12-07-2013, 12:57 PM | #11 | |
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Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Southeast NC
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Re: Human evolution IN SPACE
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A eugenics program backed up by real science (and with more practical goals than the mostly racist ones of the early 20th century) could modify the human species more quickly than the conventional natural selection method of shooting DNA at anything that survives to maturity. And be promptly wiped out by the virus nobody thought to retain resistance to 700 years ago. Or by reproductive freedom fighters.
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RyanW - Actually one normal sized guy in three tiny trenchcoats. |
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12-07-2013, 01:48 PM | #12 | ||
Join Date: Sep 2004
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Re: Human evolution IN SPACE
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They will probably be healthier overall than a regular Terran due to less disease exposure, but have lower levels of disease resistance overall as fewer of them each generation are continuously exposed to new Earth diseases/Pandemics without regular contact. |
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12-07-2013, 04:11 PM | #13 |
Join Date: Feb 2012
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Re: Human evolution IN SPACE
Higher radiation level could lead to wider genetical modification on short evolutional times.
First idea on possible modifications: adaptation to different gravity. I think of free-fall adapted species. Color. Living on worlds with different irradiation can lead to alternative defensive pigmentation. Sight. Our sight is centerd on the main radiation of Sun star. Different stars have different peak radiation, that is different "white" wave lenght. Reproduction. Overpopulation can lead to genetically enginereed societies, where there's a reproductive elite (queens) alongside sterile masses. (Bee or ant society). |
12-07-2013, 04:31 PM | #14 | |
Join Date: Nov 2012
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Re: Human evolution IN SPACE
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Example 1: Bio scientists have been selectively breeding lab rats for over a hundred years now. The breeders try to pick the healthiest animals, and tend to use rate of mass gain during infancy as a proxy for health. As a result, the most common strains of lab rats now used grow to adult size much more rapidly than wild rats, but also tend to have much shorter potential lifespans (if given time; in reality, most wild rats become prey or starve before they grow old, and most laboratory rats are eventually euthanased). The candle that burns twice as bright, etc. Example 2: There is an island off the coast of the U.S. (Martha's Vineyard), that was isolated from the mainland for a long time, and was settled by a group from a single English village. By chance, this village had a higher than usual rate of hereditary deafness. By the time they built a bridge to the mainland, something like 20% of the population were deaf. As a result, deafness had become something akin to colour-blindness in the severity of its impact. As everyone had deaf relatives, absolutely everyone on the island was fluent in sign language, so Deafness had lost most of its isolating and disabling effect.
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Craig |
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12-07-2013, 11:14 PM | #15 | |
Join Date: Feb 2007
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Re: Human evolution IN SPACE
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The thing is that genetics doesn't work in the simplistic Hollywood way, there isn't (usually) a single 'gene for 'x' to be selected for or against'. Instead there's a gene that causes trait 'x' under certain conditions, while also producing trait 'y' under other overlapping but different conditions, while at the same time influencing the manifestation of traits linked to other genes, all modified by circumstances. Add in epigenetic factors, and probably other things we don't even know about yet, and the complexity becomes daunting. Treating traits in isolation, and breeding for or against them without consideration of side-effects, rarely works well if done over more than a few generations. The 'random mating' approach does have the advantage that it forces trait combinations to stay within certain viable ranges over generations, though it does so in a nasty way. Matters are made worse, for a scientific eugenics program, by the fact that humans breed slowly, compared to most mammals. It takes over a decade for most humans to reach breeding age, and longer before s/he is at a really healthy, good age for reproduction. Even if you don't mind using teenagers as your breeders (and time constraints would argue for just that in a long-term program, saw 5 or 6 years off each generation in the program and you cut half a millennium off a 100 generation project), you still are limited to probably no more than six generations a century or so. Contrast that to cats or rabbits, and the issue becomes clear. |
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12-08-2013, 03:50 PM | #16 | ||
Join Date: Sep 2004
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Re: Human evolution IN SPACE
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The point being of course you and others are certainly right to say that their will be problems, but for the purposes of a game I would also be inclined to let their be bonuses as well for the isolation probably in the form of various planet talent groups to reflect careful selection from the founders and the colonies inhabited environment. |
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12-08-2013, 05:07 PM | #17 |
Join Date: Mar 2008
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Re: Human evolution IN SPACE
You will also have non genetic changes. A colony on a 2+ gravity world will not have changed much genetically in a couple generation but the people will be noticeably different in appearance from growing up under that. If they emigrate to a 1 gravity world the kids will be normal.
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Tags |
evolution, human evolution, sci fi, space |
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