Is the human race weakening?

[Death Pony]

After meeting someone who was allergic to lettuce, I'd say yes. The obsession with self medication probably has something to do with it.

On a different note, I had this thought a while ago. There are different geographical subspecies of many animals, yes? Well, what if the different races of people around the world are actually different subspecies? I find that we, as humans, often exclude ourselves from the evolutionary tree.

 

[oddballer]

Where is everyone getting Layzer from? I want Layzer!

made my day.... ok back to reading this thread that going to keep me interested till its closed....

 

[Death Pony]

This discussion actually gave me a really good idea for a sculpture. Definitely a found object piece and/or ceramic. It'll basically be a human figure connected to a bunch of machines that are meant to perform basic functions, just to keep what's left of a man alive. This piece will disturb quite a few people, but that's what I do.

 

[jpappy789]

After meeting someone who was allergic to lettuce, I'd say yes. The obsession with self medication probably has something to do with it.

On a different note, I had this thought a while ago. There are different geographical subspecies of many animals, yes? Well, what if the different races of people around the world are actually different subspecies? I find that we, as humans, often exclude ourselves from the evolutionary tree.

The problem is that if we were to do this based on groups of genetic similarity it would not be well defined, at all. Humans have intermingled much more than other animal species. I read that one study showed that only 8% of all genetic variation in humans exists as differences between racial groups.

 

[Nabbig2]

After meeting someone who was allergic to lettuce, I'd say yes. The obsession with self medication probably has something to do with it.

On a different note, I had this thought a while ago. There are different geographical subspecies of many animals, yes? Well, what if the different races of people around the world are actually different subspecies? I find that we, as humans, often exclude ourselves from the evolutionary tree.

It's the religious right that does that, for the most part. Scientists accept that humans are simply animals. Our evolutionary history has been studied quite a lot.

There are a number of subspecies; Walkers Mammals of the World delves into this a bit. Like jpappy mentioned, there is so much hybridization between these subspecies that it becomes difficult to come to completely accurate conclusions.

Another thing I'd like to mention, the subspecies of humans probably isn't very extensively researched or publicized because people would be afraid of being branded as racist.

 

[Death Pony]

The international mixing did cross my mind, along with the idea being branded racist. That's why I usually don't mention it unless around people who understand biology. It's an interesting idea, none the less. Weird thoughts cross my mind all of the time.

There's also the little problem that the current human population came from a very small founding population from a bottleneck effect (large scale of sudden deaths, leaving a small breeding population). As a species, we have very little genetic diversity compared to others.

 

[mgk]

Hitler had the same idea!

good to see godwin's law still works. i wasn't really entertaining the idea .

looks like people are getting way of topic

yea your topic kinda bummed people out

thinking about it, as said above mankind was never the physically strongest.

You show me a man that is "Strong enough" to live without using any tools and i will show you a million "weaker ones" that rely on tools and have a much high quality of life.

human beings requiring a crutch to live is nothing new, you try to hunt with out a gun, arrow, trap, spear, or knife. you are the weak one!

as for intellectually i bet we(humans) are putting out more scienctist then ever before, more people are probably graduating college then before, more technological advances are happening now then before.

i think the obese diabetic pill popper isn't a accurate representation of the human race. now if its a representation of the company you keep, i say get better friends

 

[steelshade]

So many of the points stated in this thread are notions I've pondered since I was a child. But people have to be extremely careful around whom they bring this up.

 

[steelshade]

After meeting someone who was allergic to lettuce, I'd say yes. The obsession with self medication probably has something to do with it.

On a different note, I had this thought a while ago. There are different geographical subspecies of many animals, yes? Well, what if the different races of people around the world are actually different subspecies? I find that we, as humans, often exclude ourselves from the evolutionary tree.

People of different ethnicities can't be considered separate sub-species because the genetic variation isn't significant enough. It's like a long haired dachsund dog and a short haired one are the same breed. They aren't different sub-species. One just has the gene for longer fur.

 

[steelshade]

Dude, it is not only uneducated rednecks having the most children. My wife and I just had baby # 8, and we are most certainly not uneducated rednecks.

Shucks, clem yall mightnd want to use that brod brush to paint them thar pictures with yur wurds .

Of course many intelligent people have large families. However, some studies suggest that on average, people of lower intelligence or no high school diploma etc average more offspring.