# 3997 bymbastion@... on Sept. 3, 2003, 5:48 a.m.
Member since 2021-10-03
Hi,
As long as the equations say so, I (gladly) will :]
>The point is: his definition of terraformed planet is a planet that, after
>terraformation properly said, will naturally stay habitable for hundreds of
>millions of years.
Yes, longer would be better.
Terraforming a planet would involve importing Earth plants and bacteria and
later, fungi and animals. The long-time scale would be needed to make the
planetary ecosystem sustainable. Then, once it is sustainable, allow it to
diversify. This would produce new species and sub-species more suited to
the new planet. Don't forget, people are part of nature, not seperate from
it. If we, as a species, want to live for aeons, we need additional planets
that will last just as long. That is the point of terraforming, sustainable
biodiversity.
>Mars worshipers and me generally think of terraformation as something to stay
>stable during mere historical timeframes...
To what end? What would be the point of terraforming, then colonising a
planet if only to leave again after settling in? You're talking about
colonies that will grow into civilisations, unless you're proposing harsh
and invasive population control. This civilsation, millions of people,
would need to be relocated, dumped on the next planet to consume it's
resources. Or are you proposing to let them all die? or a human lottery?
Make a planet livable, move people in, consume all the planets natural
resources, evacuate millions of people when the environment is so strained
it can no longer support life, leave behind a desolate resource-poor
wasteland devoid of life. That is NOT the point of terraforming. It is a
consumeristic, parastic approach. I don't want people to spread through the
galaxy as a resource consuming disease. Wasn't that the point of the movie
"Indepedance Day"?
>For example some people think Tardigrades came from Mars
Who does? and why would they think that?
# 3998 bymymail@... on Sept. 3, 2003, 9:12 a.m.
Member since 2021-10-03
Scientists have suggested that tardigrades may have come on meteors from an ancient Mars because their metabolism is adapted to an environment unlike that of Earth. It's hard to see how natural selection could have given it these abilities.
A Scanning Electron Micrograph of a Tardigrade
One of the most resilient organisms known are tardigrades ("water bears"). Tardigrades can go into a hibernation mode - called the tun state - one that is more akin to "suspended animation" whereby it can survive temperatures from -253C to 151C, as well as exposure to x-rays, and vacuum conditions. When you place tardigrades in perfluorocarbon fluid (again while hibernating), at a pressure of 600 MPa, (that's almost 6,000 times atmospheric pressure at sea level) they emerge from the experience just fine . Even the bacterium Deinococcus radiodurans, the most radiation resistant organism known, only achieves this resistance under some conditions such as fast growth and in nutrient-rich medium.
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/mars-life-02f.html
Even more astonishing is the fact that a species of mite called tardigrades, less than half a millimetre long has been found to be able to survive boiling, freezing and exposure to a vacuum.
The results show that these microscopic animals, can withstand pressures of up to 6000 atmospheres by entering a state of suspended animation, which can be maintained for more than a century.
To accomplish this they reduce their body weight by 50% or more, accompanied by an almost total loss of water using a sugar called trehalose to stabilise their cell membranes. Such evidence points towards a re-evaluation of our current beliefs on how essential liquid water is to the development and preservation of life.
http://science.nasa.gov/newhome/headlines/ast27may99_1.htm
"We also need to understand glaciers to know what to look for and how to seek life on the ice caps of Mars," Hoover explained. For example, cryoconite holes can be temporary glacial micro-Edens. Cryoconite is rock debris broken from mountains and rock surfaces by the moving ice and captured in the ice.
When dark cryoconite is transported near the surface of the ice, it absorbs sunlight and becomes warm enough to melt the ice to produce a hole with liquid water, rich in minerals and nutrients from the rock dust, below the rock. For a few hours or weeks, it's springtime on the glacial ice for a world of minute diatoms, cyanobacteria, green algae, protozoa, rotifers, and even animals like tardigrades and nematodes.
http://www.astrobio.net/news/article261.html
From: Michael
To: spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, September 03, 2003 3:48 PM
Subject: [spacesettlers] Time-scales
Hi,
>So I hope that efforts at tweaking the Martians continues :)
As long as the equations say so, I (gladly) will :]
>The point is: his definition of terraformed planet is a planet that, after
>terraformation properly said, will naturally stay habitable for hundreds of
>millions of years.
Yes, longer would be better.
Terraforming a planet would involve importing Earth plants and bacteria and
later, fungi and animals. The long-time scale would be needed to make the
planetary ecosystem sustainable. Then, once it is sustainable, allow it to
diversify. This would produce new species and sub-species more suited to
the new planet. Don't forget, people are part of nature, not seperate from
it. If we, as a species, want to live for aeons, we need additional planets
that will last just as long. That is the point of terraforming, sustainable
biodiversity.
>Mars worshipers and me generally think of terraformation as something to stay
>stable during mere historical timeframes...
To what end? What would be the point of terraforming, then colonising a
planet if only to leave again after settling in? You're talking about
colonies that will grow into civilisations, unless you're proposing harsh
and invasive population control. This civilsation, millions of people,
would need to be relocated, dumped on the next planet to consume it's
resources. Or are you proposing to let them all die? or a human lottery?
Make a planet livable, move people in, consume all the planets natural
resources, evacuate millions of people when the environment is so strained
it can no longer support life, leave behind a desolate resource-poor
wasteland devoid of life. That is NOT the point of terraforming. It is a
consumeristic, parastic approach. I don't want people to spread through the
galaxy as a resource consuming disease. Wasn't that the point of the movie
"Indepedance Day"?
>For example some people think Tardigrades came from Mars
Who does? and why would they think that?
# 3999 bylucio@... on Sept. 3, 2003, 7:17 p.m.
Member since 2021-10-03
On Wednesday 03 September 2003 02:48, Michael wrote:
(...)
> Terraforming a planet would involve importing Earth plants and bacteria and
> later, fungi and animals. The long-time scale would be needed to make the
> planetary ecosystem sustainable. Then, once it is sustainable, allow it to
> diversify. This would produce new species and sub-species more suited to
> the new planet. Don't forget, people are part of nature, not seperate from
> it. If we, as a species, want to live for aeons, we need additional planets
> that will last just as long. That is the point of terraforming, sustainable
> biodiversity.
our ancestors from just a million years ago and you'll see that they were not
human, they were a humanoid species different from us. A million years from
now - 1/1,000 of an aeon - our descendants will probably not be something
that we would consider human, *specially* if they are exposed to new
evolutionary pressures like the ones that one would expect to find in
off-Earth environments.
(...)
> To what end? What would be the point of terraforming, then colonising a
> planet if only to leave again after settling in? You're talking about
> colonies that will grow into civilisations, unless you're proposing harsh
> and invasive population control. This civilsation, millions of people,
> would need to be relocated, dumped on the next planet to consume it's
> resources. Or are you proposing to let them all die? or a human lottery?
If you're talking about the civilization that terraformed and colonized the
planet, you will not have to bother in evacuating your civilization before
the planet crashes because the civilization will crash itself much earlier.
Look at Human history and you'll see that civilizations and empires rarely
last more than one or two millenia. There are wars, cultural transformations,
assimilation by younger civilizations, etc - human/historical process kill a
civilization much earlier than natural catastrophes/shortages.
Now, if you're talking about successor civilizations too (the ones that will
remain in/take over the planet after the terraformer civilization crashes),
then again there is no problem. If there is a healthy civilization in the
planet, of course they will do all maintenance work necessary (e.g., dropping
comets to resupply water) to keep the planet habitable as long as they live
there.
> Make a planet livable, move people in, consume all the planets natural
> resources, evacuate millions of people when the environment is so strained
> it can no longer support life, leave behind a desolate resource-poor
> wasteland devoid of life.
I hope that I made clear in my previous paragraph that I do not expect a
terraformed world to goes on without constant maintenance. It is up to the
planet dwellers to keep their house tidy and cozy as much as they want.
> That is NOT the point of terraforming. It is a
> consumeristic, parastic approach. I don't want people to spread through the
> galaxy as a resource consuming disease. Wasn't that the point of the movie
> "Indepedance Day"?
(...)
Ok, you do believe in "sustained development". I think it is an oxymoron. One
of the reasons that make me like the concept of the High Frontier is that the
resources in a planet - *including* Earth - are always finite, and very
limited in terms of industrial civilizations, specially when it comes to
energy resources. Open space at least offers the possibility of a quadratic
rate of expansion as your bubble of resources being consumed grows.
Now that you mentioned "Independence Day", although it is a very bad movie it
has an interesting point: the aliens are High Frontiers who think that living
in a planet is an obsolete and inefficient concept. But of course true High
Frontiers would think that the Asteroid Belt is a place much more interesting
than Earth. :-)
Lucio Coelho
# 4000 byaglobus@... on Sept. 3, 2003, 8:22 p.m.
Member since 2021-10-03
Middle-class humans are exposed to almost no evolutionary pressure.
Almost everyone survives past child bearing age.
Space colonies probably won't be very hard to survive in. What
evolutionary pressures there are will probably be self-imposed and
executed via genetic manipulation.
> If we, as a species, want to live for aeons, we are doomed to fail.
> Look at
> our ancestors from just a million years ago and you'll see that they
> were not
> human, they were a humanoid species different from us. A million years
> from
> now - 1/1,000 of an aeon - our descendants will probably not be
> something
> that we would consider human, *specially* if they are exposed to new
> evolutionary pressures like the ones that one would expect to find in
> off-Earth environments.
>
The dinosaurs were destroyed by an asteroid because they weren't
space-faring. It's almost as if Gaia then thought "Well, dinosaurs
worked pretty well, but space-faring is necessary. Maybe I'll should
try mammals this time." Humanity is now developing systems to detect
and deflect asteroids, and could build orbital space colonies to spread
beyond Earth to insure life would survive a planetary catastrophe.
Al Globus
CSC at NASA Ames Research Center
http://www.nas.nasa.gov/~globus/home.html
Views expressed in this email are only my opinions and are not the
position of any organization I'm familiar with.
# 4001 bylucio@... on Sept. 4, 2003, 4:06 p.m.
Member since 2021-10-03
On Wednesday 03 September 2003 17:22, Al Globus wrote:
> Middle-class humans are exposed to almost no evolutionary pressure.
> Almost everyone survives past child bearing age.
not age - is ultimately what drives evolution.
In fact, sexual selection - which *is* a form of evolutionary pressure -
continues kicking and alive, with portions of the population (specially in
the male part of the population) reproducing more than others. For instance,
the father of 10% of the children born in marriage is not the guy who is
married to the mother...
Also, there is the admittedly controversial theory that we may be introducing
new evolutionary pressures was we dramatically transform our environment.
For instance, there has been studies showing that, mainly on industrialized
countries, sperm counting and testosterone levels in males are getting lower
and lower, thus increasing the cases of male infertility. There is a
hypothesis that this occurs due to pollutants in the environment that mimic
hormones and disturb endocrines systems. If this hypothesis is correct, then
that would be an example of human-introduced environmental alteration that
would favor the reproduction of organisms that are not fooled by pollutants
and stay fertile.
Another possible example. There is currently an epidemic of obesity (again,
mainly in developed countries) that was introduced by the greater
availability of food and extinction of all physical labor in those societies.
That not only most likely affects reproduction in the aspect of sexual
selection, but also in leading to premature deaths due to obesity-associated
diseases. That may be another human-introduced pressure, this time favoring
non-sedentary people.
In short, in my perception evolution is a phenomenon that proceeds in ways
much subtler than the rabbits-and-foxes didactic examples of high-school, and
indeed Humanity is and always will be "on evolution". For a more detailed
argumentation on the subject, I would suggest the book "Children of
Prometheus: The Accelerating Pace of Human Evolution", by Cristopher Wills. I
really don't like the author's informal and poorly structured style, but even
though the contents shattered my "rabbits-and-foxes" view...
> Space colonies probably won't be very hard to survive in. What
> evolutionary pressures there are will probably be self-imposed and
> executed via genetic manipulation.
(...)
I am not so sure about that. It strongly depends on the design/engineering of
your colonies. For instance, suppose that you build colonies with
not-so-thick shielding - and that would slightly favor humans more resistant
to radiation - or with very low atmospheric pressure - and that would put the
same kind of pressure that high-altitude people suffer, and that *has*
modified their metabolism at gene-level; no to mention possible changes if
you use different air mixes like a pure oxygen atmosphere.
Those would be examples of gentle evolutionary pressures. But if you choose a
zero-or-low-g colony, then you may have a very strong pressure toward humans
adaptable to lower gravities.
Lucio
# 4002 byaglobus@... on Sept. 4, 2003, 5:42 p.m.
Member since 2021-10-03
On Thursday, September 4, 2003, at 09:06 AM, Lucio de Souza Coelho
>> Middle-class humans are exposed to almost no evolutionary pressure.
>> Almost everyone survives past child bearing age.
>
> But that is no guarantee that they'll in fact reproduce, and
> reproduction -
> not age - is ultimately what drives evolution.
Almost anyone, certainly any woman, who wants to reproduce is able to
(in typical middle class society). The evolutionary pressure is
generated by the fact that a lot of people don't want to have kids, or
don't want very many.
>
> For instance, there has been studies showing that, mainly on
> industrialized
> countries, sperm counting and testosterone levels in males are getting
> lower
> and lower, thus increasing the cases of male infertility.
That study was based on sperm counts done by different groups separated
by decades. As the leader of the early study said, sperm counts vary a
great deal depending on who's doing the counting and the differences in
counts is most likely caused by different counting techniques and
variations between individual counters, not actual differences in sperm
counts. Subsequent studies, I've heard, have supported this view.
>
> Another possible example. There is currently an epidemic of obesity
> (again,
> mainly in developed countries) that was introduced by the greater
> availability of food and extinction of all physical labor in those
> societies.
> That not only most likely affects reproduction in the aspect of sexual
> selection,
My casual observation is that fat people tend to have more, not fewer,
children. I don't know if there is any good data on this.
>
> In short, in my perception evolution is a phenomenon that proceeds in
> ways
> much subtler than the rabbits-and-foxes didactic examples of
> high-school, and
> indeed Humanity is and always will be "on evolution".
I agree. In the case of middle-class humans, evolution seems to be
driven primarily by the wishes of the people themselves, not external
events.
Also, there is some evidence from computer evolution experiments that
intelligence reduces the need for genetic evolution because you can use
brains to adapt to new environments without changing the biology. This
is certainly true of homo sapiens.
>
>> Space colonies probably won't be very hard to survive in. What
>> evolutionary pressures there are will probably be self-imposed and
>> executed via genetic manipulation.
> (...)
>
> I am not so sure about that. It strongly depends on the
> design/engineering of
> your colonies. For instance, suppose that you build colonies with
> not-so-thick shielding - and that would slightly favor humans more
> resistant
> to radiation - or with very low atmospheric pressure - and that would
> put the
> same kind of pressure that high-altitude people suffer, and that *has*
> modified their metabolism at gene-level; no to mention possible
> changes if
> you use different air mixes like a pure oxygen atmosphere.
In both of these cases the evolutionary pressure is generated by the
space colony inhabitants themselves by their choice of habitat design.
>
> Those would be examples of gentle evolutionary pressures. But if you
> choose a
> zero-or-low-g colony, then you may have a very strong pressure toward
> humans
> adaptable to lower gravities.
This will, I think, happen. Again, it is by choice not by external
forces.
The International Space Station (ISS) most important legacy may be
jump-starting space tourism. Consider: the first space tourist, Dennis
Tito, was supposed to go to the Soviet era Mir space station. Under
pressure from NASA, Russia de-orbited the Mir which resulted in Mr.
Tito going to the ISS instead. Now the Mir was old, smelly, crowded and
probably not all that nice. The ISS was brand new, shinny, much more
roomy, etc. Mr. Tito came back to Earth with glowing accounts of how
great space is. Would his experience have been as good on Mir?
Al Globus
CSC at NASA Ames Research Center
http://www.nas.nasa.gov/~globus/home.html
Views expressed in this email are only my opinions and are not the
position of any organization I'm familiar with.
# 4003 bylucio@... on Sept. 4, 2003, 6:44 p.m.
Member since 2021-10-03
On Thursday 04 September 2003 13:36, Al Globus wrote:
(...)
> This will, I think, happen. Again, it is by choice not by external
> forces.
(...)
email, I agree; I'm sorry, originally I thought that you were talking about
genetic manipulation only.
However, I would not always call those self-imposed pressures "choices". There
may be pressures that will not be exactly a matter of choice, but economics.
A probably not-so-realistic example: suppose that the cost of building a
zero-g, inflatable colony is significantly lower than building a rotating,
rigid one; that will strongly push the development of zero-g bubbles rather
than spinning cans, and at some time people will not have much "choice" if
they want to move to space, as much as people nowadays don't have the choice
of buying a five-wheeled car.
But of course you could argue that economics is not an "external" force
because it is human-generated. I would still argue that it is external
because, although it is human-generated, is is hardly human-controlled. :-)
Lucio
# 4004 bytango_dancer@... on Sept. 4, 2003, 6:47 p.m.
Member since 2021-10-03
--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, Lucio de Souza Coelho
wrote:
> I would suggest the book "Children of
> Prometheus: The Accelerating Pace of Human Evolution", by
Cristopher Wills. I
> really don't like the author's informal and poorly structured
style, but even
> though the contents shattered my "rabbits-and-foxes" view...
Thanks for the book recommendation. It sounds interesting.
TangoMan
# 4005 byORIONaut@... on Sept. 4, 2003, 8:45 p.m.
Member since 2021-10-03
Al Globus wrote:
>Middle-class humans are exposed to almost no evolutionary pressure.
>Almost everyone survives past child bearing age.
>Space colonies probably won't be very hard to survive in. What
>evolutionary pressures there are will probably be self-imposed and
>executed via genetic manipulation.
orbital colonization.
For anyone interested:
=============================~~~~~~~~ The ORION Initiative ~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~ launching an off-Earth future ~~~~~
~~~~~~ for the gifted & talented ~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~ since 1996 ~~~~~~~~~~~
Please visit our Web Site In Progress
at http://pages.ivillage.com/orionaut
=============================
spike
# 4006 byxenophile2002@... on Sept. 5, 2003, 5:42 a.m.
Member since 2021-10-03
--- In spacesettlers, "spike angle" wrote:
>> Middle-class humans are exposed to almost no evolutionary pressure.
>> Almost everyone survives past child bearing age.
>> Space colonies probably won't be very hard to survive in. What
>> evolutionary pressures there are will probably be self-imposed and
>> executed via genetic manipulation.
> Indeed. There's even a Yahoo Group which focuses on that specific
> aspect of orbital colonization.
>
> For anyone interested:
> =============================> ~~~~~~~~ The ORION Initiative ~~~~~~~~
> ~~~~~~ launching an off-Earth future ~~~~~
> ~~~~~~ for the gifted & talented ~~~~~~~~
> ~~~~~~~~~~~ since 1996 ~~~~~~~~~~~
> Please visit our Web Site In Progress
> at http://pages.ivillage.com/orionaut
> =============================>
> spike
Oh. My. God. This old type of thing again. Hey, anybody here read
the Lagrangia books by Mack Reynolds and Dean Ing? It is something
like this.
So the Orioners go off with 130+ IQ's, and congratulate themselves
that they don't have to putup with all the dumb 125's back on Earth.
They go on with their plan to raise the average IQ through selective
breeding... and then one of the 122's in one of the "dumb" habitats
figures out how to put a quantum computing chip and a brain together,
and suddenly the Earth and Space are crawling with 357's!
Xenophile (smart, but not as smart as I might someday become)
# 4007 bytango_dancer@... on Sept. 5, 2003, 8:40 p.m.
Member since 2021-10-03
--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, "Xenophile"
wrote:
> > =============================> > ~~~~~~~~ The ORION Initiative ~~~~~~~~
> > ~~~~~~ launching an off-Earth future ~~~~~
> > ~~~~~~ for the gifted & talented ~~~~~~~~
> > ~~~~~~~~~~~ since 1996 ~~~~~~~~~~~
> > Please visit our Web Site In Progress
> > at http://pages.ivillage.com/orionaut
> > =============================> >
> > spike
>
> Oh. My. God. This old type of thing again. Hey, anybody here
read
> the Lagrangia books by Mack Reynolds and Dean Ing? It is
something
> like this.
>
> So the Orioners go off with 130+ IQ's, and congratulate themselves
> that they don't have to putup with all the dumb 125's back on
Earth.
> They go on with their plan to raise the average IQ through
selective
> breeding... and then one of the 122's in one of the "dumb"
habitats
> figures out how to put a quantum computing chip and a brain
together,
> and suddenly the Earth and Space are crawling with 357's!
>
> Xenophile (smart, but not as smart as I might someday become)
What I get from your comments above is a feeling of distaste about
the self-righteousness and smugness of this proposal and I share it
to.
But there is a kernal of truth to which they speak. In the past when
the majority of society was involved in manual labor, intelligence
while important, wasn't as central to the economic well-being of a
nation. The cognitively gifted were spread throughout the socio-
economic realm because of lack of educational and vocational
opportunities.
We've entered a "knowledge era" where a cognitive elite is forming
because of better opportunities and this is becoming central to the
wealth of a nation.
Look at this IQ distribution chart.
http://mypage.iusb.edu/~mlee/ch_13/sld023.htm
Those with IQs of 130+ ( 2 S.D.) make up 2.14% of the population and
if you look to the statistical relevance of IQ to job performance
and innovation and you'll find a strong statistical correlation.
Simply put, the cognitve elite are a driving force in the knowledge
economy.
Further, high IQ people tend to marry and procreate with each other.
Anecdotally and empirically evidence abounds. You don't see many
doctors marrying short-order cooks or many research scientists
marrying prison inmates.
To further complicate matters, IQ has a high heritability factor,
which is tilting the "great debate" away from a total environmental
influence to a growing genetic influence for a variety of behavioral
and cognitive traits.
The field of study is vast and knowledge is accumulating rapidly. I
would give an enthusiastic recommendation to a book by Steven Pinker
called "The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature." He is a
professor at M.I.T. and is not tainted with the racist label that
some other scholars of genetics have had bear.
The point that many people are making is that low IQ has many
detrimental personal and societal features and these come at a cost.
Further, in the West there is a dysgenic trend occuring that when
considered in the light of the nature vs. nurture dialogue isn't
reassuring, i.e. more money on social programs will cure the ills of
society and that low IQ has an entirely socioeconomic cause.
I could go on for a lot longer for this is a very interesting and
timely subject of study, but I'll leave it here and I do hope you
get a chance to read the abovementioned book or it delves into
topics that range from IQ to the philosophical underpinnings of how
we view the world and neatly ties it all together.
Lastly, the cutoff between a IQ of 130 and 122 as you wrote above is
marginal while the difference between the average IQ of 100 and 130
is significant. It is unlikely that the innovation that you wrote of
would be conceived by a person with an IQ of 100.
My 2 cents on the matter. :)
TangoMan
# 4008 byaglobus@... on Sept. 8, 2003, 3:52 p.m.
Member since 2021-10-03
It's important to remember that, by definition, a person average
intelligence has an IQ of 100. Therefor, by definition, a large
fraction of the population will always have an IQ under 100 -- even if
every single individual is actually smarter than Einstein.
> --- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, "Xenophile"
> wrote:
>
>>> For anyone interested:
>>> =============================>>> ~~~~~~~~ The ORION Initiative ~~~~~~~~
>>> ~~~~~~ launching an off-Earth future ~~~~~
>>> ~~~~~~ for the gifted & talented ~~~~~~~~
>>> ~~~~~~~~~~~ since 1996 ~~~~~~~~~~~
>>> Please visit our Web Site In Progress
>>> at http://pages.ivillage.com/orionaut
>>> =============================>>>
>>> spike
>>
>> Oh. My. God. This old type of thing again. Hey, anybody here
> read
>> the Lagrangia books by Mack Reynolds and Dean Ing? It is
> something
>> like this.
>>
>> So the Orioners go off with 130+ IQ's, and congratulate themselves
>> that they don't have to putup with all the dumb 125's back on
> Earth.
>> They go on with their plan to raise the average IQ through
> selective
>> breeding... and then one of the 122's in one of the "dumb"
> habitats
>> figures out how to put a quantum computing chip and a brain
> together,
>> and suddenly the Earth and Space are crawling with 357's!
>>
>>
>> Xenophile (smart, but not as smart as I might someday become)
>
> What I get from your comments above is a feeling of distaste about
> the self-righteousness and smugness of this proposal and I share it
> to.
>
> But there is a kernal of truth to which they speak. In the past when
> the majority of society was involved in manual labor, intelligence
> while important, wasn't as central to the economic well-being of a
> nation. The cognitively gifted were spread throughout the socio-
> economic realm because of lack of educational and vocational
> opportunities.
>
> We've entered a "knowledge era" where a cognitive elite is forming
> because of better opportunities and this is becoming central to the
> wealth of a nation.
>
> Look at this IQ distribution chart.
>
> http://mypage.iusb.edu/~mlee/ch_13/sld023.htm
>
> Those with IQs of 130+ ( 2 S.D.) make up 2.14% of the population and
> if you look to the statistical relevance of IQ to job performance
> and innovation and you'll find a strong statistical correlation.
> Simply put, the cognitve elite are a driving force in the knowledge
> economy.
>
> Further, high IQ people tend to marry and procreate with each other.
> Anecdotally and empirically evidence abounds. You don't see many
> doctors marrying short-order cooks or many research scientists
> marrying prison inmates.
>
> To further complicate matters, IQ has a high heritability factor,
> which is tilting the "great debate" away from a total environmental
> influence to a growing genetic influence for a variety of behavioral
> and cognitive traits.
>
> The field of study is vast and knowledge is accumulating rapidly. I
> would give an enthusiastic recommendation to a book by Steven Pinker
> called "The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature." He is a
> professor at M.I.T. and is not tainted with the racist label that
> some other scholars of genetics have had bear.
>
> The point that many people are making is that low IQ has many
> detrimental personal and societal features and these come at a cost.
> Further, in the West there is a dysgenic trend occuring that when
> considered in the light of the nature vs. nurture dialogue isn't
> reassuring, i.e. more money on social programs will cure the ills of
> society and that low IQ has an entirely socioeconomic cause.
>
> I could go on for a lot longer for this is a very interesting and
> timely subject of study, but I'll leave it here and I do hope you
> get a chance to read the abovementioned book or it delves into
> topics that range from IQ to the philosophical underpinnings of how
> we view the world and neatly ties it all together.
>
> Lastly, the cutoff between a IQ of 130 and 122 as you wrote above is
> marginal while the difference between the average IQ of 100 and 130
> is significant. It is unlikely that the innovation that you wrote of
> would be conceived by a person with an IQ of 100.
>
> My 2 cents on the matter. :)
>
> TangoMan
>
Space tourism could be our ticket to the stars. Save your pennies,
suborbital flights for $100,000 may start in 2005! See
http://www.spaceadventures.com/suborbital for details.
Al Globus
CSC at NASA Ames Research Center
http://www.nas.nasa.gov/~globus/home.html
Views expressed in this email are only my opinions and are not the
position of any organization I'm familiar with.
# 4009 byxenophile2002@... on Sept. 8, 2003, 7 p.m.
Member since 2021-10-03
--- In spacesettlers, "victoriatangoman" wrote:
>> Oh. My. God. This old type of thing again. Hey, anybody here
>> read the Lagrangia books by Mack Reynolds and Dean Ing? It is
>> something like this.
>>
>> So the Orioners go off with 130+ IQ's, and congratulate themselves
>> that they don't have to putup with all the dumb 125's back on
>> Earth.
>> They go on with their plan to raise the average IQ through
>> selective breeding... and then one of the 122's in one of
>> the "dumb" habitats figures out how to put a quantum computing
>> chip and a brain together, and suddenly the Earth and Space are
>> crawling with 357's!
>>
>>
>> Xenophile (smart, but not as smart as I might someday become)
> What I get from your comments above is a feeling of distaste about
> the self-righteousness and smugness of this proposal and I share it
> to.
You are a Perceptive Man, Tango Man.
Actually, you wrote well in you post, and I want to address what you
said. But for right now, I will simply repete: "Hey, anybody here
read the Lagrangia books by Mack Reynolds and Dean Ing?"
Xenophile ("Hey, anybody here read the Lagrangia books by Mack
Reynolds and Dean Ing?")
# 4010 byORIONaut@... on Sept. 8, 2003, 8:37 p.m.
Member since 2021-10-03
--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, "Xenophile"
wrote:
> --- In spacesettlers, "victoriatangoman" wrote:
>
> > --- In spacesettlers, "Xenophile" wrote:
>
> >> Oh. My. God. This old type of thing again. Hey, anybody here
> >> read the Lagrangia books by Mack Reynolds and Dean Ing? It is
> >> something like this.
> >>
> >> So the Orioners go off with 130+ IQ's, and congratulate
themselves
> >> that they don't have to putup with all the dumb 125's back on
> >> Earth.
> >> They go on with their plan to raise the average IQ through
> >> selective breeding... and then one of the 122's in one of
> >> the "dumb" habitats figures out how to put a quantum computing
> >> chip and a brain together, and suddenly the Earth and Space are
> >> crawling with 357's!
Just like the man or woman who has dedicated a dozen years of
education and hundreds of thousands of dollars to becoming an
effective oncologist would be the FIRST to throw a party when the
cure for cancer puts him/her out of business, so ORIONauts will be
first in line to declare THE EUGENICS-FOR-INTELLIGENCE component of
their experiment obsolete if someone indeed found a way to raise the
IQ of H. Sap across the board.
But I doubt they'd abandon their colony, since even if the IQ-for-
eugenics experiment were thus mooted, they'd STILL be pioneering in a
way as yet unknown here on-planet
* extended- and chosen-family forms
* radical Libertarianism/modified Objectivism
* dedicateion to/development of effective gifted & talented education
(which would, under this scenario, surely be of great value to the
great masses of H. Sap now poised to take full advantage of the
specialized pedagogies developed)
spike
# 4011 byxenophile2002@... on Sept. 8, 2003, 10:16 p.m.
Member since 2021-10-03
I think that maybe, just maybe, I was a bit too snarly in my
replies re: IQ. When I have taken such tests, I have ranged from 121
to 134. This, plus what I hear about cultural bias, makes me very
distrustful of such tests. All other things being equal, the smarter
person will score higher on an IQ test, but are all other things
equal? I have my doubts.
deliberately fixing the tests so as to make the Eskimos or other
disliked group seem dumber than they really are. I doubt that goes
on much in the making of IQ tests. I mean simply that the people
making such tests see the world in a particular way, and this tends
to make those from a different type of upbringing seem not quite as
smart as they really are. As a personal example, I scored higher on
IQ tests when I was in college, which is hardly surprising, as I was
at the time used to taking tests. Also, the folks making the test
spent a lot of time in college. So it is hardly surprising that
OTHER FOLKS in college would do better.
Also, I am into transhumanism (a little bit), and tend to look on
eugenics for intelligence the way a sports car buff might look at
racehorse breeding. Yes, if you breed fast-running mares to fast-
running stallions, and do so for several generations of horses, then
you are likely to wind up with a generation of horses which run
faster than any horse has run before... and any cross-eyed granny in
a VW bug can leave horse and rider in her dust (not to mention
somebody in a Ferrari!).
But I didn't need to snarl QUITE that much!
Xenophile (who suspects that the needs of habitat construction will
tend to filter out dumb-butts anyways, with no test needed)
# 4012 bytango_dancer@... on Sept. 9, 2003, 1:18 a.m.
Member since 2021-10-03
--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, "Xenophile"
wrote:
But for right now, I will simply repete: "Hey, anybody here
> read the Lagrangia books by Mack Reynolds and Dean Ing?"
synopsis?
TangoMan
# 4013 bytango_dancer@... on Sept. 9, 2003, 1:23 a.m.
Member since 2021-10-03
--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, "orionaut"
> eugenics experiment were thus mooted, they'd STILL be pioneering
in a
> way as yet unknown here on-planet
> * extended- and chosen-family forms
> * radical Libertarianism/modified Objectivism
Would there still be room for Orionauts if they didn't buy into the
political philosphy but liked everything else that defined
Orionauts. Would there be a revolution? Would the political system
have been formed at the outset or have developed into
libertarianism?
What would happen if it started as libertarianism and spun out of
control? Could the true believers let go of their nirvana and adopt
a new system? Kind of like the true communists who are skulking
around in Russia. What are they to do now that the revolution has
failed?
> * dedicateion to/development of effective gifted & talented
education
> (which would, under this scenario, surely be of great value to the
> great masses of H. Sap now poised to take full advantage of the
> specialized pedagogies developed)
>
> spike
TangoMan
# 4014 bytango_dancer@... on Sept. 9, 2003, 1:48 a.m.
Member since 2021-10-03
--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, "Xenophile"
wrote:
> I think that maybe, just maybe, I was a bit too snarly in my
> replies re: IQ. When I have taken such tests, I have ranged from
121
> to 134. This, plus what I hear about cultural bias,
Marxists like Stephen Jay Gould, Richard Lewontin and Richard
Dawkins pushing to completely eliminate genetic basis because it
runs counter to their peceptions of humanity and how the world shold
work.
Gould's "The Mismeasure of Man" addressed the IQ question and it was
a very influential book in its time. Through questionable rhetorical
tactics Gould made his case and found a following. The book has
pretty much now been debunked but it's meme lives on.
The battle to of knowledge versus what people know and hear
continues.
makes me very
> distrustful of such tests. All other things being equal, the
smarter
> person will score higher on an IQ test, but are all other things
> equal? I have my doubts.
Great strides have been made in making culture neutral tests. There
is a lot of validation that goes into insuring this.
>
> By cultural bias I do not charge racism, which would mean
> deliberately fixing the tests so as to make the Eskimos or other
> disliked group seem dumber than they really are. I doubt that
goes
> on much in the making of IQ tests. I mean simply that the people
> making such tests see the world in a particular way, and this
tends
> to make those from a different type of upbringing seem not quite
as
> smart as they really are. As a personal example, I scored higher
on
> IQ tests when I was in college, which is hardly surprising, as I
was
> at the time used to taking tests. Also, the folks making the test
> spent a lot of time in college. So it is hardly surprising that
> OTHER FOLKS in college would do better.
IQ tests are most effective when taken in grade school because they
measure your academic age over your physical age. Testing a 30 year
old and a 50 year old starts to lose its meaning.
Also, as Al Globus pointed out, an IQ of 100 is the population mean.
You will always have the majority of people scoring 100, even
accounting for the Flynn Effect which sees IQs rising over time. The
mean just has to be adjusted back to 100.
>
> Also, I am into transhumanism (a little bit), and tend to look
on
> eugenics for intelligence the way a sports car buff might look at
> racehorse breeding. Yes, if you breed fast-running mares to fast-
> running stallions, and do so for several generations of horses,
then
> you are likely to wind up with a generation of horses which run
> faster than any horse has run before... and any cross-eyed granny
in
> a VW bug can leave horse and rider in her dust (not to mention
> somebody in a Ferrari!).
Your acknowledgement of the breeding aspect puts you in another camp
from that of Gould et al. who believe that IQ is a concept which
can't be measured and has no genetic component.
We are at the start of a new age with the blossoming of genetic
sciences. Rather than eugenics being a dirty word for how it was
practiced in the past and how it was state directed, eugenics in the
future will probably be decided by the parents who will seek
preimplantation screening. A number of embryos are formed via IVF,
and after 8 cell divisions, a cell is removed and screened for a
variety of recognized gene sequences. People will be healthier,
smarter, perhaps more prone to mental illness (seems to go hand in
hand with increased intelligence) and you get the idea. Parents will
be choosing, and already are, to give their children the best
opportunities available, not unlike trying to get them into the best
schools, presenting them with cultural training via music lesssons,
language studies, etc. This will be no different.
TangoMan
# 4015 bypanamabob@... on Sept. 9, 2003, 2:55 a.m.
Member since 2021-10-03
Yes some day we will be able to screen embryo for optimum gene,,, but the
question is, what is "optimum".
small person, strictly because it may be easier for me to dunk the ball in
the basket and slap out someone elses shot.... but does it make me WANT to
play basketball? ENJOY playing basketball?
You know how the grass always seems greener. :-)
I will curse my height because it makes people stare at me, bumps my head on
doorjambs, makes my legs cramp in airline seats, predispose me to heart
circulation problems and more. Or if it was above average intelligence,
because I may not be as satisfied just sitting on a beach, breeding with
free loving wimmin', drinking and eating my fill of easy to reach coconuts
and lobsters and generally being oblivious to the impending doom from a
super nova or giant asteroid that I can't do anything about anyway. I can't
be happy with simple pleasures and feed Ba'al like the old Star Trek
episode. No Eden for me.
Becauseof my membership in my planets intelligencia I need to decide the
best course of action / lifestyle for my people, which means that *I* am the
one that worries about making good decisions, stress and get heart attacks
and strokes because my constant study and focus on mental issues does not
move me to actually exercise my sorry -assed body. :-)
You can't win for losing.
I don't think we have gotten to the point were we really understand enough
to make these kind of culling decisions.
I am reminded of the simple salmon. Omega 3's or fish oil are wonderful for
good health. Salmon becomes popular. To meet the demand, fish farming comes
into play. Artificial pellits are now the feed for the salmon. Omega 3
drops. The bright orange filets are simulated through dyes that are fed to
the fish (otherwise they will appear dull and grey in color, hardly the
appeal we have grown to demand. Now farm raised salmon have no fishoil that
was the reason for eating it in the first place, but now everyone can
afford and get a share.
Blah!
:-)
# 4016 byepibeemie@... on Sept. 9, 2003, 3:05 a.m.
Member since 2021-10-03
>It's important to remember that, by definition, a person average
>intelligence has an IQ of 100. Therefor, by definition, a large
>fraction of the population will always have an IQ under 100 -- even if
>every single individual is actually smarter than Einstein.
back almost 100 years, and has hardly been updated since. The quantitative
nature of the IQ score leads people to believe that intelligence is a
precisely measurable phenomenon, like mass or velocity. In truth
intelligence is probably much more complex, and IQ testing is probably
comparable to trying sum up countries or galaxies with a single integer, and
claiming that that integer completes differentiates among countries or
galaxies. Even 12 year old boys get that rating girls on a 1-10 scale is an
oversimplification. So why for heaven's sake would a bunch of people who
claimed to be of well above average intelligence buy such a cheesy notion at
all?
Brad W.
IQ 135, but who gives a sh_t
# 4017 bytango_dancer@... on Sept. 9, 2003, 3:16 a.m.
Member since 2021-10-03
--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, "panamabob"
reading your post for the way you mixed humor with the points you
wanted to make.
> I don't think we have gotten to the point were we really
understand enough
> to make these kind of culling decisions.
>
I don't think we'll ever see the state Eugenics board deciding what
the citizens will look like.
I think it'll more likely be the free market and parents deciding
for themselves.
As for whether we know enough consider the women you're attracted
to. You're making a decision on some factors aren't you? Are those
factors the same for every man. No. Some parents will value some
aspects more than others.
Consider also the Nobel Sperm Bank. Women went there knowiing that
the men were geniuses. This was a lot different than anonymous sperm
donors where there was no type of genetic screening.
Also, Jews are screening for Tay Sachs on a voluntary basis and have
reduced the incidence of that disease without any authority figure
compelling them to do so. On a political sensitivity spectrum, I'd
say that the Jews would have the most claim to be wary of genetic
screening but when as far as I know there was no outcry.
For those who are wary of tinkering with the human genome, we can
leave it basically unadultered and create a 24th chromosome into
which we can place all enhancements. This way, when the child
becomes of age they can choose to activate some features, or remove
them so that they aren't passed along to offspring. Further, when
version 2.0 of the enhancement comes out, it won't help you, but it
can be added to the 24th, and passed on to your offspring. IF things
go wrong, the human genome is still intact.
Lastly, preimplantation screening is already going on.
TangoMan
# 4018 bytango_dancer@... on Sept. 9, 2003, 3:19 a.m.
Member since 2021-10-03
--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, "victoriatangoman"
wrote:
> leave it basically unadultered and create a 24th chromosome into
> which we can place all enhancements. This way, when the child
> becomes of age they can choose to activate some features, or
remove
> them so that they aren't passed along to offspring. Further, when
> version 2.0 of the enhancement comes out, it won't help you, but
it
> can be added to the 24th, and passed on to your offspring. IF
things
> go wrong, the human genome is still intact.
Forgot to add this link:
http://edition.cnn.com/TECH/computing/9903/11/t_t/artificial.chrom/
# 4019 bytango_dancer@... on Sept. 9, 2003, 3:32 a.m.
Member since 2021-10-03
--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, "Brad Walsh"
> >It's important to remember that, by definition, a person average
> >intelligence has an IQ of 100. Therefor, by definition, a large
> >fraction of the population will always have an IQ under 100 --
even if
> >every single individual is actually smarter than Einstein.
>
> It's at least as important to remember that the whole IQ test
business goes
> back almost 100 years, and has hardly been updated since.
The quantitative
> nature of the IQ score leads people to believe that intelligence
is a
> precisely measurable phenomenon, like mass or velocity.
Practitioners don't hold that belief. Does the science become
invalidated because it is misconstrued by the uninformed?
In truth
> intelligence is probably much more complex,
Very true.
and IQ testing is probably
> comparable to trying sum up countries or galaxies with a single
integer, and
> claiming that that integer completes differentiates among
countries or
> galaxies.
A practitioner wouldn't make that claim. Differentiating at the
margin is always a difficult process, but the differences between
S.D. are quite profound. Applying the results to individuals poses
some problematic issues, but when aggregated and studied with
statistical error accounted for, fairly consistent societal trends
emerge, so that claims made do have substance.
Even 12 year old boys get that rating girls on a 1-10 scale is an
> oversimplification. So why for heaven's sake would a bunch of
people who
> claimed to be of well above average intelligence buy such a cheesy
notion at
> all?
>
> Brad W.
> IQ 135, but who gives a sh_t
How many of your friends have IQs below 85? If it doesn't measure
anything and all people are equal then you'd think that there would
be hardly any societal stratification when IQ was controlled for. If
it's cheesy then there shouldn't be any demonstrable correlation
between what's measured and other factors, should there?
TangoMan
# 4020 bypanamabob@... on Sept. 9, 2003, 3:42 a.m.
Member since 2021-10-03
Well thank you for the mention, I do hope to put forth a thought without
necessarily alienating all others, unless they are really stupid and can't
accept my supremacy over them, in which case, they will be simply erased.
:-)
China will be going out looking to other cultures/countries for females to
mate with, or China may become the mono sex culture substituting
cyber-reality (or Space faring) for messy humanoid relations.
Many males with inherited pattern baldness in America may have wished their
fathers had been more attentive of their mates brothers hair tendency.
As you say its not necessarily a government thing, but personal or cultural
biases are bad enough already. To give parents even more control could be
disasterous. Even by well-meaning couples.Sickle cell anemia is a curse to
most westernized blacks, but get into maleria country, and suddenly it
becomes a God send, which it was (depending on if you agree Darwin was a
surrogate for the Almighty).
I recall a SCi Fi story where blacks could not marry other blacks because of
weakened ozone layer created the need for darker pigmentation of skin and
for eye protection. This trait was considered tantamount for survival of the
human species and therefor could not be hoarded by one race and withheld
from the caucasians.
It would appear that the greatest genetic diversity may still have a role to
play rather than fine tuning to present 'idealities" such as higher IQ
scores or SAT scores. What attributes will be the favorite of star
travelers? Again, perhaps simple satisfaction that can be satiated within a
small artificial Space colony... no need to go on "walk-abouts" that may
make some stir-crazy at finding their horizons relatively finite.
From: "victoriatangoman"
To:
Sent: Monday, September 08, 2003 11:14 PM
Subject: [spacesettlers] Re: Time-scales
# 4021 bytango_dancer@... on Sept. 9, 2003, 4:03 a.m.
Member since 2021-10-03
--- In spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com, "panamabob"
>
> As far as screening already going on, you are absolutely right.
Males from
> China will be going out looking to other cultures/countries for
females to
> mate with, or China may become the mono sex culture substituting
> cyber-reality (or Space faring) for messy humanoid relations.
raising the value of having a girl. She can now be more selective
and many of those males are in an even fiercer Darwinian
competition. Parents today are watching closely at how the parents
of this large male cohort are coping with the possibility that their
son's may never get married, not provide grandchildren, and may not
be able to care for the parents as they grow into their senior
years. All of a sudden there is some tarnish to the preferred son,
and more of a gleam to the burdensome daughter.
>
> Many males with inherited pattern baldness in America may have
wished their
> fathers had been more attentive of their mates brothers hair
tendency.
I'm sure you're right, but now's their chance to correct for it. How
intrusive will the genetic characteristics for their children be in
their mate selection? Some will care and other's won't give a damn
as long as she's HOT.
>
> As you say its not necessarily a government thing, but personal or
cultural
> biases are bad enough already. To give parents even more control
could be
> disasterous.
And what to do about it? Who knows best? My friend, the cat is out
of the bag so what should we do?
Even by well-meaning couples.Sickle cell anemia is a curse to
> most westernized blacks, but get into maleria country, and
suddenly it
> becomes a God send, which it was (depending on if you agree Darwin
was a
> surrogate for the Almighty).
Yes indeed. Who ever makes perfect decisions and doesn't have
limitation within their own life to cope with. Let's say you're an
urbanized Black and decide that you're going to eliminate S.C.A.
from your off-spring. Well, if they need to go to malaria zones when
they're older, they will indeed be at risk. But the parent saved
them from suffering when they lived in a non-maleria zone becasue
that was important at the time.
>
> It would appear that the greatest genetic diversity may still have
a role to
> play rather than fine tuning to present 'idealities" such as
higher IQ
> scores or SAT scores. What attributes will be the favorite of star
> travelers? Again, perhaps simple satisfaction that can be satiated
within a
> small artificial Space colony... no need to go on "walk-abouts"
that may
> make some stir-crazy at finding their horizons relatively finite.
>
But these choices need not be irreversible for the species, only for
the individual. If we engineer a trait out of the genome, we can
always brig it back in the future.
TangoMan