I started a thread about how evolution is being cheated by man which I believe is a cause of the obesity problem in mankind that is ever increasing. Now I have read a article on pancreatic polypeptide and how it was found in cancer patients to cause them to lose weight. And that it is a vicious cycle terrorized in when people gain weight they produce less PP. And thus the body does not shut off the eating.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6262347.stm


So question for debate is: Is this natural evolution if man can change the evolution that was causing obesity? Is this only good for mankind?

A true inability to resist temptation is a profound mental illness on the level that would justify a plea of "not guilty by reason of insanity" in a murder trial. Responsibility presupposes the mental capacity to resist temptation. However, our natural tendancies are toward irresponsibility; more often, people are unwilling-- not unable-- to resist temptation. For example, Testosterone is another hormone that powers male sex drive; if men fail to resist its temptations, they become criminally predatory and violent. Society should rightly and reasonably expect the human will to overpower hormonal urges. However, if one is truly unable to resist temptation as the result of a treatable mental illness, such an illness should be treated. Tom Cruise is mostly wrong.

Is this natural evolution if man can change the evolution that was causing obesity?

I'm going to have to back up to explain my understanding of the question.

Natural evolution is powered by natural selection: genetic aberrations made advantageous by environmental pressures, resulting over several generations in a population where the aberration is more prevalent. Artificial evolution is powered by artificial selection: human-invented compensations for traits made disadvantageous by environmental pressures, resulting in a population that perpetuates traits that would otherwise be disadvantageous enough to disappear under purely natural selection.

Examples of artificial evolution might include corrective lenses that help perpetuate myopia in a population under which myopic people would have more difficulty surviving or reproducing. Myopia is just one example, there are many genetic diseases and predispositions that only continue to be perpetuated as a result of artificial evolution.

Using these definitions, human efforts taken to compensate for PP would be classified under artificial evolution, not natural evolution.

There is an interesting philosophical question concerning whether or not artificial evolution is merely an extension of natural evolution: If humans have naturally evolved the intelligence to genetically alter themselves or otherwise circumvent natural selection, then isn't using such intelligence a natural result of evolution? Perhaps so, perhaps not, but it's a philosophical exercise that isn't very helpful in objectively studying human influences on evolution. It's a chicken-or-egg question reasonably debatable from all sides without hope of reaching an objective conclusion.

Is this only good for mankind?

Hitler didn't think artificial selection was good for his people. If Hitler had his way, artificial selection would be used to carry out the state's perception of natural selection. People with genetic abnormalities would be prevented from reproducing, resulting in a genetically healthier population through which the process of selection could continue among humans much as in nature.

Hitler's fallacy (on this score), was valuing the group above the individual. Individuals who "suffer" from "disadvantageous genetic aberrations" welcome medical advancements that allow them to lead normal lives and raise their own children. The result might be an overall population that is increasingly less "genetically superior" to the one before and increasingly reliant on medical aid, but humans are more than the sum total of their genes. Each personality makes such a lasting impact on the psyches of the people around them that most tend to do far more overall good than harm, even when some would consider their genes to be "diluting the pool".

can man cheat evolution

If the distinctions between natural and artificial evolution are valid, then from such a perspective, humans are the only species known to intentionally alter the course of natural selection, and thus "cheat" natural evolution.

Of course, as interesting as evolutionary theory is to discuss and study under laboratory conditions, there's no incontrovertable proof that it was really operating in the distant past in the absence of spiritual forces. Any unlimited, omnipotent god who valued the faith of his followers could quite easily create a universe which appears to all observers to be much older than it really is and subject to natural forces that provide alternative explanations of its existence-- otherwise, faith would be unnecessary, or the god would not be omnipotent. Short of hopping in a time machine and trying to go a billion years into the past, there's no empirical way to know for sure whether a 6-day (short day) creation or evolution was in effect-- anything we study in the here and now is just the same as it would be regardless of whether creation or evolution were the cause. Even evolution is entirely consistent with the "long-day" creation theory discussed by astrophysicist Gerald Schroeder and others. Science can never prove nor disprove whether the influence of a god was ever present in systems that appear to have an otherwise random or semi-random component. Still, evolution is an interesting theory to study because it provides such a good framework for how nature "appears" to be organized-- if only evolutionary extremists were not so intent on censoring discussions of equally possible theories as well, Americans might be better educated. (My apologies for clarifying my own stance on evolution-creation, but I am new to the boards and without this paragraph on the record, my comments might lead others to the false conclusion that I make the assumption that evolutionary theory is the only legitimate explanation of speciation.)

When one considers the possibility that speciation might not have actually been produced through natural selection (much evidence to the contrary), the question of whether individuals with "bad genes" should be allowed to reproduce becomes irrelevant. The dominant consideration becomes the universally intrinsic value of the individual, and any children they might have, without regard to "dilution of the gene pool".

My apologies in advance if I have misinterpreted the questions.