Re: No Tag anymore !?!

[Drsolly <drsollyp () drsolly com>]

On Fri, 20 Oct 2006, der Mouse wrote:

> > [...] very high autism rate in and near Silicon Valley [...]
>
> > 1) Autism-spectrum disorders have at least some genetic link.
> > 2) Half the engineers in Silicon Valley are probably undiagnosed
> > Asperger's cases (mild autism - think Dilbert).
> > 3) In the old days, these guys probably wouldn't have reproduced.
> > 4) They find it a lot easier to reproduce when the same issues that
> > would have doomed them socialy 50 years before, now mean they can
> > make $200K as an engineer....
>
> Not only that, there's another effect going - if they do reproduce, the
> chance that they will do so with another person exhibiting that
> syndrome is elevated with respect to the density of such people in the
> population at large.

Which means that we're adapting via the usual evolutionary pressures, to 
better fit our new environment.
 
> > OK, maybe Darwinian pressure *is* still able to make changes in the
> > human gene pool....
>
> Did anyone doubt it?  (Well, possibly excepting some of the most
> fanatical creationists?)
>
> Certainly Darwinian pressure is modifying the human gene pool.  It's
> just that the appropriate definition of fitness is not what most people
> babbling about "survival of the fittest" usually have in mind.

Right. Ability to use todays sophisticated tools is a bigger advantage 
than the ability to run fast.

> Consider how many people these days need corrective lenses to have good
> vision - genes for poor vision are far less of a reproductive handicap
> than they once were.  Similar remarks apply to a lot of other things,
> such as asthma.
>
> /~\ The ASCII                         der Mouse
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