Is there natural selection in humans? Natural selection in modern man. How is natural selection different from artificial selection?

A fairly popular discourse today (here, this vomit word has stuck) - natural selection among modern man, whether it exists at all and, if so, in which direction it pushes us. Well, I'll speculate on this topic. For simplicity, I will proceed from the fact that no serious catastrophes will happen in the near future, civilization will continue to flourish and cover more and more new regions, and the main ethical guidelines will not change dramatically. I will not take into account gene therapy, although it seems to have already become a real prospect. Because it is not far from gene therapy and human genetic engineering, and there you can no longer guess which genes will become the squeak of capricious fashion.

Intelligence. This is what always interests everyone in the first place. How, then, a man is a beacon of reason, rising from the darkness of a meaningless animal existence. Among the broad masses, the myth traditionally circulates that the farther, the more we progress intellectually and degrade physically, and, accordingly, the person of the future will become a sort of jerk with a giant head on thin crooked legs. This has its own logic, this has been the general trend over the past million years. If you don't go into details. But in general, this does not mean at all that the same trends remain relevant now. How are things really?

In primitive times, when groups of people numbering several dozen people roamed the forests and savannahs, intelligence really mattered. It depended on the ingenuity of each person in such a tribe whether this tribe could escape from predators, provide itself with food, water, good shelter and all sorts of other good things. And this directly determined survival. Thus, evolution went in the direction of increasing intelligence.

In later and advanced times the situation has changed. People began to live in large, complexly organized communities, a division of labor appeared, civilization reached the stage when predators ceased to pose a serious threat, and intraspecific competition became the main selection factor. Reproductive success now depended primarily on social status. Wealthy people in traditional societies acquired a bunch of wives and concubines, and the number of their children sometimes exceeded a hundred. A similar situation persisted in the future, even in the supposedly monogamous era, the rulers of the world managed to make children not only for their wife, but also for all the surrounding maids, maids of honor, slaves and serfs.

With the female gender, things are somewhat more complicated. Women's status has always been rather in a negative relationship with the number of children. But here it is important not to forget that reproductive success over many generations, and not just the next, matters. Any woman could always receive the greatest dividends by raising a successful son - even if only one child, but many grandchildren. Therefore, the best strategy for her was to invest in the quality of the offspring rather than in their quantity.

Social change had an immediate effect. The brain of modern man is smaller than the brain of both Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon. Yes, gentlemen, we are stupid. Difficult childbirth always held back the growth of the cranium, and as soon as the need for high intelligence decreased, the resultant vectors of natural selection turned back.

Nevertheless, in some form, positive selection for high intelligence existed. After all, not only degenerated aristocrats were reproductively successful, but also active, enterprising people who achieved everything on their own. There were also skillful lovers who secretly charmed the ladies, including with beautiful speeches and wit. To what extent is status, material wealth, the ability to seduce connected with intellect? This is an extremely controversial issue, and on any forum it consistently causes an avalanche of furious flames. But still, they are probably somehow connected - in one way or another.

But in the most recent decades, there has been a new turn in the structure of human society: effective contraception has appeared. The popular and affluent still lead richer and more varied sex lives, but this is no longer the case. big amount descendants. Of course, there are isolated examples where money and status give an evolutionary advantage. Let's say an extremely ugly but wealthy lady gets plastic surgery, artificial insemination or simply buys a husband, while her poor sister, unfortunately, forever remains childless. A wealthy man undergoes complex and expensive infertility treatment, while a rogue simply cannot afford it. A divorced alimony man remarries and has a couple more children in addition to the ones he already has, but another one, just as bald and shabby, but also poor, does not attract ladies.

But these are all separate incidents and they have little effect on the general trend. In general, the wealthy and educated leave fewer offspring. Moreover, the quality of this offspring also suffers, because. they usually give birth to their first child at a fairly late age. Meanwhile, the older the father, the more mutations his sperm carries. After all, spermatogonia actively divide throughout life, and with each division more and more errors accumulate. A 50-year-old father passes on three times as many mutations to his children as a 20-year-old. It is important here to separate the cutlets from the flies. Most of these mutations do not lead to some terrible disease. They may be neutral, some of them may even be useful. But on average, if you look at large samples, the children of older fathers, other things being equal, are slightly less healthy and smart than their peers.

In words, we value the mind, but in fact the only factor of modern reality that works in favor of wiserness is caesarean sections. This operation removes the limitation on the size of the skull in newborns. But this in itself is not enough: in order for people to become smarter, it is not enough that nothing interferes with this process, we still need some forces that would move us in the right direction. Do the smartest survive now? No, thanks to social policy and scientific and technological progress, everyone survives! Maybe smart ones get advantages in reproduction? Again, no, thanks to monogamy, contraceptives, social policies and certain cultural norms, everything breeds in a row, and the smart ones are the worst!

Health, strength, endurance. In some form, natural selection, of course, exists, it simply cannot but exist. First of all, not all women are able to conceive and carry a child even up to six months, when it will already be possible to go out in a ditch. And not all men are capable of producing viable sperm. For those who are still capable of this, selection begins already at the stage of gametes. Most of them simply die, especially when it comes to spermatozoa, and only a select few reach the goal. True, only a small part of the genes is active in germ cells, and therefore many breakdowns remain invisible for the time being. Thus, this is a very narrow selection. The next stage is the embryonic stage of development. Many embryos die before the potential mother even knows she is pregnant. And finally, children and adults, too, sometimes die, despite all the advances in medicine. And very ugly boys and girls may never find a partner.

But the stabilizing selection in terms of physical qualities in humans is, of course, greatly weakened. Only serious defects are cut off, and over time we become more frail and sickly. However, there is nothing particularly new in this. In this direction, people have been moving since their appearance as a species. However, now the process has accelerated. Actually, it does not threaten us with any incredible catastrophes. Yes, people will be unable to survive without civilization. So we are still unable to. That's it, the point of no return has been passed. It's too late to be afraid...

sociality. Here is the only thing that has always been consistently subjected to rigorous selection. Moreover, with the development of society, the enlargement and complexity of human settlements, the selection pressure only intensified. Those who can't communicate don't reproduce. And sometimes they don't even survive. At least that was the case until very recently. Although right now, with the advent of the Internet, maybe a turning point has come.

Behavior, character, emotions. In fact, everyone who only wants it himself got the opportunity to leave offspring. And ... this is also a selection factor. And very powerful. Previously, wanting children was not at all necessary in order to acquire them. It was enough to want to fuck. There is even an opinion that there is no so-called reproductive instinct at all. The desire to take care of offspring in animals arises (and some males never arise) only by the fact of the presence of this very offspring - appetite comes with eating. But if the instinct of reproduction did not exist before, now it has every chance to appear. According to all the laws of Darwinian selection, childfree will die out, only those who really love and want children will remain. I hope they will at least be good parents. And that desire to have a child does not at all exclude the desire to shove him somewhere when he finally appears.

How else can you eliminate your genes from the human gene pool? For example, from a young age to do something like that and find yourself in the clutches of a punitive system - for a long time or even forever. Impulsivity, physical violence and uncontrolled outbursts of aggression are not held in high esteem today (epileptoids, you are out of luck) and will clearly not be in the character of a person of the future. This does not mean that aggression, cruelty, competition will disappear. No, they will simply take the form of a sophisticated and camouflaged moral violence.

What is the result? Civilization, so to speak, not of valiant straightforward warriors, but of hypocritical crooked intriguers. Silly and frail people, but caring mothers and fathers. If anything, people will not become stupid to the level of a cow. Still, some basic level of intelligence is needed to survive in a man-made environment: not to get under transport, not to grab onto bare wires. Yes, and potential partners will reject obviously defective ones. People will just become very stupid, with an average IQ of about 70, let's say. And in this mode, civilization can exist stably for a long time. To perform its highly specialized functions, a lot of mind is not needed, especially since everything that is possible is automated. It may even develop. Out of the entire population of many billions, somehow there will be a thousand or two random smart people. And you don't need more. And then, of course, they die. Just like all civilizations before us perished. And everything will start over. Our descendants will build a new colossus with feet of clay. Or maybe not our descendants ...

Something like this. Or not. Gene therapy and engineering, sperm banks, eugenics programs, the return of polygamy, environmental disasters or nuclear war- you never know what can disrupt the smooth flow of things.

Unfortunately, the Marxist thesis about man as a higher phase in the development of living beings is bursting at the seams. 96% of the bodies of people are similar to the bodies of animals. We are just one of the animal species. The only thing that sets us apart from other animals is our ability to think and plan. Humans are animals whose impulses have been honed by millions of years of evolution. From animals, we have inherited such mechanisms as fear, sending and receiving auditory and visual signals, memory and herd instinct.

In the prehistoric period, the population of people lived according to general laws: the strong multiplied and prospered, the weak lived in poverty and died off. However, the rate of evolution was not very high - in new generations, the weak appeared more than the strong, and the processes of degeneration of the species were balanced by its improvement. In unfavorable years, the population was cleared of the weak to a greater extent than in good years, and this gave impetus towards adaptation to new changed conditions.

Men love to "get off in flocks." Man, a predator at a high level of development, created the ancient equivalent of a football team, which made it possible to defeat a large beast. In packs, men did men's work, throwing spears at the next dinner. Women, always pregnant, did women's work, looked after children, arranged a dwelling, and gathered fruit. Modern men flock in pubs and clubs. With the advent ancient civilizations, society and the state arose, with them - wars and conflicts for territories, for wealth and a place under the sun. Humanity is at the stage of development, which is characterized by intraspecific competition. Ancient civilizations were not preserved - they were destroyed by the colonizers.

In order to survive, a person is forced to develop new ecological niches - the first step. The second stage is a complete exit from the old ecological niche, but not yet the full development of a new one. The adaptation process has not yet been completed, although it is successful. At the third stage - complete mastery of a new ecological niche, development in a new environment is brought to perfection. For example, dinosaurs on Earth. Sooner or later, the ecological niche overflows, it becomes crowded. An individual either changes its habitat or acquires new qualities.

According to Charles Darwin, it appeared that in the process of evolution more complex and more adapted to life forms arose.

There is a point of view that main function any form of life is a continuation of the life of this form. Then the most viable forms are viruses. They feel good in cold and heat, go without food for a long time and multiply at an unthinkable rate.

It's easier with bacteria. With a strong desire, they can be destroyed, security from the outside world is not so perfect.

A fish carries several million eggs in its womb, goes without food for half a year, suspended animation. In warm-blooded children, a million times less is born, the blood does not cool down along with the environment, with the onset of cold, warm-blooded children must eat more.

IN flora The older the genus, the more resilient it is.

Primitive man picked up a stick. This is not a giant leap forward, but the first crutch. All the benefits of civilization that have appeared are just more modern varieties of this crutch. Waving crutches, humanity is rapidly and systematically destroying all life around and, accordingly, itself, that is, the history of the development of life on Earth is nearing its natural end. Without crutches, a person is an extremely weak, thermophilic, selective in food, constantly ill and with great difficulty breeding creature.

Conclusion: if each next species in the development chain is more complex, but less resilient than the previous one, then the whole evolution is a chain programmed not for development, but for the curtailment of life on Earth.

Let's try to analyze the participation of mankind in natural selection in more detail.

Table 4. Natural selection in animals (mammals) and in humans.

The table shows that humanity is protected mainly artificially. Technological progress allows us to successfully cope with natural adverse factors. Advances in medicine enable people to live long, but weighed down by all sorts of diseases.

The man brought the defenses out. House, clothes, shoes - protection from temperature extremes. Created food stocks. Antibiotics and chemotherapy drugs work instead of immunity. Vaccinations, epidemiological surveillance, quarantine measures protect against diseases on the scale of large human groups.

The ancestors of modern women did not know the problem of menstrual tension. Previously, a woman was continuously in a state of pregnancy and menstrual tension occurred 10-20 times in a lifetime, while in modern woman- 12 times a year.

In the 19th century, families had about a dozen children, as more children died of disease in infancy. Today, thanks to the achievements of medicine, it is possible to save the life of one child in the family. The more civilized the way of life, the lower the birth rate.

The development of contraceptives allows birth control. This remarkable achievement also had negative consequences. The possibility of sex without pregnancy contributed to the decline in morals. Sexual freedom has led to an increase in urogenital infections, which subsequently often leads to infertility. In poor countries, where the death rate of children is high, there are still many children born. This is a natural regulation of the population. In civilized countries, a family usually has 1-2 children. Artificial birth control is added to natural regulation (low mortality with a high population density).

Viability is associated with the potential threat of death. A comparison of weeds with cultivated plants can serve as a model. Weeds are incredibly hardy. They are constantly under the threat of destruction and have developed a variety of methods of reproduction: rhizomes, high fertility. Weeds grow even in asphalt cracks. Cultivated plants are easily replaced by weeds.

Biologically, humans are like cultivated plants. Let's continue this parallel with plants. With long-term cultivation of berry crops in one place, pests overcome the plantation, then bacterial and viral diseases follow. Viruses are a witness to the old age of the plantation, its degeneration. Agronomists have long come up with crop rotation. Viral diseases, apparently, signal the degeneration of the human population. Under sparing conditions, it is difficult to form stable structures. B. Gracian pointed to a certain sixth sense: “it finds tricks, invents ways, gives advice, teaches to speak, makes you run, even fly and guess the future; his name is Need. Mind is added from the lack of earthly goods. It is interesting that among the centenarians there are many people who survived the Stalinist camps. Life force is something that is given initially at birth and that we are not allowed to change. It is necessary to organize such a strategy for the behavior of the system so that elements with the maximum possible vitality are born in it.

Mankind tried to increase resilience through selection (artificial selection). Examples of the application of such a strategy in antiquity - Sparta. Today - campuses for the training of scientists. However, attempts to apply the genetic approach, for example by Hitler, usually failed. Totalitarian regimes tried to improve the human race through the destruction of inferior, in their opinion, peoples. Geneticist N.K. Koltsov wrote that since all kinds of human qualities are inherited with a high degree of probability, then theoretically humanity is able to improve itself consciously, using knowledge of its own heredity and select producers according to the desired qualities. The further fate of the Earth is unknown to us, so the complete genetic homogeneity of people is unprofitable. It is more correct to preserve diversity, thanks to which, in the event of unforeseen changes, say, the appearance of new harmful microbes, some people could survive.

It is possible that partly due to selection, blood type B is distinguished by strong innate immunity. The ancestors of the B-people came from the inhabitants of Tibet. Lobsang Rampa, a writer who dedicated his writings to Tibetan monks mentioned such a procedure. Each newborn was immersed in an icy stream, and those who survived continued to live.

Natural selection has its own leverage, corresponding to human psychotypes and blood types. In people with strong natural strong immunity (0 and B-blood groups), death in battle or from accidents predominates. They are characterized by leadership, aggressiveness and sexuality. These people love risk. American researchers have identified a gene that regulates adrenaline addiction in brain cells. This D4 DR gene provokes a person to take risks, seek thrills, say, in extreme sports. In such people, this gene has an oblong shape, in ordinary people it is strictly square.

For more calm and tolerant representatives of blood groups A and AB, death from senile diseases (heart attack, stroke, cancer, diabetes) is typical. People of blood groups A and AB initially have low (tolerant) immunity. Blood type A was isolated for human populations with a high population density, group AB, in general, the newest, also for high density, and its innate immunity is even lower than that of group A. Probably, the mechanism of natural selection works when, with overpopulation, some animals die before reaching balance in the population.

Journalist A. Nikonov believes that natural selection in our species is no longer going on. Medicine works miracles and promises to do even more. We have been living in an artificial environment for a long time. The weakest individuals are not eaten by predators and do not die a natural death, but leave offspring, passing on defective genes to children. In recent decades, this process has assumed an exponential character.

Natural selection in humans probably goes in the direction of selective participation in reproduction: the smart, by virtue of their convictions, are noticeably inferior to the rest, humanity is becoming dumber.

The progressive increase in the proportion of the population with poor immunity is associated with the flip side of humanism: nursing weak newborns, protection with antibiotics and vaccinations. During the 70 years of Soviet power, anti-selection took place. The elite of society - the nobles and the intelligentsia, entrepreneurs (merchants), economic peasants (kulaks), healthy, energetic and talented emigrated, died in concentration camps, were deported to the northern regions. Today, young and smart people emigrate abroad, and only drinking heroine mothers give birth a lot. business women prefer late pregnancy which increases the risk of genetic diseases. Ecology, radioactive tests and Chernobyl have significantly worsened the health of present and future generations. Unpopularity breastfeeding strikes at the formation of the immune system of the child.

Currently, there are five orders of magnitude (100,000 times) more people on the planet than wild animals similar to us in size and type of food. Such a population is supported solely by technology. And the selection is not based on health. Now comes the selection of the mind.

From the point of view of A. Vorobyov, Academician of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, nature itself is waging a biological war with us: viruses mutate, adapt to new conditions. Every 10 years, microbiologists discover up to 30 new infections.

The healer L. Puchko cites an interesting esoteric hypothesis about the regulatory mechanisms of a planetary scale.

The biosphere, over millions of years of existence, has developed a wise sanitation and cleansing mechanism for the destruction of all patients who have not adapted to the constantly changing and renewing conditions of life (not adapted). To do this, she stocked up in her arsenal a lot of microorganisms that destroy everything that, from the point of view of nature, has outlived its own.

Humanity - component planetary organism. As in any living organism, in such a collective formation, to maintain its existence, there are special systems and mechanisms that carry out self-government, self-regulation, self-purification and other general body functions. If some part poses a threat to the existence of the whole organism, the corresponding mechanisms for protecting the integrity of the organism (social and natural) are activated. Destruction and deformation of thin bodies is a trigger signal. The first to fall under the pressure of this elimination mechanism are people with subtle bodies damaged to a certain extent. The threshold for triggering this mechanism is individual for each organism.

The destruction of thin bodies due to the introduction of alien vibrations is accompanied by the emission of a special signal. At this signal, energy structures from outer space are introduced into the destroyed subtle bodies, which begin to actively support all pathogenic microflora in the human body. The constant existence of hidden foci of dormant or sluggish infections, supported by the controlling energy structures, leads to the creation of an immunodeficiency in the body and the formation of persistent chronic diseases.

Infections are a universal remedy for cleaning the living space in the biological, social, computer world. Infections are independent and self-directed, universal and non-random.

Let's try to change the scale and look at the situation from above, as suggested by

S. Rastorguev.

The human body is an element of the system. If the organism, as an element of the system, interferes with the system, then the system will destroy it, eliminating the "potential difference" at the spatio-temporal point, using the entire apparatus of infections for this; whether biological (cholera, plague, etc.), social (killers, thieves, etc.), environmental (earthquake, volcanic eruption, etc.). Earth's "patience" is starting to run out. Evidence of this is the increasing frequency of catastrophes and natural disasters. A number of scientists believe that mankind is by no means the first civilization on Earth, the previous three have died. We are cells of a single organism called humanity, humanity, in turn, is part of a single system - the Universe. All the commandments of world religions are an encrypted concept of the structure of the world and our relationship with it.

Previously, terrible diseases served as natural selection tools: smallpox, anthrax, plague, tularemia and hemorrhagic fevers, measles. With the help of vaccination and anti-epidemic measures, they were "put in a cage."

The flu was and remains a factor of natural selection: it mows down the old and the young. In the event of a pandemic, with the appearance of a new combination of surface proteins of hemagglutinin and neuraminidase with the inclusion of viral genes of avian or animal origin, mortality can reach 70% of the population. The insidiousness of this infection is that if it does not kill immediately, it will do so in a few weeks. Old people die from heart complications and exacerbations of chronic diseases. Children usually die of pneumonia.

No new pandemic influenza strains are expected to emerge in the near future. A lethal outcome can be caused by mixed infections: influenza + adenovirus infection, influenza + respiratory syncytial infection. A new variant of mixed infection was the simultaneous infection with influenza viruses of different subtypes.

Today, AIDS has become an active factor of natural selection. In my opinion, an inert, slow immune system begins to evolve when there is a real threat of extinction. So, blood group A stood out from group 0 during extinction from smallpox, cholera, plague. AIDS mows down everyone indiscriminately. There are facts that speak of the possibility of a beneficial mutation in the blood group. Kenyan prostitutes who are HIV-infected for more than 15 years do not develop AIDS (non-sterile immunity). According to the Institute of Gene Biology, Russian Academy of Sciences, there is normally a segment in the genome of each person that is responsible for the body's susceptibility to the immunodeficiency virus. There are people with a resistance mutation to this virus: there is no susceptibility segment in the DNA of these people. Most people with a beneficial mutation live in the Baltics. Russia is one of European countries constituting the area of ​​resistance to AIDS. Among Russians, 1% of the population is not susceptible to HIV infection. Much more often these people are found in the western regions, in the east and northeast there are no people protected from AIDS.

Especially discussed in the literature is the question of why death is needed at all.

Cybernetician Rastorguev believes that any self-learning information system has a chance for immortality. But nature has invested in any complex system a mechanism of self-destruction. Who turns on the mechanism of aging? When the body is forced to resort to a method of protection through self-change? But sometimes he prefers to choose a “wooden suit” as a counterbalance to new knowledge. The system exhausts its capabilities for collecting, processing, storing information and is replaced by another - that's the whole explanation for aging.

The usefulness of death led to the emergence of the sexes.

A. and B. Pisa lead the hypothesis of the emergence of sex. As soon as a new cell appeared with stronger genes, the parent cells had to die. For two reasons: first, the new cell is better than the parent cell, and the parent cell is no longer needed. The second is that the parents must be eliminated so that they do not mate with the new cell.

At the end of the 19th century, Weismann expressed his understanding of the causes of death. Death was invented by evolution so that unnecessary individuals are culled, so that generations change faster, so that the population is not clogged with monsters (the older the organism, the more likely it is to give birth to ugly offspring).

If the Weismannian point of view is correct, then the diseases of aging are specially invented by evolution. The cell has a suicide mechanism - apoptosis. Mitochondria also have their own separate suicide mechanism. Cancer is a specially programmed disease to clean up the population, acting in different ways, and as soon as we block one way, another immediately activates. This killing mechanism is ingeniously done by evolution - if the hypothesis is correct. The three main diseases of old age are cancer, heart attack and stroke. Cancer - when the "samurai law" (suicide) inside the cell is not applied, and heart attack and stroke are an absurd application of this law: the heart is bad, which means it must be stopped (massive tissue death occurs). In half of the cases of cancer, the blocking protein p53, the guardian of the genome, is broken. In heart attacks, strokes, and septic shock, suicide immediately involves a huge number of cells in a vital organ. It turns out that p53 is very good for its anti-cancer effect, on the other hand, partly because of it, we die from heart attack and stroke. Cancer, heart attack, stroke - senile diseases. Aging is an evolutionary mechanism. The rejuvenation of heart attacks and strokes is the inclusion of evolutionary mechanisms for cleaning the living space in conditions of overcrowding. Now death from old age without disease is a rarity. Atherosclerosis, cancer and osteoporosis serve as mechanisms of natural selection to eliminate old people. Ca metabolism has a complex hormonal regulation with the participation of sex hormones. After the extinction of the reproductive function, the bones rapidly lose strength. A hip fracture in the elderly has a poor prognosis.

Is the Darwinian theory of selection applicable to historical evolution?, asks Alexander Maisuryan. Of course, not in the fascist form in which modern liberals are pushing it - "correct genes", "genes of slavery" and other Nazi-elite dregs. In history, selection takes place not at the level of biological genes, but at the level of class and social models behavior. And they are not necessarily inherited by offspring and even persist throughout life - a person, unlike an animal, can move from one class to another, although this is not easy for him, and most often he dies as part of the same class in which he was born .

But with these obvious amendments, is it applicable?
The author of these lines has probably been proving for two decades, both in print and in other ways, including the Internet, that yes, of course, it is applicable. True, I was always somewhat embarrassed by the fact that the classics of Marxism, with all their ardent sympathy for the Darwinian theory of evolution and with all the closeness of this simple (and even, in my opinion, obvious) thought to Marxism, never seemed to express it.
But it turns out that it was not they who did not express it, but I simply was not familiar enough with their heritage. Relatively recently, I read in the journalism of L. D. Trotsky, back in 1909, such considerations that, in this sense, very pleased me:

“The theory of natural selection teaches that the fittest wins the fight. This does not mean: neither the best, nor the strongest, nor the most perfect, only the fittest.
Here is a line of beggars on the church porch. Among them is an armless blind man, with twisted eyelids, with festering bare feet: a miserable, disgusting remnant of a man. But merchants and officials pass indifferently past other beggars, and a copper penny is served to the ugly cripple. In his malformation and ugliness is his advantage. And in that struggle for existence, which is being waged on the church porch, he wins with the weapon of his weakness.
Of two hungry unemployed girls, other things being equal, it is easier and more likely to enter the path of prostitution with the one who has a weaker sense of personality and consciousness of human dignity. And the other one might drink carbolic acid at the servants' office. The fittest will survive. Her individual weakness, her spiritual Minder-werthigkeit (inferiority) will turn into a social advantage for her.
In modern society, the struggle for existence takes the form of competition. Bourgeois civil law creates an atmosphere of unlimited competition in the economic sphere; democracy, in the political sphere. On seven sieves, democracy sifts and sorts human material, so that the elements it needs can then be put in their proper place. It is naive to think that democracy selects the most "enlightened" or the most "virtuous". This work is carried out by examination committees or those high juries which are engaged in the awarding of the Montion Prizes. Democracy selects those it needs, those that can most loudly, noisily, expressively shout about its needs.

The synthesis of the physiological, genetic and population aspects of research has led to an update of the methodological base of anthropology, to the rejection of many concepts and traditional views, to new fundamental generalizations, for example, to a change in views on the role of natural selection in human society. This problem went through many stages in its solution, was discussed with extreme acuteness, attracting the attention of people far from science. The exceptional progressivity of Charles Darwin's main work on the origin of man consisted in the fact that he showed the limited role of natural selection in human society and believed that sexual selection played the main role here.

The work of C. Darwin compares favorably with the earlier books of T. Huxley and C. Vogt, in which the animal origin of man was defended on the basis of Darwinism, but the specifics of the processes of anthropogenesis were not found. However, the cautious approach of Charles Darwin was not picked up by his followers, primarily E. Haeckel, who believed in the infallibility and universality of Darwin's teaching, but did not take into account the restrictions imposed on a person by society. In reports, articles, books, he considered the origin of many purely human institutions through the prism of the laws established by Charles Darwin, and primarily through the prism of natural selection. Innocent in creating concepts that absolutized the role of natural selection in human society. Haeckel, however, spawned a whole galaxy of followers who created and propagated social Darwinism.

The enthusiasm for social Darwinism could have been suspended if the work of F. Engels "The Dialectics of Nature", in particular the article "The Role of Labor in the Process of the Transformation of Apes into Humans", written in 1873-1876, was immediately published. The labor theory of anthropogenesis outlined in this chapter was precisely based on limiting biological and emphasizing social patterns in human evolution, primarily labor activity. Natural selection was placed in a subordinate place both in the process of anthropogenesis and in human society in general.

Unfortunately, Engels's work saw the light 50 years after it was written and therefore failed to influence the followers of social Darwinism. This doctrine frightened many people with an openly chauvinistic, anti-humanistic orientation, but to one degree or another was shared by almost all major anthropologists in late XIX- early XX century. It seemed natural that man - a product of the animal world - obeys all the laws that prevail in this world. True, man created a culture that animals do not have, culture seems to develop according to its own laws, which have nothing to do with natural selection, but such reservations were half-hearted and did not seriously change anything.

The vulgar social Darwinist approach did not satisfy scientists, and against its background a concept was formed, according to which the role of natural selection should be limited only by its effect on the physical characteristics of a person. Since a person is basically an animal, then his morphology and physiology are determined by natural historical laws, of which selection is the most important. This concept is distinguished by scientific rigor and consistency and has nothing in common with social Darwinism. It is shared at the present time by all or almost all progressive American and Western European scientists. Naturally, the recognition of the action of selection automatically predetermines the answer to the question about the present and future evolution of man: yes, it is going on now, it will go on in the future, and modern look of a person will give way to another, more progressive species, which will be formed on its basis.

Soviet anthropological literature notes that many social factors soften the effect of natural selection. On this basis, the concept is formulated, according to which selection operates in human society in a weakened form and has lost its formative role. Man, having gone through macroevolution, the formation of a new species, entered the period of microevolution, when cardinal changes manifest themselves only at the level of populations. Unfortunately, this concept, shared by many Soviet anthropologists and philosophers, is vulgarized in separate philosophical articles, in which, with direct disregard for the facts, natural selection in human society was generally denied.

Physiological and genetic observations made it possible to make significant additions to this concept: the selection processes that take place in human society were discovered, and on concrete examples their intensity is shown. The processes proceed according to the blood groups of the ABO system, the carriers of which are resistant or, conversely, prone to various diseases - infectious (plague, smallpox), stomach and duodenal cancer. It is possible that other blood types also reflect resistance to various diseases. The presence of abnormal hemoglobins in the tropical zone, in particular the so-called hemoglobin S, leads in the homozygous form to severe anemia with a fatal outcome in early childhood. In such a situation, the abnormal hemoglobin gene would have to disappear quickly, but it is maintained for quite a long time. high level in its concentration due to the fact that the heterozygote seems to be more resistant to malaria, which is widespread in tropical areas, than the carrier of normal hemoglobin

This testifies to the activity of selection processes in human society, to the fact that selection in many cases acts no less intensively than in the animal world. However, selection in man operates in a different form. Man is practically the only cosmopolitan species inhabiting the entire planet. The natural diversity of the environment of his life is complemented by the artificial - the complexity of the social environment that society creates. Under these conditions, the main direction of natural selection, in which its action is carried out in relation to all types of plants and animals, falls into several directions. This means that some morphophysiological feature, useful in some cases, becomes indifferent or even harmful in others. Selection acts in man not as a catalyst for development, but as a crusher. The stabilizing form of selection, established by I. I. Shmalgauzen, is replaced by a scattering one. Intensively ongoing selection in human society ensures and enhances not the biological unity of the human species achieved in the course of previous evolution, but its diversity. And since the environment of human life is extremely unstable, mobile, and the direction of selection is rapidly changing, it does not stimulate a single evolutionary development of man, does not lead to species rearrangement and, consequently, to macroevolution.

The role of biological adaptation in humans is also great. In the study of this problem, modern anthropology closely merges with medical geography. Adaptive adaptations are manifested to many elements of the environment: to the elements of dead nature, to the geographical shell in the narrow sense of the word, and to the biosphere. Climatic and natural zoning is reflected in variations in the size and proportions of the body, in pigmentation, and in the width of the nose. In the tropical zone, populations with such features as dark pigmentation, a wide nose, dolichomorphic (elongated) body proportions are concentrated, in the temperate and cold zones - with the opposite. When comparing the anthropological features of the Eskimos and Fuegians, an attempt was made to prove the existence of bipolar races, such local racial combinations that are similar and formed under the influence of adaptation to the same conditions of one zone in the northern and southern hemispheres.

The adaptive connections of mankind with the biosphere can be divided into two channels - a direct influence on a person and, at the same time, a partial transmission through it of the influence of inert nature. The last channel is called the transmissive function of the biosphere. The direct shaping influence of the biosphere on the human body is seen in many physiological adaptations, in the different immunological resistance of racial types, in the formation of many of their morphological properties, at least partially as a result of adaptation to the diet. The transmissive function of the biosphere is most clearly revealed in the transmission through the biotic factor of a deficiency or excess of trace elements, as well as in their concentration within normal limits. The mineral saturation of the skeleton is determined by X-ray photometry and is closely related to the corresponding concentrations of micro- and macroelements in the natural environment. Through the biotic nutritional factor, these concentrations are also reflected in shaping, affecting the growth and size of the head.

These connections demonstrate the dependence of the human organism on the environment of its life, the complexity and variety of adaptive adaptations to it, the role of these adaptations in the formation of races and differentiation of populations. The development of the ecumene by man and its settlement were not a painless process, they were accompanied by a painful restructuring of the body in contact with new, unfamiliar conditions.

Medical geography, which, together with anthropology, predicts the prospect of settling new and poorly developed areas, is based on the past experience of the biological adaptation of mankind, prevents too much damage that could be caused to the human body by unfamiliar environmental conditions.

On this day:

• 0079 Vesuvius eruption destroyed Roman cities Pompeii and Herculaneum.
• Days of death
• 1942 perished Mikhail Vasilyevich Talitsky, Soviet archaeologist, discoverer of the site named after M. V. Talitsky.
• 1978 Died Kathleen Kenyon, English specialist in biblical archeology, researcher of Jericho.
• 1993 Died Vasily Filippovich Kakhovsky- Soviet and Russian historian and archaeologist, researcher of Chuvashia.

What is natural selection? The process by which offspring are reproduced by the most adapted individuals to the environment. Adaptation to the environment can also be understood as adaptability to intraspecific competition, including for the possession of sexual partners. That is, a strong and healthy individual is more likely to pass on its genes to future generations than a weak and sick one.

The important thing here is that these traits are uniquely determined by genes. This is the basis of the principle of natural selection external attractiveness (strength, fitness) also testifies to the quality of the genetic material. It cannot be otherwise in the animal world.

Another thing is a person. He, unlike other living beings on our planet, managed to create his own habitat, changing the existing one for himself. This, of course, does not mean that the question of the need for adaptation to this environment of each individual individual has disappeared. Simply by creating an environment, a person has created his own criteria of fitness, which are different from natural ones. More precisely, just one money.

Indeed, let us consider such concepts as "adaptation to the environment", "adaptation to intraspecific competition", "sexual attractiveness" in relation to modern man.

Action environment per person in civilized countries is minimized every year. Of course, it has not yet been possible to achieve a complete absence of influence, but this influence (natural disasters, outbreaks of epidemics of intractable diseases, etc.) is episodic in nature and cannot be considered a factor that can radically affect our species. In order to bear any fruit, the factor must act in appearance constantly, for a long period of time, which is not observed at the moment.

Now with regard to intraspecific competition. The use of physical force and aggression is maximally limited by moral and legal norms, so physical force does not at all indicate an advantage over other people. And what does it testify? The answer is not long to look for of course, money.

At first glance, it may seem that money does not guarantee sexual attractiveness. True, but sexual attractiveness in the human sense doesn't matter much to natural selection. What matters is not the desire to have sex, but the desire to have children, to pass on the genes. And in order to raise a child, no doubt, money is needed, therefore, it is their presence that increases the likelihood of passing on one's gene further.

And here the main difference between animal selection and human selection is manifested. In animals, as mentioned above, strength and attractiveness are determined by genes and only by them. This means that more “quality” genes will be passed on. In the human world, the possession of money has nothing to do with the genes of the individual. Moreover, money can be obtained in many ways: by intellectual work, by strength, by beauty, by some special talent needed by society, and so on. Thus, money does not express anything. But at the same time, they are the main criterion for the transfer of their genes further.

What kind of natural selection among people can we talk about then? Its supporters often compare modern man with the remains of ancient people or talk about acquired resistance to various diseases. But this is all the influence of the external environment, which is becoming less and less significant and can no longer influence our appearance. And intraspecific competition and sexual selection already have a certain direction, because their criteria are in no way connected with human genes. If a species more adapted to life on Earth appears, then certainly not as a result of natural selection.

|

Comments (14)

(no subject)

from:
date: Jan. 14th, 2007 03:29 pm (UTC)

The main selection criterion in human society is intelligence, money can play as a factor that determines the advantage of an individual in certain conditions, but it can also play the role of an eliminating factor. In a period of stability, yes, money implies a number of advantages, for posterity, only theoretically, one cannot renounce "from prison and from the bag" ... Money is energy that can both pull up and down, and even destroy it .. .

|

(no subject)

from:
date: Jan. 15th, 2007 12:35 pm (UTC)

Revolutions and upheavals sometimes happen in society, and then the richest part of the population traditionally suffers, remember after the 1917 revolution how expropriation was carried out?
This also happened after french revolution. After the change of power, there is often a reason to ruin a particularly rich part of the population.
thus, the monetary part of the population runs the risk of being destroyed along with the descendants and genes (eliminated) by both the power-holding and the criminal part of the population.

| |

(no subject)

from:
date: Jan. 15th, 2007 07:10 pm (UTC)

However, this does not go against what I wrote. Of course, the possession of money does not solve all problems, and cannot guarantee a cloudless life, but it is money that is now the main criterion for competitiveness. Not ideal. But the closest to this of the existing ones.

Intelligence is the main selection criterion in human society.
Intelligence by itself is as useless as (roughly speaking) a screwdriver without screws is useless. Let's say that a tiger can provide itself with everything necessary only by force, directly. And in order for a person to provide himself with intellect, he cannot do without an intermediary, and this intermediary is money. And money is obtained not only by intellectual labor.

| |

(no subject)

from:
date: Jan. 15th, 2007 07:32 pm (UTC)

Yes, you are certainly right, I just wanted to add that money is an unconditional advantage in the selection process, however, not absolute when transferring this advantage to descendants. How many generations of people can enjoy the benefits of wealth - money? money can contribute to the transfer of genes, but descendants do not always have money and, accordingly, the same advantages, by the way, money without intelligence is not a big advantage either.
As for the strength of the tiger, if it is due to dominant genes, then at least 50% of the tiger’s descendants, or even all 100%, inherit it and pass it on to their descendants.
Money probably plays the role of a selection factor in society, such as the amount of game for a tiger, little game - little power ...
Of course, I simplified a lot of things :))

| |

(no subject)

from:
date: Jan. 15th, 2007 09:01 pm (UTC)

And the advantage should not be absolute. Enough to be overwhelming.

Money without intelligence? Slippery concept. Do you know many people without intelligence? The intellect is so multidimensional that it is impossible to say: “Here he is with intellect, but he is not.” In any case, I have not heard clear criteria.

And the point is that there is no natural selection now. The main criterion of competitiveness money has nothing to do with genes, and therefore there will be no transfer of any specific genes. Unlike the tiger with its strength.

| |

(no subject)

from:
date: Jan. 15th, 2007 09:22 pm (UTC)

natural selection in human society is a very deep and controversial topic, it seems to me that it exists, the question is in the selection criteria
artificially determined selection criterion - money, this is a natural criterion for society, society is a population of people, and money is a product of society, everything is natural ...

| |

(no subject)

from:
date: Jan. 16th, 2007 11:48 am (UTC)

when we talk about conscious selection, we call it "artificial",
money is a product of society, created consciously,
they are the selection criteria
Nevertheless, this selection criterion arose within the human population, and therefore is a natural process, and therefore it does not run counter to the theory of natural selection ...

and in general, there is a lot of interesting things on this topic
http://alvarets.livejournal.com/24381.html
I liked Maiskuryan's works in the library, inquire
here: http://community.livejournal.com/darwiniana/6924.html
in addition to unokai , there were interesting thoughts in this direction, look, if you wish, in his journal