Are you born with talent or do you adapt it over time? (Split from TOGS' thread)

[coqauvin]

Leisure time is actually a function of sexual selection. Leisure time exists in animals that are not humans, first of all. Beyond that, leisure time contributes to the sexual selection process because an organism with time to spend doing nothing related to survival is clearly genetically fit. This tells potential mates that their genes are worth combining with their own for reproduction. This is what's known as a fitness indicator. Other examples of fitness indicators are peacock tails, and in humans, other examples are intelligence, athletic prowess, artistic ability, and compassion.

There are plenty of people who manage to do a heck of a lot of nothing all the time, are chronically obese and their unemployment, but collection of cheques through various means grants them excessive leisure, most of which is wasted away on front of televisions or whatever.

I would not call these people genetically fit.

[no_brains_no_worries]

There are plenty of people who manage to do a heck of a lot of nothing all the time, are chronically obese and their unemployment, but collection of cheques through various means grants them excessive leisure, most of which is wasted away on front of televisions or whatever.

I would not call these people genetically fit.

I gotta disagree there. I mean, mankind fought for millions of years to reach the point that we are now. Even if lots of people are wastes of space, their ancestors were all survivors and thanks to mankind's supremacy, they are too.

I mean, what natural selection do we really have to fear nowadays thanks to modern medicine and security? If you want to split hairs you can point out how they might be inferior to others, but all in all every living creature that is still breathing should be considered genetically fit, right?

[solecistic]

I mean, what natural selection do we really have to fear nowadays thanks to modern medicine and security? If you want to split hairs you can point out how they might be inferior to others, but all in all every living creature that is still breathing should be considered genetically fit, right?

"Survival of the fittest" got a lot of attention, but it's a bit misleading. Natural selection is blind and can only hope to react passively against changing environmental factors through mutation. Sexual selection is the real driving force behind evolution - it's an active means of strengthening one's own species.

So, no. Being genetically fit isn't about just being fit enough to survive, it's about giving one's own genes a good chance to mix with high quality genes from another member of the species. To borrow a saying of Geoffrey Miller, bodies are sinking ships to our genes. They die with us. The only way to get off the ship is to reproduce with another organism's genes. Evolution is going on all the time. You could think of genetic fitness as being somewhat relative, in that people can and do fall in love with people whose genes are not of superior quality. But there are so many different fitness indicators - kindness and intelligence, for example. Person A may find Person B to be dumb but compassionate, and they end up having fifteen babies. It wasn't the best possible genetic match, but there was still a fitness indicator being responded to. Mate choice is where it's at, evolutionarily speaking.

[coqauvin]

I gotta disagree there. I mean, mankind fought for millions of years to reach the point that we are now. Even if lots of people are wastes of space, their ancestors were all survivors and thanks to mankind's supremacy, they are too.

I mean, what natural selection do we really have to fear nowadays thanks to modern medicine and security? If you want to split hairs you can point out how they might be inferior to others, but all in all every living creature that is still breathing should be considered genetically fit, right?

Essentially, measure is unceasing.

There is no point in the evolutionary chain where we can kick back and relax because we're finished with the job - it doesn't work like that. What this plateau signifies is more along the lines that we, instead of changing ourselves (figuratively) to fit our environment, are now shaping our environments to fit our needs. We then get a large number of people who wouldn't survive under more brutal circumstances thriving, because there is nothing threatening their survival - the environment is no longer hostile. This doesn't mean the game is done, simply that there is a change of phase in it.