feed or freeze??? - Page 8

Thrasops · #71 (**permalink**) 11-06-2008, 12:37 AM

Yeah, I forgot to mention that as sufferers of Down's syndrome go, my Aunt is a particularly "difficult" case, since she was raised single-handed by my Grandfather and never had the kinds of opportunities many other sufferers do.

Many or most sufferers are perfectly capable of living fairly ordinary lives, they can get on the bus and go where they please, to the shops or the bank or whatever. My Aunt hasn't had the education and would be unable to do any of these things, she barely speaks intelligibly and has a limited vocabulary. Obviously this is not her fault, it is just that when she was young (she is sixty now, and very long-lived for a sufferer of Down's syndrome) she didn't have to chance to learn, there weren't any schools that could have taught her these skills where she grew up in Gibraltar. My Grandfather (may he rest in peace) did a heroic job of bringing her up single-handed without a wife or any help except from Sunday school.

But she is still capable of expressing love and affection and still my beloved Auntie.

Pliskens_Chains · #72 (**permalink**) 11-06-2008, 12:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thrasops

Yeah, I forgot to mention that as sufferers of Down's syndrome go, my Aunt is a particularly "difficult" case, since she was raised single-handed by my Grandfather and never had the kinds of opportunities many other sufferers do.

Many or most sufferers are perfectly capable of living fairly ordinary lives, they can get on the bus and go where they please, to the shops or the bank or whatever. My Aunt hasn't had the education and would be unable to do any of these things, she barely speaks intelligibly and has a limited vocabulary. Obviously this is not her fault, it is just that when she was young (she is sixty now, and very long-lived for a sufferer of Down's syndrome) she didn't have to chance to learn, there weren't any schools that could have taught her these skills where she grew up in Gibraltar. My Grandfather (may he rest in peace) did a heroic job of bringing her up single-handed without a wife or any help except from Sunday school.

But she is still capable of expressing love and affection and still my beloved Auntie.

she is sixty?? well im very pleased for you and your family, it is hard living with downs syndrome i should imagine, be you the sufferer or the family of the sufferer, even though she has trouble communicating at least that suffering hasnt been made worse by the normally premature death most people afflicted with downs syndrome have.
i wish you and your family well

Thrasops · #73 (**permalink**) 11-06-2008, 12:46 AM

Thanks! Yes, 60 and still going strong! (And always hogging the TV)

bothrops · #74 (**permalink**) 11-06-2008, 12:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thrasops

Heh heh... I just re-read that post and it did sound a bit more standoffish than I intended... but I think you got my point and I didn't really think you meant that seriously.

It was just an ice-breaker, honest

Wasn't taken as stand-offish or harsh. No bad feelings this side - I'm actually really enjoying the discussion - beats planning KS3 physics lessons!

And actually, I was hoping you wouldn't go on to bring up the whole "humans are the fittest animals" bit cause if you look at it that way, then yeah, it's obvious we'd change the world entirely (not that we haven't already) to suit ourselves, in that sense we're the most successful "animals" of all...

You can't argue with the numbers - every continent, every habitat - easily the single most successful species on the planet. (again whether this is 'good' or 'bad' is irrelevant)

I often wonder (and I know others do too) if we haven't stopped "evolving" (or at least slowed our physical evolution down). We've changed so much of the world to suit us that we've removed the whole "natural selection" factor from our lives.

No humans have not 'stopped evolving' although I know what you mean. The trouble is that humans have evolved to live in 'middle sized' world. Our brains are completely inequipped to comprehend the tiny (atoms, sub-atomic particles, attoseconds) and the enormous (galaxies, distances to stars, size of nebula, length of millenia) and as such find it very very difficult to comprehend evolutionary time scales. Modern humans have only been around for a blink of an eye in evolutionary terms and we are no where close to reaching an evolutionary peaks (like boids, crocs and crabs have for example - remained unchanged for millions of years, not just tens of decades). There is also plenty of evidence to suggest that human jaws are getting smaller (no selection for tearing and chewing large pieces of raw meat) shown by more and more people needing teeth removed due to there not being enough room when the wisdom teeth come out. To name just one example.

Also you must remember that a lack of selection pressure is just as much a part of evolution and natural selection than a strong directional selection pressure. Think baby birth weight. That used to have massive stabilising selection keeping average birth weights within quite narrow limits. Too small and the baby wouldn't survive, too large and the mother and child are at high risk during birth. Nowadays, with life support machines and ceasarians and other medical advances, there is no longer the same intense selection pressure and the 'spread' of average birth weights is dramatically increasing.

Could you not also include the technological advances as part of human evolution, after all they are all products of our advanced intelligence - this stems back to all things being natural, including digital cameras and mobile phones, after all, all they are are minerals and materials extracted from the earth, manipulated and used for our convinience (just as birds build nests, chimps use stone tools, termites construct giant air conditioned sky scrapers etc. If modern technology isn't 'natural' and part of evolution then what is it - supernatural!?

Francis

Quote:

Originally Posted by carpy

we are the opposite of evolution. we are backtracking. this may come out really bad, but people that would normally not survive, such as people with a form of dwarfism, do. they are able to reproduce. the whole survival of the fittest does not exist. i think that is alot of the reason that there are alot of genetic diseases around.

obviously that is the world we live in, i appreciate what i just said is extremely - cant think of the word - but that is my viewpoint - scientifically. i am not in any way saying that people should be culled or anything rediculous - its in our nature to make the race survive, but when you thing about it that is the situation

If you are talking 'scientifically' then you have to make sure you fully understand the subject (that is not meant to sound patronising but many people who talk about evolution and natural selection completely fail to grasp some very important points.)

Firstly, evolution simply CANNOT go 'backwards'. This would imply that it is a forward thinking process. It absolutely isn't. Evolution doesn't have some imaginary end goal where the organism in question is led towards this peak. It is merely a culmination of millions of tiny tiny steps each of which make the animal slightly better at surviving to reproduce than another that doesn't have that step. ANY tiny step that means the animal is slightly worse at surviving will be lost to the population. Remember, every organism in existance (including anyone reading this) is the latest in a completely unbroken chain of successful matings going back millions and millions of years (now that makes us amazing not 'awful' as some on here feel).

If evolution could go 'backwards', then dolphins and whales would all have 'de-evolved' their lungs and 're-evolved' gills, as clearly gills are the 'best' thing to have if you live in water. The human eye wouldn't have all it's wires coming out the wrong side (each cell of the retina has a nerve coming from it to the optical centre in the brain - a forward thinking 'designer' for want of a better word, would clearly have designed those wires coming out the back of the cells and off to the brain, however because the human eye evolved via a massive number of tiny improvements, once it had started down one path, it couldn't go back.) The end result is an eye that has the 'wires' coming out of the front, running along the light sensitive surface and then all disappearing through the retina in a big clump causing a 'blind spot' where the wire has to go though the gap.

Secondly, 'survival of the fittest' does exist in absolute terms. The trouble is that humans have a distorted view of the term 'fittest', and don't realise that is also applies to whole species and demes as well as individuals. Survival of the fittest, simply states that any organism that is able to pass their genes onto the next generation is considered 'fit'. The 'fitter' an organism is, is defined by the greater amount of their genes in the next generation, not some preconcieved human idea of 'healthy/normal' or 'disabled/abnormal' (and I use those terms in the full knowledge of their ability to offend). Therefore a cystic fibrosis sufferer who manages to have children is evolutionarily fitter than a perfectly healthy, strong, human that chooses to abstain from having children.

What you actually mean is that human evolution has led to the ability of the species to allow individuals that would not survive if we were still living in caves as hunter gatherers, to not only survive to adulthood but to procreate and pass their genes onto the next generation.

Evolution and natural selection have led to the amazing, awe inspiring world that we live in, but don't forget it has also led to us being able to not only live in it too, but (for possibly the first time) appreciate it on a much grander scale than anything ever has in the past.

True, humans are doing some pretty terrible things to the planet, and we have the intelligence to stop, but none of it (unfortunately) is unnatural, hasn't been done before on much greater scales (re-read about the plants), or will wipe out life on earth. The one thing I am absolutely convinced about is that even if we do destroy ourselves, and take lots of the existing lifeforms with us, life itself will prevail and the future of the planet may be even more diverse, wonderful, awe-inspiring and phenomenal than it is now, and lets just hope that the next organism to evolve concious thought does better things with it than we have.

Boy - I don't half go into one don't I?!

Cheers

Andy

Thrasops · #75 (**permalink**) 11-06-2008, 06:51 PM

Heh heh... you're right there.

Good post.

Completely agree about the fact that the planet has endured worse than us, and will probably outlast us. Funnily enough I'm in the process of writing a novel (completely fictional, though) about just the kind of world you mention in your last paragraph. Although I could waffle on all day about it, I will abstain from doing so here...

Also, yeah people are still changing from generation to generation (seem to be getting taller here in England IMO - either that or I'm getting shorter!

). You put what I was trying to say more succinctly - lack of selection pressure. In absolute terms you're right - even that's not true of us. Although the example you cite (birth weight) further supports the idea that individuals that might otherwise die "in the wild" are able to live in this modern society. So in a way, I think what we a both getting at is that we are shaping our own evolution (although as you say, whether for better or worse - who can say!)

Brings to mind the words of a certain "Agent Smith" (had to resort to film quotes). The world is a limited place. What remains to be seen is whether we as a species are able to continue at the rate we are going; will we "reach a state of equilibrium with the surrounding environment" or overpopulate ourselves to death...

And yeah, you do go on... but it's making great reading!

An interesting thread!

andur · #76 (**permalink**) 11-06-2008, 10:35 PM

garters are live bearers, looking through threads most of u guys seem to discusing killing the babies, i would not of even considered that option. this is how you creat mophs in the first place, if u dont want to breed with them fine ,but to kill them is just wrong ! where do you stop? look at royals, corns, kingsnakes,boas retics the list goes on.... they all have morphs ,mistakes happen sometimes with amazing results .they are healthy give them to someone who does care about them

Snake_Pliskin · #77 (**permalink**) 11-06-2008, 10:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by andur

garters are live bearers, looking through threads most of u guys seem to discusing killing the babies, i would not of even considered that option. this is how you creat mophs in the first place, if u dont want to breed with them fine ,but to kill them is just wrong ! where do you stop? look at royals, corns, kingsnakes,boas retics the list goes on.... they all have morphs ,mistakes happen sometimes with amazing results .they are healthy give them to someone who does care about them

yep.. agree completely.. just some people think it is right and acceptable to kill these snakes via freezing as they dont want to dirty their gene pool... sounds radical and cruel to me!

andur · #78 (**permalink**) 11-06-2008, 10:49 PM

if you look at it in a callouse way yeah you can keep the gene pool clear of hybrides and just have pure lines ,but if you take that to its logical conclusion where would that leave the hobby?

and how far back and how many tests would you have to do to get PURE stock

Pliskens_Chains · #79 (**permalink**) 11-06-2008, 10:53 PM

there was a point already made in that other forum that the gene pool may have already been muddied anyway so what is the problem of letting a litter of intergrades live especially when they already might have occured in nature as the species border overlaps, it seems to me that its just a case of we dont want them they are not pure so lets kill them

Shadow_Eyed · #80 (**permalink**) 11-06-2008, 11:02 PM

No healthy animal should be culled. Personally im not a fan on hybrids. An i wouldnt ever choose to interbreed them. They should all be sold as what they are and kept as pets.

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