RE: Evolution of ontogeny

From: Wade T.Smith (wade_smith@harvard.edu)
Date: Mon Feb 05 2001 - 20:47:55 GMT

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Subject: RE: Evolution of ontogeny
Date: Mon, 5 Feb 2001 15:47:55 -0500
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From: "Wade T.Smith" <wade_smith@harvard.edu>
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    >simply that the last 50,000
    >years don't reveal biological evolution?

    Yes. Precisely.

    >I can think of a lot of changes that have happened socially in the last
    >50,000 years that I would call markers of social evolution: sedentarization
    >and farming, empire, distance communication, technological 'symbiosis', etc.
    >I am of course not suggesting that all of these are wholly 'good' -- only
    >that they are of evolutionary consequence, and certainly that they are
    >irreversible.

    IMHO these things are neither of evolutionary consequence (due to the
    lack of evidence of evolutionary change in home sapiens sapiens), and
    neither can they be considered irreversible. A single, catasphrophic
    natural disaster would successfully eliminate all these changes you call
    markers of social evolution, and, the path towards the acquisition of
    these markers would be just as tedious and long-lasting as the path has
    been to them at present.

    - Wade

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