Olympinonsense

[Pabmusic]

... and he has Somalian genes...

No-one has Somalian genes. Or British ones or any other nationality. The most anyone could say is that he may carry markers that are found more commonly in east Africa than in western Europe, but even there you should be cautious. We all originate from east Africa.

[Lateralthinking1]

No-one has Somalian genes. Or British ones or any other nationality. The most anyone could say is that he may carry markers that are found more commonly in east Africa than in western Europe, but even that's suspect.

But that is an improvement on my terminology. Surely you are not suggesting that the success of athletes from East Africa was purely coincidental? If it wasn't and isn't, why in 2012 should Britain's success be defined by such markers, given that Britain is now less economically competitive internationally, when it was East Africa's success only a few decades ago?

[amateur51]

Yes, maybe, but some adapt better than others ... and males competing for females in order to breed is the normal state in the animal kingdom.

What is that if not competition and the survival of the fittest ?

Typical!

No scotty, males competing for females in order to breed is A normal state - there are several others (you never seen a baboon repelling male baboons while she's finishing off her SuDoKu?)

[amateur51]

Flosshilde, you need to read some twentieth century books on evolution and survival, and watch some David Attenborough films too. Darwin's theory, yes, relates to 'natural selection' but the environment can favour the fittest under some circumstances. The weakest of a species may not survive environmental disasters (e.g. travelling distances to safety) and if food is scarce and the species have to fight each other to survive, then 'survival of the fittest' will apply.

I think Attenborough can be a bit dodgy on Darwinian evoukltion as he always seems to say something akin to "over several millions of years baboons have adapted to..." which always suggests to me that it is an active process at the somatic level, which is of course nonsense. They've "been adapted" by natural selection' is closer to it, I feel

[amateur51]

Yes, of course you're right. But dog-breeders and the like are selecting by controlled, human intervention - artificial selection. The breeder selects the puppies with longest ears, or the roses with darkest colouring, in each generation and then breeds only from those (it can be quite ruthless) so that a wolf eventually becomes a chihuahua. That's not how natural selection works, of course, but neither is it how sexual selection works. Pea-hens don't exactly make conscious decisions to favour males with long tails, but they do, because of a genetic instruction to do so (the reason the genetic instruction arose in the fist place will be that a mutant gene caused a feature that, for whatever reason, became useful to the species in finding a mate - perhaps long tails suggest that their owners are healthy). If they mate successfully with males with long tails, the offspring will receive both the gene for long tails (from the father) and the gene for seeking long tails (from the mother). Thus, the preponderance of those genes will grow within the gene pool. However, that doesn't prevent other males breeding, though they may be disadvantaged over all, compared to long-tails, and so it takes very much longer for long-tail genes to dominate the gene pool - but they do inexorably in the end, and long tails become the norm.

Natural selection does this very slowly indeed, since there is no intervention to aid selection - the creatures 'selected' are those that live long enough to pass on their genes successfully, and so those genes have a better chance of survival because their predecessors were the ones that did survive. Homo erectus, a recent direct ancestor (Java Man, Peking Man) who lived around 1.5 million years ago, is considered to have been a different species (that is, we would not be able to mate successfully with them if they were around now), but there's not all that much difference. Smaller brain and thicker brow ridges are the obvious ones. And that's in 1.5m years. (There have been some 'quick' evolutions - the eye, perhaps slightly surprisingly, has evolved separately some 20 times or more, suggesting that it's not so difficult, nor such a long process - maybe 100,000 years or less for the human eye. Our brains have grown large quite quickly, too.)

Fascinating stuff!

Fascinating & erudite to boot, Pabs - many thanks! - that's Doombar, by the way

[amateur51]

I can't quite see your distinction ... Isn't sexual selection simply a part of natural selection? We can't help to whom we are naturally sexually attracted though humans (generally) have the ability to control these feelings.

Whether male animals are conscious of competing for females I haven't the foggiest but it is quite clear that they do, and even sometimes literally 'lock horns' in the pursuit of such matters!

Anyway, today the outrageously successful London Olympics end and we shall now return to wall-to-wall media misery ...

Blimey scotty I love the way you casually throw away centuries of religious teaching on these matters - hurray! There's hope for you yet

[amateur51]

But that's not the same thing as competition among individuals of the same species, which is what people mean when they say that competition is 'natural' & therefore being competitive in sports (or financial trading or whatever the subject of discussion might be) is 'natural'.

Spot on, Flossie

[Lateralthinking1]

Typical!

No scotty, males competing for females in order to breed is A normal state - there are several others (you never seen a baboon repelling male baboons while she's finishing off her SuDoKu?)

I agree. The point I was making yesterday wasn't particularly clear so I will try to do better on that now.

The sexual revolution of the 1960s was positive in many ways, not least in accommodating a wider range of people and making contraception widely availabile. It also fundamentally changed the rules of the game in terms of sexual competition.

For a start, the link between sex and reproduction altered fundamentally. The vast majority of sexual interactivity suddenly had little to do with the idea that offspring were the mark of surviving as the fittest. Elements such as vague expressions of love, notions about fun, manifestations of identity and character of lifestyle, which had always been a part of the equation, were multiplied a hundred times over and in a matter of weeks. Given that we are just four or five decades on, such interpretations historically are still exceedingly short-termist. Oddly to question any of them from a non-religious perspective is rare in the extreme.

Arguably, the new elements favoured the young, the athletic, the good looking. They also diluted the significance of aspects of choice and selection that were earlier seen as crucial to survival - long-term relationships, support via guaranteed income, economic interdependence, reliance on instinct and thought rather than technology in regard to family planning, serious approaches to life rather than carefree ones, especial consciousness of health, and in the absence of social and media influence more emphasis on the self-contained family unit inside community. Such things in the bigger picture look like a good way to run a country.

My belief is that the new liberalism was overdue in respect of fair treatment to all individuals and it was, rather like the cooker and the washing machine, fantastic as a mechanism for potentially making lives easier. I don't think that the strengths it accentuates as a replacement for earlier strengths are necessarily those which enable societies to advance if they are in essence the fundamental character of those societies. That is particularly true if they are inextricably linked to their economic organisation.

[scottycelt]

Blimey scotty I love the way you casually throw away centuries of religious teaching on these matters - hurray! There's hope for you yet

Religious teaching is as varied as there are religions, amsey. I've thrown away absolutely nothing, merely trotted out the bleedin' obvious!

Wake up, laddie ...

[Pabmusic]

Fascinating & erudite to boot, Pabs - many thanks!...

I really enjoy it - and I'm better at evolutionary biology than I am at cosmic physics!

[amateur51]

Religious teaching is as varied as there are religions, amsey. I've thrown away absolutely nothing, merely trotted out the bleedin' obvious!

Wake up, laddie ...

Okies scotty, I should know by now that subtlety is no use with you ... the Cathlioic church would surely not agree with your assertion, freely given, that "We can't help to whom we are naturally sexually attracted" ?!

[scottycelt]

Okies scotty, I should know by now that subtlety is no use with you ... the Cathlioic church would surely not agree with your assertion, freely given, that "We can't help to whom we are naturally sexually attracted" ?!

That's where you're so wrong, amsey ... however, this is supposed to be about these truly appalling Olympics so I'm not going down your favourite road again and again and ag ...

[amateur51]

That's where you're so wrong, amsey ... however, this is supposed to be about these truly appalling Olympics so I'm not going down your favourite road again and again and ag ...

Gotcha!

[scottycelt]

The BBC interviewer asked the victorious Ugandan who has just won the marathon ... ' you moved yourself away from your family to live in Kenya to train for this event, tell us all about it ... '

Needless to say the poor breathless chap looked down at the ground, shook his head repeatedly, and then simply walked away ...

[Serial_Apologist]

The BBC interviewer asked the victorious Ugandan who has just won the marathon ... ' you moved yourself away from your family to live in Kenya to train for this event, tell us all about it ... '

Needless to say the poor breathless chap looked down at the ground, shook his head repeatedly, and then simply walked away ...

One thing that cold emerge from the Limpics is BBC (and other broadcasting) interviewers asking questions and giving the requisite amount of time for them to be answered. This two weeks we've had countless examples of questions of the type cited by scotty above, and equally vacuous replies being given full sway. No more, "Well I'm afraid I'm now going to give you five seconds to answer the following very loaded questiion", "Well, John, its..." "I'm sorry Mr Hunt, we're out of time", Pleease!.