94 réponses à ce sujet

[Pauravi]

Computron2000 wrote...

What evolution occured in the last 2000 years. I have heard nothing referencing this. We are basically the same as we were the last 1.8 million years ago (which were our last known ancestors the ****** erectus). We do have better nuitrition which allows us to fufill our actual height and mass potential. We also live longer because of better medicine but none of these are due to evolution

Everything you just said is completely incorrect.
The human ancestors living 1.8Mya were significantly different from our species, ****** sapiens, which has only existed for a couple hundred thousand years.  Even Neanderthals were a closer relative than ****** erectus was, and is the only one of our ancestors which is thought to have co-existed with modern humans.  They are different in a number of ways, including muscle density, bone structure, brain size, and vocal capability.  The idea that humans haven't undergone significant evolution in almost 2 million years is laughable.

One of our most recent major evolutions was only about 5-6,000 years ago, actually.  People who live in cold northern climates got a significant portion of their nutrition from raising farm animals, since agriculture is difficult there.  Dairy was an important source of nutrition, and so people with Northern European ancestry have a significantly higher rate of lactose tolerance than other cultures; most others have a non-functional lactase production gene.

[Computron2000]

Paradox 01 wrote...
Adaptation is an accepted aspect of evolution.  What will make me sick in a foreign country will have absolutely no effect on the indigineous population.  They have adapted to the bacteria (for example) in the local wildlife.  So they can eat their pigs all they want, but if I decide to have a pork BBQ in Bosnia, I'll be puking for a month.

Sorry i don't get this. This is not evolution in genetic terms, this is merely your stomache adjusting to the local hygenie including introduction of newer bacteria as well as local weather (temperature/humidity) conditions. When we talk about evolution we talk about the baseline changing, not just usage of an existing mechanism in new conditions.

The shorter fingers spoken about in another post is a baseline change  (if true)

Paradox 01 wrote...
Also, look at how we're able to adapt to disease.  There are diseases that were rampant centuries ago that just don't exist today.  And yes, much of that is due to medicine, but our bodies are able to adapt to the medicine and take over from there.

Again i don't get this. Thats your immune system working and actually the diseases are still there just in very different forms (eg, the various forms of flu).

Paradox 01 wrote...
Or, just the opposite.  Look at antibiotics.  There's a reason why your doctor doesn't prescribe broad-spectrum antibiotics for every little sniffle.  People on long-term ABX quit producing their own antibodies, because their bodies get used to recieving them from external sources.

Besides all this, of course, is the fact that no one really knows how quickly or slowly other species in the ME universe evolve.  So we might very well be the most genetically diverse of all the sentient species.

I don't know about ME as its a fictional universe but the reason a doctor does not prescribe the heavy hitter anitbiotics is to prevent the virii from evolving to adapt to the medicine. The actual genetic changes for virii and bacteria are quite large as they have extremely short lifespans and large scale gene sharing. You are also advised to finish all your medicine whether or not you feel fully healed for the same reason. The effect of ignoring both are diseases such as MRSA

Paradox 01 wrote...
Oh, and compare how many species humans can mate with versus how many other species can mate with others in the ME universe.  Kinda sick, I know, and it's most likely a result of some fanboy's wildest fantasies, but it bears keeping in mind.

Can't really say but i would like to point out that most sci-fi will have human looking humanoid aliens because we are less predisposed positively to wierd looking ones (eg War of the worlds martians, aliens from aliens, etc). I mean they are great as bad guys but not very good as good guys

[Gill Kaiser]

Pauravi wrote...

Computron2000 wrote...

What evolution occured in the last 2000 years. I have heard nothing referencing this. We are basically the same as we were the last 1.8 million years ago (which were our last known ancestors the ****** erectus). We do have better nuitrition which allows us to fufill our actual height and mass potential. We also live longer because of better medicine but none of these are due to evolution

Everything you just said is completely incorrect.
The human ancestors living 1.8Mya were significantly different from our species, ****** sapiens, which has only existed for a couple hundred thousand years.  Even Neanderthals were a closer relative than ****** erectus was, and is the only one of our ancestors which is thought to have co-existed with modern humans.  They are different in a number of ways, including muscle density, bone structure, brain size, and vocal capability.  The idea that humans haven't undergone significant evolution in almost 2 million years is laughable.

One of our most recent major evolutions was only about 5-6,000 years ago, actually.  People who live in cold northern climates got a significant portion of their nutrition from raising farm animals, since agriculture is difficult there.  Dairy was an important source of nutrition, and so people with Northern European ancestry have a significantly higher rate of lactose tolerance than other cultures; most others have a non-functional lactase production gene.

Thank god you said all this, I was dreading having to write an adequate response to such a question.

[SharpEdgeSoda]

Krid wrote...

Bad example: "Humans most genetically diverse."
I facepalmed at this line because it's horribly unlikely.
Why? Because humans are one of the least genetically diverse creatures on our own planet, trailing behind species which are now or have recently been near-extinct or severly endangered.

And here is the hole in your self-inducing rage analysis.

You don't know what the hell the genetic diversity of ANY other species of the ME universe is.

DO YOU HAVE PROOF against the fact that asari/salarians/krogan/quarian, ect, are not only the least genetically diverse on thier own respective planets, but are ALSO less diverse than humanity?

2 sides to this. The science, and the fiction. Your comparing real science to facts that don't exist. That is not science.

[Urazz]

Doug84 wrote...

Paradox 01 wrote...

Are you kidding me?  Evolution is taking place all the time, in every generation. 

Adaptation is an accepted aspect of evolution.  What will make me sick in a foreign country will have absolutely no effect on the indigineous population.  They have adapted to the bacteria (for example) in the local wildlife.  So they can eat their pigs all they want, but if I decide to have a pork BBQ in Bosnia, I'll be puking for a month.

And apparently our fingers are shinking in length over the generations. No clue why, not wholy certain if its true.

I doubt it's true or if it is true then I doubt our fingers will shrink that much more because they are still pretty much required for us to function even in today's standards.

Either that or the length of our fingers are still the same but are smaller in comparison to what they should be based on our height on taller people I think.

[Deltateam Elcor]

We cant really evolve anymore, its impossible without problems to overcome...I dont see any.
Also Adapt=/=Evolve, Adapting is just increases or decreases in melatonin in most cases, Different altitudes...i really dont know.
Ive felt to evolve past this "form" as it were, we will have to do it on our own.
Anyway, This is Science fiction and that line could only include sentient species.

Modifié par Deltateam Elcor, 15 février 2010 - 01:25 .

[Computron2000]

Pauravi wrote...
just said is completely incorrect.
The human ancestors living 1.8Mya were significantly different from our species, ****** sapiens, which has only existed for a couple hundred thousand years.  Even Neanderthals were a closer relative than ****** erectus was, and is the only one of our ancestors which is thought to have co-existed with modern humans.  They are different in a number of ways, including muscle density, bone structure, brain size, and vocal capability.  The idea that humans haven't undergone significant evolution in almost 2 million years is laughable.

One of our most recent major evolutions was only about 5-6,000 years ago, actually.  People who live in cold northern climates got a significant portion of their nutrition from raising farm animals, since agriculture is difficult there.  Dairy was an important source of nutrition, and so people with Northern European ancestry have a significantly higher rate of lactose tolerance than other cultures; most others have a non-functional lactase production gene.

Um, i know that we are not ****** erectus. A change is species name is not for no reason. However since ****** erectus was dated at 1.8 myr, i was using that as ****** sapiens start date. If they got a more accurate number, great as i am out of date on the new stuff.

For your lactose thing, i looked it up and it does seem to be a recent genetic change. This would qualify as evolution but not sufficient for a species subset though

[Ronnocloki]

We may have a lot more diversity in our "trash" dna though.  In the ME universe any planet capable of supporting life runs the risk of a mass extinction every 50,000 years.  The last mass extinction on earth was 65,000,000 years ago.

[Gill Kaiser]

Deltateam Elcor wrote...

We cant really evolve anymore, its impossible without problems to overcome...I dont see any.
Also Adapt=/=Evolve, Adapting is just increases or decreases in melatonin in most cases, Different altitudes...i really dont know.
Ive felt to evolve past this "form" as it were, we will have to do it on our own.
Anyway, This is Science fiction and that line could only include sentient species.

Sure we can evolve, evolution will happen as long as there is variance between individuals. It just might be sexual selection rather than natural selection, for example. The force governing the evolution might alter, but the process itself can't be stopped until everyone is a clone.

[Krid]

[quote]Paradox 01 wrote...

[quote]Krid wrote...

[quote]Otherwise, they'd evolve within their own lifespans, or at least noticeably within a generation or two.[/quote]

Evolution doesn't work that way...[/quote]
Okay, granted.  Humans might evolve faster (or slower) than other species (be they asari or dolphin).  Still, my point was that humans evolve faster than other species (objectively, that is).[/quote]

Uh, what? That's kinda like saying that humans SLEEP faster than other species. Not fall asleep faster, stay asleep longer, or wake up faster, I mean actually *sleeping* faster.

Humans have longer generational cycles than almost every species on the planet so you could argue that humans 'evolve slower', but that's not really a valid statement to make in the first place since it seems like you're suggesting that evolution has some kind of goal.

Evolution is just the change in allele frequency of a population over generations. Nothing more, nothing less.

[quote][quote]
[quote]Now look at humans. We've evolved drastically within the last two thousand years, and that's discounting the whole creationist/evolutionist debate. We've evolved in order to adapt to the various regions of earth we live on.[/quote]

Yes, there's been a lot of evolution, but the changes have generally been minor or superficial. There hasn't really been much selective pressure outside of diseases, sun exposure, and an iceage or two.[/quote]
You don't think that's been quite a lot?  All evolution takes place slowly, so for even a few changes to have occured over the course of a thousand years is significant.  Who knows how much evolution humankind has gone through compared to other sentient species in the ME universe?[/quote]

That's not really a valid claim. While there have been genetic changes over time, it has generally been the result of events that killed large swaths of the population off. Bubonic plague alone, for example, killed off about half the population of Europe. Twice. That put a lot of selective pressure on the population in favor of people who were resistant to the disease, while others tended to die. At this point many europeans are resistant or immune to the disease.
Smallpox all but eradicated the pre-columbian Americans, and what was left was then mopped up by the Spanish inquisition.
That's a significant number of genetic line terminations.

While it's true that the variation of other species is unknown, that claim would only really be valid if a link could be drawn between sentience and low genetic variation, which so far has failed to materialize.

[quote][quote]

[quote]How many colors do we have on Earth?[/quote]

Different shades of coffee, ranging from black to pure milk. Believe it or not the pink is actually constant between groups, as it's the result of near-surface blood.
[/quote]
Exactly (though I'm not sure what your point was with the pink reference).  We've evolved in order to adapt to the various climates on our planet.  Other species (krogan, asari, turian, etc.) haven't been able to do that to the extent that we have, at least as far as the given evidence leads us to believe.[/quote][/quote]

The Asari have a rather significant gamut of blue shades, and some even have a bit of purple in there.
The Krogan have a nice variety of ornimental head shapes, colors, and other such things.
The Salarians vary like Skittles.
Humans have one color at different levels of saturation.

I don't really know what you were trying to get at with that, but I don't think it worked.

[Krid]

ohenn wrote...

The flipping around halfway there is in the ME1 codex. I thought it was a good point and showed some thought.

The genetic variation thing has to be taken with a grain of salt since the writers can make up whatever details they want. Basically, it gets them out of having to design different "races" of aliens. Humans are white, black, asian, etc but we only see blue asari, and the turians, krogan, salarians etc all look the same. Its almost like they used Mordin's lines to retcon in that fact

...except who's to say that we would be able to tell the difference between their races? There's more to it than just skin tones, you know...

Ronnocloki wrote...

We may have a lot more diversity in
our "trash" dna though.  In the ME universe any planet capable of
supporting life runs the risk of a mass extinction every 50,000 years. 
The last mass extinction on earth was 65,000,000 years ago.

Picking at loose plot threads.
Just assume the reapers ignored every mass relay that hadn't been activated since their last culling.

Also, variation in 'trash' DNA would be meaningless since that information would have no effect on anything.

[Ronnocloki]

While it's true that our trash dna has no phenotypic expression that we know of, it could be important as far as building reapers is concerned. Also our epigenome may be different from other species.

[Moogliepie]

Hathur wrote...

Mordin repeatedly refers to humans being the most genetically diverse species in known space... he later qualifies this (during his loyalty mission) as SAPIEN life... intelligent life.

Since Mass Effect is fiction, we can simply assume that all the other aliens are less genetically diverse than humans.... Humans are among the least genetically diverse organisms on our own planet in reality, but who's to say that if there were other intelligent life out there, that we wouldn't be more genetically diverse than all of them?

It's fiction, the writers are allowed to say humans are more diverse than other intelligent aliens (though they'd be incorrect to state more diverse than ALL life... as this is not true on our own planet).

I agree. In this context, it isn't far fetched. I also remember reading that in Central Africa, pygmy tribes had more genetic diversity between any two individuals than any other two random individuals from other parts of the world. 

[Krid]

Moogliepie wrote...

I agree. In this context, it isn't far fetched. I also remember reading that in Central Africa, pygmy tribes had more genetic diversity between any two individuals than any other two random individuals from other parts of the world. 

The argument is not that humans are certain to be the least diverse species, but that it's exceedingly unlikely that they would be the MOST diverse.

Krogan, Turian, Asari, Volus, Elcore, Salarian, Quarian, Hannar, Drell, Batarians, and Vorcha.
We can ignore the Rachni, Collectors, Geth, and as-yet-unseen species for obvious reasons, but that's still 11 other species. Keep in mind that Humans are, what is it, 99.95% identical? And have less variation than over 99.99% of known species on earth.

No, it's not impossible, but I'm pretty sure the scale of how unlikely it is is beyond the mind's natural ability to reason.
A demonstration, perhaps? What is the probability of at least 2 people from a group of 23 random people having the same birthday?
You would probably leap for an obvious answer like 10% or so, correct? Well, the actual chance is 50%.

Simply put, humans have low genetic variation due to unlikely events in our history that drastically reduced the size of our gene pool one way or another. We're very much a statistical outlier on our own planet, so being a statistical outlier in the opposite direction compared to other planets is a vanishingly small possibility.

[BattleVisor]

I think you misunderstood mordin. I think he was talking more of a psychological level.



'If you have three humans in a room, you have six different opinions'

[Gemini1179]

Krid wrote...

The argument is not that humans are certain to be the least diverse species, but that it's exceedingly unlikely that they would be the MOST diverse.

Why not? How can you possibly formulate this hypothesis?

Krogan, Turian, Asari, Volus, Elcore, Salarian, Quarian, Hannar, Drell, Batarians, and Vorcha.
We can ignore the Rachni, Collectors, Geth, and as-yet-unseen species for obvious reasons, but that's still 11 other species. Keep in mind that Humans are, what is it, 99.95% identical? And have less variation than over 99.99% of known species on earth.

You're still not providing any evidence here that supports your claim that it is less likely that humans are more diverse. From my viewpoint, Turians, Krogans, Asari, Volus, Elcor, Salarian etc are 100% identical seeing as there is not even height diversity among their species.

No, it's not impossible, but I'm pretty sure the scale of how unlikely it is is beyond the mind's natural ability to reason.

Again, you're comparing fact to fiction.

A demonstration, perhaps? What is the probability of at least 2 people from a group of 23 random people having the same birthday?
You would probably leap for an obvious answer like 10% or so, correct? Well, the actual chance is 50%.

I don't see what this proves. There are a finite number of birthdays and 6 billion humans, that puts 16.5 million people for each day of the year. How does this have anything to do with demonstrating our 'lack' of genetic diversity? Which, is not really the issue here.

Simply put, humans have low genetic variation due to unlikely events in our history that drastically reduced the size of our gene pool one way or another. We're very much a statistical outlier on our own planet, so being a statistical outlier in the opposite direction compared to other planets is a vanishingly small possibility.

Why? How can you assume that Salarians, Turians, Krogan, etc, etc are not the statistical outlier on their own planets as well? If galactic expansion has only occurred even in the last 4000 years by ME standards, it is highly unlikely there would me great genetic diversity by any spacefaring race during that time.

The point has been made that this is all comparisons between Humans and other sapient life in the ME universe. Peaks and valleys, as Mordin says. What I took from this was that if Humans can exist as adults with a height of between 3 ft and 8 ft, then that is more of a variation than what Asari, Salarians, Turians, Volus, Elcor, etc can. Again, it is only an example of what Mordin likely thinks of as "diversity".

This whole discussion, while interesting, is like comparing human genetic diversity to that of the Greek Gods.

[addiction21]

Krid wrote...

Moogliepie wrote...

I agree. In this context, it isn't far fetched. I also remember reading that in Central Africa, pygmy tribes had more genetic diversity between any two individuals than any other two random individuals from other parts of the world. 

The argument is not that humans are certain to be the least diverse species, but that it's exceedingly unlikely that they would be the MOST diverse.

Where is it stated that humans are the MOST diverese? I remember it being mentioned that humans are genetically diverse but never the most.

[Krid]

[quote]Gemini1179 wrote...

[quote]Krid wrote...

The argument is not that humans are certain to be the least diverse species, but that it's exceedingly unlikely that they would be the MOST diverse. [/quote]

Why not? How can you possibly formulate this hypothesis?[/quote]

By assuming that unlikely scenarios are unlikely and predicting future results based on past results?

[quote][quote]
Krogan, Turian, Asari, Volus, Elcore, Salarian, Quarian, Hannar, Drell, Batarians, and Vorcha.
We can ignore the Rachni, Collectors, Geth, and as-yet-unseen species for obvious reasons, but that's still 11 other species. Keep in mind that Humans are, what is it, 99.95% identical? And have less variation than over 99.99% of known species on earth.
[/quote]

You're still not providing any evidence here that supports your claim that it is less likely that humans are more diverse.[/quote]

Try and see it this way: More than 99.99% of all life on this planet is more genetically diverse than humans, and you're claiming that the 11 other known sentient species in ME are ALL less diverse than that.

Just going by back-of-the-hand probabilities, that's less than a 1 in 1*10^24 chance. To compare, winning the lottery is somewhere around a 1 in 1*10^8 chance.

[quote] From my viewpoint, Turians, Krogans, Asari, Volus, Elcor, Salarian etc are 100% identical seeing as there is not even height diversity among their species.[/quote]

Human height variation is also strangely absent in Mass Effect 2, and it's pretty damn obvious that they're not 100% identical.
Even besides that absurd claim, the issue here is GENETIC diversity. Genotype, not Phenotype.

[quote][quote]
No, it's not impossible, but I'm pretty sure the scale of how unlikely it is is beyond the mind's natural ability to reason. [/quote]

Again, you're comparing fact to fiction.[/quote]

I'm calling them out on exceeding the limit for suspension of disbelief - which others have done for the Normandy 2's *bathrooms*.
If you're going to argue against this discussion's value, then I have serious questions about why you're participating in the first place.

[quote][quote]
A demonstration, perhaps? What is the probability of at least 2 people from a group of 23 random people having the same birthday?
You would probably leap for an obvious answer like 10% or so, correct? Well, the actual chance is 50%.
[/quote]

I don't see what this proves. There are a finite number of birthdays and 6 billion humans, that puts 16.5 million people for each day of the year.[/quote]

Reading comprehension is useful, and in some cases very illuminating.
I said a group of 23 random people. That means that the group contains 23 people, and that those people are picked randomly.

[quote]How does this have anything to do with demonstrating our 'lack' of genetic diversity? Which, is not really the issue here.[/quote]

I was pointing out the poor understanding of probabilitys as a lead-in to the human mind lumping all small possibilities in together and treating them like they're all equal.

Also, I love the semiquotes on 'lack', considering that it's very well known, heavily researched, and not actually in dispute.

[quote][quote]
Simply put, humans have low genetic variation due to unlikely events in our history that drastically reduced the size of our gene pool one way or another. We're very much a statistical outlier on our own planet, so being a statistical outlier in the opposite direction compared to other planets is a vanishingly small possibility.
[/quote]

Why? How can you assume that Salarians, Turians, Krogan, etc, etc are not the statistical outlier on their own planets as well?[/quote]

Because statistical outliers are rare by definition, and the chance of them all being even more drastic outliers is in the realm of "Technically not zero, but close enough that you can treat it that way".

[quote] If galactic expansion has only occurred even in the last 4000 years by ME standards, it is highly unlikely there would me great genetic diversity by any spacefaring race during that time.[/quote]

I'm sorry, but you need to rewrite that. I'm uncertain of what you are attempting to say, and my best attempts to parse it are resulting in gibberish.

[quote]The point has been made that this is all comparisons between Humans and other sapient life in the ME universe. Peaks and valleys, as Mordin says. What I took from this was that if Humans can exist as adults with a height of between 3 ft and 8 ft, then that is more of a variation than what Asari, Salarians, Turians, Volus, Elcor, etc can. Again, it is only an example of what Mordin likely thinks of as "diversity".[/quote]

You took that to mean _litteral_ height?
I'm seriously questioning if it's worth the effort to help you understand the subject. o.0

[quote]addiction21 wrote...

Where is it stated that humans are the MOST diverese? I remember it being mentioned that humans are genetically diverse but never the most.[/quote]

Moridan, when explaining why the Collectors targeted human colonies.

[quote]BattleVisor wrote...



I think you misunderstood mordin. I think he was talking more of a psychological level.[/quote]



He explicitly stated genetics. Several times. And corrected Shepard about it.

Modifié par Krid, 15 février 2010 - 06:26 .

[Kwonnern]

If Mordin says it, it's true.



/end thread.

[Soruyao]

I just want to weigh in on the human height issue. (Where we've been getting taller in the last couple thousand years.) This is likely based on how much nutrition we've been getting in our growth years.

[aaniadyen]

Humans are not genetically diverse at all. I like to pretend they don't say all that bull**** about that being the case and replace it with "Shepard is human. Shepard killed sovereign. Therefore, humans are genetically superior." Legion even hints at this when he says that he followed you because Shepard was the most successful, and he killed sovereign because "His code was superior."

[Giantevilhead]

A lot of the variation in humans, and in all species, is actually due to epigenetics. Many of the changes that humans have experienced throughout our short history are not due to the acquisition of new genes or elimination of old genes, it's due to the activation or deactivation of genes that we have. In fact, epigenetic effects are hereditary, so Lamarck wasn't 100% wrong.

Modifié par Giantevilhead, 15 février 2010 - 08:57 .

[Doug84]

BattleVisor wrote...

I think you misunderstood mordin. I think he was talking more of a psychological level.

'If you have three humans in a room, you have six different opinions'

That was Samara, not Mordin. Mordin repeatly said they where diverse genetically - "Outliers in all species, but humans unique"

[It IS Lupus]

Taritu wrote...

Yes. I laughed when Mordin said that. Incredibly unlikely. Should have come up with a better explanation.

I think it's a hangover from fantasy RPGs where humans are usually the most flexible race in terms of class choices, etc...

Read that in Mordins voice and you'll laugh