Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

The future of human evolution

William Dembski
October 22, 2006
Darwinism, Evolution
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In reading the following, keep in mind that evolutionists who put out this drivel are themselves evolutionary dead ends, destined for the dustbin of history:

Evolutionary theorist Oliver Curry of the London School of Economics expects a genetic upper class and a dim-witted underclass to emerge.

The human race would peak in the year 3000, he said – before a decline due to dependence on technology.

People would become choosier about their sexual partners, causing humanity to divide into sub-species, he added.

The descendants of the genetic upper class would be tall, slim, healthy, attractive, intelligent, and creative and a far cry from the “underclass” humans who would have evolved into dim-witted, ugly, squat goblin-like creatures.

MORE: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6057734.stm

Comments
[...] Well, yes, Jim, but if I were a Darwinist just now, I would prefer to attack ID than defend Darwinism. Lots of chuckleheads would applaud me for attacking ID even if I wasn’t making any sense at all, but defending Darwinian evolution is currently hard work and slim pickings. You know the sort of thing: Black squirrels survive in Washington, D.C., just as they do in Toronto. Galapagos finches fatten their beaks, or else they thin them, depending on the season. The human race is supposedly dividing  into clever gods vs. moronic dwarfs, though this has never happened before for tens of thousands of years.  [...]Intelligent design requires evidence: Ah, but what can be considered evidence? | Uncommon Descent
May 22, 2007
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Ekstasis, I think there was movie about this recenlty called Idiocracy. I haven't seen it but it sounds funny. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IdiocracyJehu
October 23, 2006
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Jehu, Good point. Besides, the technology class will produce virtual clones of themselves, no problem, and go living on in Matrix land forever. What the heck, since we have been enlightened by Darwinian evolution, we know now that our thought processes from the famed microtubes and a downloaded memory store is all that is needed, plus a nifty simulation of some sort of body that we can now "design" for ourselves, overloaded with virtual hormones. You know, consciousness and the soul are just illusions, who needs them anyway. Ah yes, the virtual world and the right model of reality is bliss!! In the meantime, them semi-illiterates with their pickup trucks and devolved sense of music will rule the terra firma world, and will just keep on reproducing, proving once again the fitness of the species is what it really is all about. Yep, all undirected and purposeless, and the cowboys and cowgirls could care less as long as they have a case of Bud and a roarin' V-8 or V-12 diesel under the hood, suckin down fossil fuels produced by trillions of Darwin's beloved precursors.Ekstasis
October 23, 2006
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Ekstasis,
Anyway, that’s my take on it.
You forget sexual selection. In the future all men will be beer swilling semi-literates who wear cowby hats and drive pick-up trucks with huge tires. Because chics dig cowboys. Technological progress will grind to a halt as the technologically sophisticated class encounters trouble reproducing.Jehu
October 23, 2006
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Yes, but since most of humanity will be high-tech workers, won't large near-sighted eyes that never blink bring result in a natural advantage? Blinking wastes time, so random mutations that cause an oily film to cover the eye will take hold. And with the optimal screens in place, turning our heads will never be necessary, just a waste of time, so no doubt those with fused neck vertabrae will have a substantial advantage, so humans will lose their ability to rotate their heads. And as humans eat and drink more (at least us humble Americans) those who survive the indulgence will have bigger and bigger stomachs. And, with the assistance of faithful robots, since we will never actually need to use our arms to reach things, well, they will shrivel away, with only strong, dexterious fingers to fly over the keyboards of the future. Sort of a T. Rex forearm, with the claws replaced by dancing little appendages. In fact, the hand will re-shape to fit the keyboard, with little grooves on the palms to hold our place on the keyboard. Hands slipping while typing will be a thing of the past. Anyway, that's my take on it.Ekstasis
October 23, 2006
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Jehu:"Does anybody know what the relative fertility rate is for athiests vs. thiests." Good news in Prospect Magazine: In Europe, the fertility advantage of the religious over non-believers has historically been counterbalanced by the march of secularisation. Not any more. Secularisation in Europe is now in decline, and Islam continues to grow. Europe will start to adopt a more American model of modernity.Jipitea Moonbean
October 23, 2006
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Yes, it's drivel, but it is useful to dissect exactly _why_ it's drivel. Here are some of Curry's claims. Readers can sharpen their understanding of the issues around evolution by working out why each of them is wrong. Humans will be 6-7 feet tall and live to 120 in 1,000 years. Physical appearance, driven by indicators of health, youth and fertility, will improve. Racial differences will be ironed out by interbreeding, producing a uniform race of coffee-coloured people. In 10,000 years - Chins would recede, as a result of having to chew less on processed food. Preventing deaths would also help to preserve the genetic defects that cause cancer. Further into the future, sexual selection - being choosy about one's partner - was likely to create more and more genetic inequality, said Dr Curry. Come on, prove you're smarter than a men's satellite TV channel!David vun Kannon
October 23, 2006
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"I can’t believe that the BBC would waste its time publishing such drivel." Agreed, every scientist I've shown this too says exactly the same thing.Chris Hyland
October 23, 2006
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#6 jwrennie "Mike Behe has 8 kids and Dawkins has 0. " #8 jerry Dawkins has a daughter. No problem; the difference is alway (at least ) 8. If in the meanwhile that number has not grown, Mike ha NINE children. Certainly IDers are much likely to win the demographic battle :-) http://www.philadelphiaweekly.com/view.php?id=8661kairos
October 23, 2006
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As I posted in "Wobbling Stability": (from Chapter IV of Giuseppe Sermonti's book "Why is a Fly Not a Horse?")
Sexuality has brought joy to the world, to the world of the wild beasts, and to the world of flowers, but it has brought an end to evolution. In the lineages of living beings, whenever absent-minded Venus has taken the upper hand, forms have forgotten to make progress. It is only the husbandman that has improved strains, and he has done so by bullying, enslaving, and segregating. All these methods, of course, have made for sad, alienated animals, but they have not resulted in new species. Left to themselves, domesticated breeds would either die out or revert to the wild state—scarcely a commendable model for nature’s progress.
(snip a few paragraphs on peppered moths)
Natural Selection, which indeed occurs in nature (as Bishop Wilberforce, too, was perfectly aware), mainly has the effect of maintaining equilibrium and stability. It eliminates all those that dare depart from the type—the eccentrics and the adventurers and the marginal sort. It is ever adjusting populations, but it does so in each case by bringing them back to the norm. We read in the textbooks that, when environmental conditions change, the selection process may produce a shift in a population’s mean values, by a process known as adaptation. If the climate turns very cold, the cold-adapted beings are favored relative to others.; if it becomes windy, the wind blows away those that are most exposed; if an illness breaks out, those in questionable health will be lost. But all these artful guiles serve their purpose only until the clouds blow away. The species, in fact, is an organic entity, a typical form, which may deviate only to return to the furrow of its destiny; it may wander from the band only to find its proper place by returning to the gang. Everything that disassembles, upsets proportions or becomes distorted in any way is sooner or later brought back to the type. There has been a tendency to confuse fleeting adjustments with grand destinies, minor shrewdness with signs of the times. It is true that species may lose something on the way—the mole its eyes, say, and the succulent plant its leaves, never to recover them again. But here we are dealing with unhappy, mutilated species, at the margins of their area of distribution—the extreme and the specialized. These are species with no future; they are not pioneers, but prisoners in nature’s penitentiary.
Joseph
October 23, 2006
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“Evolutionary theorist Oliver Curry of the London School of Economics expects a genetic upper class and a dim-witted underclass to emerge.” Sometimes I’ll read the latest entries on this site and wonder if it’s a joke or not. This is one of those times. Could you imagine actually being paid to come up with such nonsense? Me, I have to work for a living.shaner74
October 23, 2006
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Curry is a poster child for the dangers of inbreeding. It's pretty much been downhill for England since the close of the 19th century. Likewise, it was pretty much all downhill for English author H.G. Wells after the turn of the century too.DaveScot
October 23, 2006
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BTW last night Aussie time Denyse debated a prominent “expert” Australian science journalist. He says that ID is all about politics and that it is only a ploy by the Discovery Institute to have Bush elected again. Bush can't be elected to a third term. http://www.usconstitution.net/xconst_Am22.htmlDaveScot
October 23, 2006
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"Does anybody know what the relative fertility rate is for athiests vs. thiests. " 95% of Americans believe in God. The faith meme really does confer a survival advantage. Why then would Richard Dawkins want to stamp it out? Is it part of the plot towards zero population growth?idnet.com.au
October 23, 2006
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I'm not sure that I'd feel comfortable about my private life being talked about here. Do to others ...idnet.com.au
October 22, 2006
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Dawkins has a daughter.
Still not enought to replace both he and his wife. (Plus he is on his third marriage, so I am not sure what the required replacement for that is) Does anybody know what the relative fertility rate is for athiests vs. thiests. I am sure it is many times higher for thiests.Jehu
October 22, 2006
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Will the tall, slim, healthy, attractive, intelligent, creative (and probably blond) Eloi use the dim-witted, ugly, squat, goblin-like Morlocks for food?
No, I think it is the other way around, the Morlocks eat the Eloi.Jehu
October 22, 2006
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No, I think it is the other way around, the Morlocks eat the Eloi.
Jehu
October 22, 2006
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Oh, that poor girl! I had no idea.StephenA
October 22, 2006
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Dawkins has a daughter.jerry
October 22, 2006
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Hey, I just figured it out! It's the Morlocks and the Eloi, only the Eloi are smart and the Morlocks are stupid! Will the tall, slim, healthy, attractive, intelligent, creative (and probably blond) Eloi use the dim-witted, ugly, squat, goblin-like Morlocks for food?GilDodgen
October 22, 2006
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Interestingly if you think about it a bit. Mike Behe has 8 kids and Dawkins has 0. So the good news is, even if they are right, Dawkins and his sort wont be represented in the upper class. As well as lefties and rampant secularists in general for much the same self-selection reasons. So at least something to look forward too :Djwrennie
October 22, 2006
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Evolutionary theorist and palm reader make nice synonyms. Expert and evolutionary theorist make nice antonyms.GilDodgen
October 22, 2006
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Oh for Pete's sake. They've taken to recycling concepts from Zager and Evans. That's about as pathetic as you can get in the realm of pop science.tribune7
October 22, 2006
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What is an "expert" in Evolutionary theory doing in the London School of Economics? Did he take a wrong turn when heading for the biology school? It is a great word "expert". Some people will swallow anything that comes out of the mouth of one. BTW last night Aussie time Denyse debated a prominent "expert" Australian science journalist. He says that ID is all about politics and that it is only a ploy by the Discovery Institute to have Bush elected again. I will try to post something on this soon.idnet.com.au
October 22, 2006
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"I can’t believe that the BBC would waste its time publishing such drivel." Why are you surprised? Just like PBS, it publishes drivel like this all the time.Ryan
October 22, 2006
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Well that settles it then, doesn't it. I can't believe that the BBC would waste its time publishing such drivel.bFast
October 22, 2006
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