Stephen Hawking- Humanity is in a new Phase of Evolution

[cactusflower]

Stephen Hawking: "Humans Have Entered a New Stage of Evolution"


Hawkins says there has been a decisive change in human evolution - in that the species can now transmit information from generation to generation and can also potentially change dna.

Up until now our evolution has been largely an unconcious process determined by our ability to survive (or not) variations in our natural environment.

Is Hawkins right? Are we more than our genes ? Does the knowledge passed from one generation to the next part comprise part of what our species is?

Can our transmitted knowledge allow us to more effectively adapt to our environment or are we at the mercy of forces outside our control?
Is there any real sign that we the species is acting in a planned rather than instinct-driven fashion ?

Although It has taken homo sapiens several million years to evolve from the apes, the useful information in our DNA, has probably changed by only a few million bits. So the rate of biological evolution in humans, Stephen Hawking points out in his Life in the Universe lecture, is about a bit a year.

"By contrast," Hawking says, "there are about 50,000 new books published in the English language each year, containing of the order of a hundred billion bits of information. Of course, the great majority of this information is garbage, and no use to any form of life. But, even so, the rate at which useful information can be added is millions, if not billions, higher than with DNA."


This means Hawking says that we have entered a new phase of evolution. "At first, evolution proceeded by natural selection, from random mutations. This Darwinian phase, lasted about three and a half billion years, and produced us, beings who developed language, to exchange information."

But what distinguishes us from our cave man ancestors is the knowledge that we have accumulated over the last ten thousand years, and particularly, Hawking points out, over the last three hundred.

"I think it is legitimate to take a broader view, and include externally transmitted information, as well as DNA, in the evolution of the human race," Hawking said.

Other scientists say that physical evolutionary adaptations have had a far bigger influence on our history than we used to think -

Gregory Cochran and Henry dispute the late Stephen Jay Gould’s assertion that civilization was “built with the same body and brain” Homo sapiens has had for 40,000 years. Humanity has been evolving dramatically for the last 10,000 years, they say, spurred by the very civilizational forces launched by that evolution.

The 10,000 Year Explosion is a work of genetic history that gives full treatment to the evolutionary power of natural selection in shaping human history. For example, how did the Indo-European language family get to be so geographically expansive? There is the story of how lactose tolerant Indo-Europeans spread milk-drinking with blood and fire, why the Ashkenazi suffer from crippling genetic diseases at an unexpectedly high rate while winning 25% of Nobel Prizes in the last century, and how the Spanish destroyed the Aztecs and the Incas. The real accidents of history are matters of gene flow and chance mutation.

The 10,000 Year Explosion: Has Human Civilization Turbo Charged Evolution?

[macdarawhitfield]

Amazing stuff,the dawning of a new era.But wait a minute,how does it account for the existence of FF/FG? Blast it,never mind lads,back to the drawing board.

[cactusflower]

It might account for it. I think Hawking would count political parties and their traditions as transmitted knowledge. But then again, he says that most transmitted knowledge is junk.

[rhonda15]

"entering a new phase, of what Hawking calls "self designed evolution," in which we will be able to change and improve our DNA.

If the human race manages to redesign itself, to reduce or eliminate the risk of self-destruction, we will probably reach out to the stars and colonize other planets. But this will be done, Hawking believes, with intelligent machines based on mechanical and electronic components, rather than macromolecules, which could eventually replace DNA based life, just as DNA may have replaced an earlier form of life."

hmmm - sounds awfully like what the eugenicists and transhumanists have planned for us.
take a look

[ame=http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2615496775977574586&ei=]The Age of Transitions[/ame]

[cactusflower]

Certainly Hawkings has said a few dodgy things in his time. Perhaps his own dependence on technology has an influence on his world view.

The eugenicists are freaky. Genetic diversity has got to be the optimum strategy, and I don't think we can do better than the natural process there.

This scientist says that we have only recently evolved to be able to envisage the future. If that is true, it has a bearing perhaps at why we are so poor at planning.

Homo Sapiens -The "Time Travelers" -A Galaxy Classic

[fiannafailure]

It may help the debate along to realize that from a physicists point of view, the transmission of information from one place or dimension to another, is the reason for, and the enabling of, the universe.

[Sam Lord]

Is this the inheritance of acquired characteristics?

Didn't Lysenko get denounced from a height for similar theories?

[cactusflower]

Is this the inheritance of acquired characteristics?

Didn't Lysenko get denounced from a height for similar theories?

No, the inheritance of acquired books.

[TradCat]

I'd hate to argue with Hawking but isn't evolution always going to be primarily about whose genes get passed on and from that point of view the current most successful group would be the group with he highest birth-rate i.e. Islam.

If the only knowledge getting passed on is the Koran and the low birth rate among educated westerners means our culture is an evolutionary cul-de-sac then there is less reason to be cheerful than he suggests.

[Sam Lord]

No, the inheritance of acquired books.

Sorry.

Should have actually read the linked article before jumping in.