Nobody knows why there are women and there are men?

Ellie Mae O’Hagan is fascinating. Either she is so utterly stupid she doesn’t know what a woman is really, but has somehow managed to wangle her way to a position of influence, or she knows what she’s saying is complete and utter bullshit, but is prepared to stand by it to elevate her own standing among those she values and shit on women in the process, which is kind of evil. It reminds me of that segment on The Daily Show 10 years or so ago.

What am I on about ?? Simply one observation about natural selection. Your out of context deconstruction highlights that the process is widely misunderstood. Being a central mechanism of evolutionary change defined as a change in gene frequencies over time, it isn't gene mixing and variations that are responsible- it is the fact that some people pass on more genes that others which influences the change in the human gene pool over time.
But honestly I am insoucuant to the way others see the world...

Maybe we'll evolve into a species that doesn't think men have to like beer, football and wearing trousers and women have to like make up, pink and dresses. Maybe we'll evolve into a species that understands that gender stereotypes are absolute bollocks and that rejects them completely. That would be great.

The recent discovery of elephants without tusks or small tusks is an example of selective evolution in a shrinking population. Ones with large tusks die through poaching so the elephants that are "fittest" to survive and reproduce in that environment have small or no tusks.

Not sure where this idea that populations need to be getting bigger for evolution to occur.

It requires 3 things,

a variation in characteristics within the population

that this characteristics are passed on through reproduction, I.e they can be inherited

a living environment that gives some characteristics an advantage or disadvantage in terms of survival through to reproducing

I don't know anything about men and women, but I do love little kittens...

The idea that we are not “evolving” if the population is shrinking assumes that the population will shrink to zero. Sometimes a shrinking population is temporarily needed for survival of the group.

Randomly I was remembering a theory about Lemmings - the theory goes that when it becomes clear that there is not enough resources to maintain the current Lemming population they all jump off a cliff and swim until the weakest ones drown and then, when enough weak ones have been “selected” for extinction to ensure enough food to go round for the rest - then the stronger ones swim back and carry on.

• as in wrong form of the word their.

I feel like the phrase "are you on glue?" could be relevant to both the original comment and subsequent discussion.

That or "what do you mean?", which would be more polite I guess.

a few too fucking stupid to go on to have children of there own

Or to spell.

some are men and some a women as it is basically a 50-50 chance.

Well I never. The revelations on this thread come thick and fast.

What point is trying to be proved here?

I'm not entirely sure.

I'm reading it as:
n1 = number of offsprings of the current generation ("a generation produces the following generation")
n2 = number of offprings of the current generation that do mature and reproduce ("number that get to adulthood and produce the following generation")

If (n1 > n2), evolution occurs... Well, duh, it's not like n2 could be greater than n1?
As for n1 = n2, sounds very unlikely. Accidents do happen. Doesn't mean it's always a case of "survival of the fittest", mind you, selective pressure can also be sheer bad luck.
But even if n1 = n2, each new generation is unique due to recombination, further genetic mixing at conception, random mutations... That's still evolution, you don't need selective pressure for evolution to manifest.

In other words: what are you on about, mate?

This being the feminism board of a parenting website must be why we're so fucking clever compared to O'Hagan and her panel I guess.

' a few too fucking stupid to go on to have children of there own'

Is that Dawkins view or your own?

You are right that positive mutations take a few generations- the original point was this: if evolution is happening it is not altruistic it is selective - but the continuation of the species is hard coded in our genes if this is the case then men are men and women women on a 50-50 basis 2:4

The concept of natural selection. Generation one has x children - some of those will not live to make it into adulthood - some will be infertile- some same sex oriented and a few too fucking stupid to go on to have children of there own. So the number of a generation's children when higher than the number of those children that will produce the next generation promotes that the evolutionary theory of natural selection is taking place
those with the genes best suited to be successful in their environment are the ones that pass those genes on.

"If a generation produces the following generation at a numerical number higher than the number that get to adulthood and produce the following generation"

Yeah, I'd be curious to know in which circumstances that number could be smaller.

I mean doesn't that mean that all countries with a replacement value less than 2 are not evolving and all countries which are ravaged by disease war etc are?

Have I read that right?

Evolution is really really slow so the babies born > the adults getting to adulthood would have to go on for generations upon generations... ?

And how does any of this tie into the op about no one knows what a woman or a man is?

' - in his book the selfish gene Richard Dawkins suggests that if a generation produces the following generation at a numerical number higher than the number that get to adulthood and produce the following generation then evolution is taking place'

Could do with an explanation of this in a bit more depth.

I think SCR0071 was trying to hint at the concept of recombination:
during meiosis (= gamete formation), within the nucleus of a diploid cell, the two chromosomes within each pair (all 23 of them) briefly cross their DNA strands, generating a new (subtly different, because of the DNA swap) chromosome pair. This new pair then gets split up between two haploid gametes (haploid = single chromosomes = half-genome; diploid = pair of chromosomes = full genome)

But I think they misunderstood and got the timing wrong. Meiosis doesn't happen at conception.
By the time a male (sperm) and a female (ovum) gamete eventually meet and combine, they already only have one chromosome each. Gametes are haploid. Meiosis happened ages ago. No recombination here, just one chromosome from mum (= a mix of granny's and granpa's) and one from dad (= a mix of the other grandparent's), for each pair. These pairs of chromosomes form the genotype of the new individual, and get expressed as phenotype. The genotype is fixed for life at the time of conception.
Eventually, the newly conceived organism will form unique gametes of its own, but the recombination will not affect its own genotype or phenotype, only their (potential) children's.

Not sure what's the point of all that was, by the way. Sex is still very much real!

I'm not sure about that first bit though.

Wtf is that fuse box pic about?!

YY the selfish gene. Not read it. Wasn't there a TV series or something?

(Dawkins is a twat. Just felt the need to say that!).