, become weaker, since it has been relatively easily remedied for the past couple of centuries (as well as by food cultivation technologies that make the citizenry less dependent upon hunting).

Still not genetic though. If you wear glasses, you'll still pass on your poor vision to your children. The physical aid doesn't change your genes in any way.

[llewtrah]

Originally Posted by Beejtronic

Still not genetic though. If you wear glasses, you'll still pass on your poor vision to your children. The physical aid doesn't change your genes in any way.

Haven't there been reports recently that myopia is largely due to how we use our eyes in childhood (focussing on close objects) rather than genetics?

[Beejtronic]

Originally Posted by llewtrah

Haven't there been reports recently that myopia is largely due to how we use our eyes in childhood (focussing on close objects) rather than genetics?

I meant that if you have to wear glasses due to a genetic disorder, which I assumed was the direction Logoboros was heading. But I can't say I really read a lot about opthamology. Does that mean that when our parents told us we'd go blind from sitting so close to the TV, they were right?

[llewtrah]

Originally Posted by Beejtronic

I meant that if you have to wear glasses due to a genetic disorder, which I assumed was the direction Logoboros was heading. But I can't say I really read a lot about opthamology. Does that mean that when our parents told us we'd go blind from sitting so close to the TV, they were right?

There are some genetic conditions that cause or contribute to myopia, but it seems lifestyle is a big factor. Here's one of the reports

http://www.newscientist.com/article/...not-genes.html

[Troodon]

I think that the use of the terms "evolve" and "species" in the article is incorrect and distracts from the interesting and reasonable idea that near-future technological progress will make it possible for those who can afford it to prolong their lives significantly beyond any age a human could hope to live to unaided and even beyond the longest lifespan affordable to a "normal" first-world person. I've thought about a science-fiction scenario in which life extension only runs out when your money runs out; if indeed someday wealth can overcome death then that would be an interesting change to the human condition.

(Oddly enough, one work of fiction that explores these themes is the Dungeons and Dragons roleplaying game. There it is possible to heal any wound or disease and even bring back the dead, but the monetary cost of doing so is so high that it is not an option available to the "common man". The implications of this are usually glossed over during play.)

[Logoboros]

Originally Posted by Beejtronic

Still not genetic though. If you wear glasses, you'll still pass on your poor vision to your children. The physical aid doesn't change your genes in any way.

It doesn't change your genes, but it does effect the distribution of genes in the population. So, as the population reproduces, you can say that the technology does change the population's genetics -- as much as any other selective pressure, at least.

[Beejtronic]

Originally Posted by Logoboros

It doesn't change your genes, but it does effect the distribution of genes in the population. So, as the population reproduces, you can say that the technology does change the population's genetics -- as much as any other selective pressure, at least.

Does it? Do prosthetics or glasses or robotics or anything like that increase the reproductive potential of those that have them, to the point where they would outbreed others in the population, or cause a significant change in the gene frequency of the next generation?

[Silas Sparkhammer]

Originally Posted by Beejtronic

Does it? Do prosthetics or glasses or robotics or anything like that increase the reproductive potential of those that have them, to the point where they would outbreed others in the population, or cause a significant change in the gene frequency of the next generation?

I may be missing the point, but, as I understood it, medical advances help keep people alive who, otherwise, would die before exercising their reproductive potential (innat a lovely euphemism? "Hey, baby, wanna exercise your reproductive potential?") So, traits that would ordinarily be selected against are, instead, preserved. There are, thus, more people in civilized societies with bad vision than there would be in the state of nature.

But...this is so obvious, I'm probably not actually answering your question!

Silas

ETA: some people think that people with glasses are really sexy, so this might represent a kind of technologically enhanced sexual selection.

[Troberg]

This all depends on how you define evolution. If you stick with the narrow definition of DNA, then it's unlikely to happen.

However, some consider this definition to narrow, and would include such things as society-structure building and social behavior a part of evolution. This makes sense. I mean, an ant isn't more evolved than, say, a flea, but it still manages to achieve much more by having a social structure.

Similarly, humans are, from a DNA perspective, a pretty crappy animal. Most wild animals our size can tear us to shreds, we are slow, we are weak, we don't survive in bad weather and so on. However, we can cooperate, which allows us to overcome such limitations and become the dominant species on the planet. Furthermore, we build such institutions such as libraries and schools, which allows us to transfer knowledge from one generation to the next, without having to rediscover it. Now, if the transfer valuable information from one generation to the next, isn't that pretty darn close to the basic idea of evolution, even if the transfer method is no longer DNA?

The interesting thing here is that DNA is a pretty stable information carrier, and DNA evolution is a slow process. If we compare it to the knowledge stored into our cooperative society, it's much slower. Our knowledge evolution is more volatile, more agile, and it moves faster, much faster. Basically, nothing has changed in the human DNA during the last five hundred years, but yet, we have advanced so fast that it's incredible, and the pace is ever increasing. This is also an evolution, although perhaps not the evolution Darwin saw. Evolution, I believe, is best stated as "the filtering and transfer of useful information from one generation to the next so that future generations can surpass previous generations". If that information is a body blueprint in DNA, a book in a library, an article in Wikipedia or a lecture given by a teacher doesn't really matter, it's the same basic principle.

Look at evolution this way, and yes, certainly, different social strata can, and probably will, evolve in different directions.