Saturday, July 19, 2014

why not try and breed the kwisatz haderach?

126 year old Jose Aguinelo dos Santos - world's oldest living person

westhunter |  The Dark Lords of the IRS have proclaimed that West Hunter Incorporated has Federal tax-exempt status. Contributions, including various forms of real property,  are deductible.  For details, write gcochran9@comcast.net.

West Hunter’s purpose is the advancement of education and science in anthropology and evolution.  That means this blog, scientific and popular articles, books, talks, and research projects.  Depending on resources, possible projects might include a search for  effective nootropics (possibly inspired by some of the Ashkenazi mutations),  cloning  a super-Neanderthal, or breeding the Kwisatz Haderach.

Robert Heinlein, in Methuselah’s Children, imagined the Howard Foundation.  Founded by Ira Howard, who made a pile in the California Gold Rush but died young (of old age!) and childless,  the foundation bribed people with unusually long-lived ancestors into marrying people with similar backgrounds, thus selectively breeding for longevity. This was written in 1941, when many people still knew that such things were possible.

You can imagine a similar foundation that breeds for intelligence: Cyril Kornbluth did, as background for The Marching Morons.  But today, there’s no such thing. Any attempt would be denounced, even if utterly non-coercive and completely successful.

Nobody’s thinking about the long run, the big issues.  Well, hardly anybody.

14 comments:

CNu said...

lol, BD try'na ascertain CNu's motives is precisely equivalent to a dog "watching" television...,

BigDonOne said...

Have also noticed that some posters here are so ashamed of what they have to say, that they have made their comments private ... ROTFLMAO

CNu said...

lol, you probably also noticed that nobody here questions your behavior. We've simply learned to take it for granted http://www.examiner.com/article/why-dogs-sniff-each-other-s-butts

Vic78 said...

Lol, he seems to think he's okay. How many bronies do you know that go to anti brony spaces with their chests out? And he keeps coming back.

Constructive_Feedback said...

Brother CNu:


Please define YOUR notion of "Evolution"?


While it is well noted that the people who lived at the time of the "American Revolution" would be considered "short men" by today's standard - as we look at the size furniture, height of the door knobs, etc and INDEED the contrasts between their access to foodstuffs as compared to what we have today has produced a people today who are taller, wider and less prone to die at birth.


I am struggling to understand the notion that you appear at accept that this is EVOLUTION.


Few people doubt that a living species can ADAPT to climatic forces, access to food & water and stress.


The question of INTER-SPECIES EVOLUTION where such forces causes the "ferret-like" creature that Neil DeGrass Tyson claimed was the only mammal left on Earth after the last "Mass Extension". (It burrowed under ground and thus survived the loss of vegetation, oxygen and sunlight when the asteroid hit the Earth.


It is ONLY the "BIGOTRY OF INFINITY" - in which the Evolutionary Theories claim that such changes TAKE TOO LONG for us to notice - that allows all of these theories to go unchallenged.


Infinite Time is their "JESUS MAGIC"


Tell me - IF I LOSE WEIGHT because I become a vegan - it is your opinion that "Micro-Evolution" has taken place as my metabolism, sleep patterns and energy levels are altered by what I choose to regulate per my intake?

umbrarchist said...

How dare you post stuff out of science fiction!?

Constructive_Feedback said...

A ha. Just as I figured. "All about ME".


You made me recall my promise to post about Neal De Grasse Tyson.
* On "Cosmos" he went after "Biblical Creationists" and their notion of a 6,000 year old Earth, linking them to ancient peoples whose prevailing ignorance about science lead them to believe in "Gods"
* Recently - on the subject of "Global Warming" he said "Those who are Global Warming Deniers will be immersed in the facts of nature (flooding, heat and powerful weather systems) that will cause them to change their minds.


Brother Cnu- PLEASE NOTE:
In BOTH CASES this "Scientist" focuses more on attacking HIS IDEOLOGICAL ENEMIES than he does to FORTIFY HIS SCIENCE.


After all - IF all animals after the "4th Mass Extinction" came from the "Ferret-like creature" as he claims then, as the cover of SCIENCE is stripped away from his tale, HE RISKS sounding like he is pushing a "Noah & The Arc" story.


HE TOO is full of "Jesus Magic". He (and Richard Dawkins) knows that if he attacks his right-wing "anti-science" critics" that there are mobs of people who seek to adopt a "Psuedo-Science COLONIALIST/IMPERIALIST" body of thought for unchallenged propagation upon The "Dumb-Masses"


Fear not because it is so that THE KEY INTER-CONNECTED SYSTEMS AND MARKETS of the United States/Global Economy which allow the human animal to live up to this Higher/ Carbon Based Standard Of Living will IMPLODE long before the most damning effects of "Global Warming" take place.


In essence MOTHER EARTH, the complete "ecosystem of SYSTEMS" is going to PUT THE HUMANS BACK IN LINE with HER ECOLOGICAL NEEDS by destroying the ephemeral and effete markets and agreements BETWEEN "MEN" which have made the chemical composition of her stratosphere TEMPORARILY out of skew with HER "NATURAL ORDER".


In other words - some day in the figure the Carbon and Hydrogen that is in YOUR BODY will be recycled for use by some other life form so that the ecosystem will thus perpetuate itself.

CNu said...

It's actually not about you at all, but then you'd have to press forward and into the Psychology of Man's Possible Evolution to know that fact.

Constructive_Feedback said...

1) I DO NOT believe in the "The Earth Is 6,000 Years Old because we traced the timeline of the bible through the lifespan of its main characters" mythology


2) I DO NOT believe that the "Big Bang" happened in which all matter of the universe was the size of the head of a pin and TIME did not exist beforehand" mythology


3) I DO BELIEVE that PHYSICAL SCIENCE (ie: the order of the planetary bodies) is separate and distinct from LIFE SCIENCES (- IE the "Origin Of Man")

As we see great scientific advancements in robotics, visual simulation, and genetics - all taking place in an INCREMENTAL APPROACH - one should be DUMBFOUNDED that there are so-called scientists who are resistant to the notion that these two tracks (matter and life) could have ALWAYS BEEN separate and distinct domains - and that TIME does NOT breathe LIFE into inert matter.

The only thing that the obfuscation using TIME does is to TRICK the "congregation" into believing that which the SCIENTIST will never know - JUST LIKE is the case with the PREACHER.

CNu said...

rotflmbao..., dood, you, Ken and Makheru could put the evasive maneuvers in a sci-fi movie to shame!!

CNu said...

Very well, I'll supplement that with a comment taken directly from scientific fact. There are no data on more than 1% of the genetic alleles that correlate with high IQ test scores (except for the lipodystrophy genes in Ashkenazim). Consequently, there's no such thing as an IQ genome at this juncture. All that is known for certain at this juncture is that IQ test scores (1) correlate with academic and economic success in the industrialized world and (2) the genetic component that contributes to IQ test scores is highly heritable (somewhere around .50), which means there is a lot of genetic variance in the genes that contribute to doing well on IQ tests.

Thus, all groups likely share identical "IQ genomes" (a hypothetical construct), but vary in IQ because environmental factors dominate causes and they can either alter adult gene expression or altered brain organization during development (via epigenetic mechanisms). Several characteristics of human evolution suggest that this is the reason for varying IQs: 1) the speed of human migration out of Africa, 2) the existence of a "bottleneck" about 100,000 years ago (small effective population size), 3) slow mutation rates, and 4) the very ancient time of greatest ecological variation impacting human brain evolution (~1.7 MYA human ancestors faced tremendous selection pressures demanding more "dexterous" brains; any differences between geographic regions in selection pressures that one can concoct today as a "just so story" are practically non-existent compared to the cataclysmic changes that probably "gave birth" to modern humans). Thus, contrary to the magical beliefs of the human biodiversity racists, all human groups share identical "IQ genomes," and current environmental variations dominate as the reason for IQ variation.

That said, none of the evolutionary characteristics precludes significant individual variations in human brains. In fact, the added complexity observed in human neurogenesis (brain development) suggests that variations due to "error" are more likely in humans than many other species. All humans vary along a continuum from small general cognitive ability ("g") to large "g." Such "error-derived" individual variations are not inherited, thus they are likely to be universal and not sub-population-specific.

It is possible for individual variations in the "IQ genome" to be derived from germ-line mutations, which means they are inherited. In fact, we see that in some genes (e.g., serotonin receptors), which means some individuals inherit predispositions to some behaviors ("susceptibility" or "immunity" genes; e.g., prone to PTSD, anxiety, depression). Such mutations, however, must then be under positive selection in order to affect population frequencies, or they can be maintained via balancing or frequency dependent selection (which is hypothesized for inherited personalities). As noted above, there are no geographic regions of the globe that vary as to "IQ genome" selection pressures, which means none of these mutations will show sub-population specificity.

However, one way for these mutations to show sub-population specificity is via inbreeding. That does happen, and may account for the peculiarities of the Ashkenazim sub-population - of which the human biodiversity crowd has made very much ado. However, shared environments among inbreeding populations could also account for such homogeneity in "IQ genomes."

Alas, there is no way the human biodiversity crowd will be able to verify its articles of faith until smarter and more competent humans have identified additional elements of the as yet mythological "IQ genome."

DD said...

Nobody posts on the interesting ones. At face value this seems plausible. Have we achieved this through animal husbandry? Longer lived animals?

CNu said...

Since the majority of our animal husbandry is directed toward our gullets, I'm going to guess that the answer is a resounding "NO" outside of esoteric hobby enthusiasts. As much is made ado about companion animals, you'd expect that somebody would've made an attempt to breed to longevity.

umbrarchist said...

Damn, that makes my head hurt. Go back to science fiction.

http://www.wattpad.com/story/19630700-the-itod-singularity

LOL

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