The Red Queen Phenomenon –“No One Species has an Advantage on a Planet Where 99% Have Gone Extinct”

Daily Galaxy ^ | 8/18/2021

[Inyo-Mono]

“In any case,” says Harari, “in 200 or 300 years, the beings that will dominate the Earth will be far more different from us than we are different from Neanderthals or from chimpanzees.”

Really? How different are we from those of Washington's time a little over 200 years ago?

[fieldmarshaldj]

Place your bets on the cockroaches.

[webheart]

Probably a typo in the transcription. He probably said thousand between hundred and years.

[alexander_busek]

Really? How different are we from those of Washington's time a little over 200 years ago?

The article explicitly references genetic engineering and technological upgrading (think: Mind Uploading). If that is to happen at all, it will easily happen within a few centuries.

Regards,

[WMarshal]

It is painfully honest like the mental midgets at the Daily Galaxy do not know when to put down their bongs and crack pipes.

I cannot claim to be an expert but I know that my prediction that “10,000 years in the future people will still believe infomercials and pick their noses” is far more likely to happen than this whack-a-doodle’s.

All this crazy talk is probably driven by a belief that genetic engineering and technology will transform humanity into immoral transhuman cyborgs.

[Noumenon]

Enter ratkind...

[21twelve]

“Given the array of environmental conditions on the planet, one kind of organism might gain a temporary advantage, but such gains will soon be countered by other, competing organisms.”

I’m guessing that human ability to change the environmental conditions around them (irrigation, air-conditioning, buildings, growing crops, desalination, heating, etc.) gives us a leg up on the other organisms.

[WMarshal]

"I’m guessing that human ability to change the environmental conditions around them (irrigation, air-conditioning, buildings, growing crops, desalination, heating, etc.) gives us a leg up on the other organisms."

I haven't heard of any birds that can fly at 80,000 feet at mach 3 and see the sunrise in the west by outracing the Sun.

[Gene Eric]

I’m sure 50 million conservatives can manage.

[unlearner]

Wouldn’t the existence of 100-million-year-old turtles invalidate “The Red Queen Hypothesis” right out of the gate?

[21twelve]

Obviously there are some events that could set back civilization, or even wipe out the human race. A comet striking the earth for example might wipe us out. A huge eruption such as Yellowstone could set us back quite a ways. I’m guessing another glacial ice advance would cause a huge disruption. And combined with the natural events would be the wars that would ensue to fight for the remaining resources.

My bet is on rapid global cooling. (Technically we are still in “the ice age”, and have experienced the longest warm period ever recorded in the glacial ice record.)

[WMarshal]

It is amazing how ignorant people are of past climate changes and the fact that we are still in a 2 million year old ice age.

[Jimmy Valentine]

There are life forms that have existed for thousands of years virtually unchanged. e.g. cockroaches. How does this fit?

[Pilgrim's Progress]

Life is always so much easier when one can discount the role of an absolute Creator that has eternal plans for man. The atheist refers to believe that when he closes his eyes in death there is nothing more . . . no eternal hell where the worm dieth not, forever banished from the presence of that Creator.

Dream on, atheists, dream on.

However, there is a remedy for your delusion, Jesus Christ Who gave His life for you on Calvary and rose again that you might live eons upon eons and be like the One that gave you life.

Your choice . . . where will you be in billion years?

[Nateman]

Life is essentially self replicating information. Since people have become the masters of information itself they have become the ultimate winners.

[ClearCase_guy]

Evolutionary Theory has moved from "survival of the fittest" to "all organisms are nearly equally fit".

I do not see how random genetic drift, in which any and all outcomes are nearly equally fit would ever move the world from algae to humans. You would definitely need Intelligent Design (God) to see progress.

[dangus]

They speak of general tendencies as if they were laws of nature. In fact, after the Permian Extinction, there was in fact a proto mammal that dominated for tens of millions of years in virtually every corner of the Earth. Likewise, salps and are still incredibly large portion of biomass in the oceans. These “winners” are rare, but certainly do occur. The real trade off is that if a species mutates quickly it will have many descendant species. If it mutates slowly, it will be more likely to die off. But if it is in a very successful niche, like salps or horseshoe crabs or cockroaches or termites, it can do both.

[Seeing More Clearly Now]

This guy, Yuval Harari, came up with alluring book titles and he writes well, but his theories themselves are filled with huge holes and gross illogic.

[PIF]

A comet striking the earth for example might wipe us out.

—
Last time a comet struck Earth, it was not a single event, but an event that lasted over 100 years and burned off 10% of the Earth’s vegetation ; and we still survived.