- Location
- Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk
A report out this week reveals the astonishing news that we’re still evolving. Or at least, it’s astonishing for the very very stoopid I suppose, and presumably various members of Donald Trumps inner circle.
Specifically, this study has shown that there is a marked increase in the percentage of women growing up who have inherited too narrow a pelvis to safely deliver their offspring, and that this appears to be an effect of successive and reliable caesarean section births. Prior to effective medical intervention, many of these women, to put it bluntly, would have perished in childbirth. And credit to both the study and media reports, this reality hasn’t been spared. And as more children survive who’d otherwise perish, so a physical characteristic which nature would eliminate is multiplying.
I’m in no way surprised. Indeed, I’ve been saying this is bound to happen for some years. I’m a hard core livestock farmer, and I can’t see why there’d be any difference in such traits in human beings against similar issues in sheep or cattle. I don’t wish to be vulgar – although I usually manage it quite well- but it’s an obvious deduction.
And before you get on your hobby horse and say I’m being misogynist and sexist or some such, while the study has majored on this trait being passed from mother to daughter, I’ve no doubt whatsoever that male children born via caesarean section will have a marked statistical increase in siring both offspring too large to pop out via the traditional exit, and more specifically, subsequent generations of female offspring with a narrow birth canals. The Austrian doctors involved don’t think the trait will advance very quickly –so far an increase of 10% in a couple of generations- but I don’t know if they’ve factored in the male line implications. Conversely, I haven’t dug far enough to see if the rise in obesity, diabetes and sedentary lifestyles was allowed for…likely it was, given the specifics of the study.
How such things relate to the world at large, and whether it matters is another thing altogether. In this instance, science shows us that we’re evolving to become increasingly reliant on medical intervention, and from that it’s easy to extrapolate further implications. Think about that for a minute.
Is it ethical to consider such further matters at all? I couldn’t say, but I suspect it’s recklessly dangerous to ignore them.
Back to Trump then. Rather frighteningly, his team contains people who deny there is such a thing as evolution. So discussing whether we should, as a species, consider how we’re allowing ourselves to evolve, is somewhat moot for our friends over the pond. Good grief, taking some of his policies, it isn’t a very big step to observe that Trump might directly force evolution if left unchecked. He denies climate change is real for a start, so growing gills might prove to be a useful trait if your kids could manage it in time. And meantime, his seemingly reckless cage rattling on the world stage could very easily make radiation proof dna a singularly useful trait.
Thinking about that led me consider the whole tub-thumping politician phenomena. Somehow, there’s been a groundswell of support for such nutters over the last year or so. Their rallying call has been populist concepts that don’t stand analysis, with careful consideration of evidence being a long way down the list. Trump himself is very ‘anti-science’. The ethos is to preach the easy answer for today, rather than a long term plan.
Part of it seems to be that everyone was fed up with bland politics, because considered rational plans tend to look dull, leading to political parties so similar that there wasn’t much of a gap between the left and the right. Somehow this led to the rise of these tub-thumping characters, with madcap policies.
The problem I have with this is that forgetting where the safe ground lies allows reckless loudmouths to undo decades of patient management.
I did button hole a local MP the other say, asking him how on earth, given the well-known anti-EU sentiments washing around, we went into the last general election without knowing who our EU commissioner was/would be? If you voted Blue, you knew you’d be getting David Cameron for PM, and George as his Chancellor, but hardly any of us knew who Lord Hill was. It should have been party policy to identify the plan. It was a major gaff, a complete misreading of public opinions, and the MPs only defence was that none of them really saw Brexit coming.
Anyway, I’ve decided. Make me Emperor, and polling stations will be a lot harder to find. Perhaps I might have their locations identified only by grid reference.
Hmm, there’s some thoughts.
Specifically, this study has shown that there is a marked increase in the percentage of women growing up who have inherited too narrow a pelvis to safely deliver their offspring, and that this appears to be an effect of successive and reliable caesarean section births. Prior to effective medical intervention, many of these women, to put it bluntly, would have perished in childbirth. And credit to both the study and media reports, this reality hasn’t been spared. And as more children survive who’d otherwise perish, so a physical characteristic which nature would eliminate is multiplying.
I’m in no way surprised. Indeed, I’ve been saying this is bound to happen for some years. I’m a hard core livestock farmer, and I can’t see why there’d be any difference in such traits in human beings against similar issues in sheep or cattle. I don’t wish to be vulgar – although I usually manage it quite well- but it’s an obvious deduction.
And before you get on your hobby horse and say I’m being misogynist and sexist or some such, while the study has majored on this trait being passed from mother to daughter, I’ve no doubt whatsoever that male children born via caesarean section will have a marked statistical increase in siring both offspring too large to pop out via the traditional exit, and more specifically, subsequent generations of female offspring with a narrow birth canals. The Austrian doctors involved don’t think the trait will advance very quickly –so far an increase of 10% in a couple of generations- but I don’t know if they’ve factored in the male line implications. Conversely, I haven’t dug far enough to see if the rise in obesity, diabetes and sedentary lifestyles was allowed for…likely it was, given the specifics of the study.
How such things relate to the world at large, and whether it matters is another thing altogether. In this instance, science shows us that we’re evolving to become increasingly reliant on medical intervention, and from that it’s easy to extrapolate further implications. Think about that for a minute.
Is it ethical to consider such further matters at all? I couldn’t say, but I suspect it’s recklessly dangerous to ignore them.
Back to Trump then. Rather frighteningly, his team contains people who deny there is such a thing as evolution. So discussing whether we should, as a species, consider how we’re allowing ourselves to evolve, is somewhat moot for our friends over the pond. Good grief, taking some of his policies, it isn’t a very big step to observe that Trump might directly force evolution if left unchecked. He denies climate change is real for a start, so growing gills might prove to be a useful trait if your kids could manage it in time. And meantime, his seemingly reckless cage rattling on the world stage could very easily make radiation proof dna a singularly useful trait.
Thinking about that led me consider the whole tub-thumping politician phenomena. Somehow, there’s been a groundswell of support for such nutters over the last year or so. Their rallying call has been populist concepts that don’t stand analysis, with careful consideration of evidence being a long way down the list. Trump himself is very ‘anti-science’. The ethos is to preach the easy answer for today, rather than a long term plan.
Part of it seems to be that everyone was fed up with bland politics, because considered rational plans tend to look dull, leading to political parties so similar that there wasn’t much of a gap between the left and the right. Somehow this led to the rise of these tub-thumping characters, with madcap policies.
The problem I have with this is that forgetting where the safe ground lies allows reckless loudmouths to undo decades of patient management.
I did button hole a local MP the other say, asking him how on earth, given the well-known anti-EU sentiments washing around, we went into the last general election without knowing who our EU commissioner was/would be? If you voted Blue, you knew you’d be getting David Cameron for PM, and George as his Chancellor, but hardly any of us knew who Lord Hill was. It should have been party policy to identify the plan. It was a major gaff, a complete misreading of public opinions, and the MPs only defence was that none of them really saw Brexit coming.
Anyway, I’ve decided. Make me Emperor, and polling stations will be a lot harder to find. Perhaps I might have their locations identified only by grid reference.
Hmm, there’s some thoughts.
