We can't, even shouldn't, shut down our instincts due to politically correctness.
Of course we should. Relying on reasons that would have been acceptable to a caveman 10,000 years ago is no basis for modern society. We've beaten evolution. Modern science, medicine, and society means evolutionary pressures can be ignored - women with bigger breasts and hips aren't any more likely to have successful offspring now because women without those traits can go to Walmart for baby formula and a GP if their baby gets ill. Evolution has no bearing any more. Why keep using it as a reason?
No we haven't, and that's a good thing because a society made up of completely dysgenic people who need countless supplements and medical products just to stay alive would not be the utopia you're trying to paint it as.
That’s not dysgenic. If you’re in an environment and supplements are available and you function best with them, that’s just a food source you’re adapted to. I don’t go around calling people poorly adapted for needing oxygen and vitamin C.
Becoming reliant on additional external resources to survive is objectively backwards evolution.
You brought up oxygen reliance as a silly point but you're actually right. Humans relying on oxygen actually isn't that great, we can't go into space or underwater (without external support) and we get out of breath when exercising. A group of humans that evolved to not need oxygen at all would be a great genetic improvement.
What anaerobic organisms have you been outcompeted by recently?
I believe the main evolutionary advantage of your anaerobic humans is that they're imaginary, so they don't have tradeoffs, which definitely helps if you want to add features.
I think I'd prefer to be able to detect low O2 instead of instantly passing out; that'd probably be good enough.
But human evolution is basically a story where bigger brains coevolved with increased reliance on more diverse and higher quality food sources. Otherwise, for example, we would have much lower requirements for exogenous Vitamin C, like many other mammals.
It's an impossibility. Evolution is by definition something we can't escape.
> Modern science, medicine, and society means evolutionary pressures can be ignored
No. It means evolutionary pressure will increase and accelerate. Modern science will allow couples to genetically alter/select for best embryos. It will be a genetic arms race to produce the taller, faster, smarter, healthier, etc children.
The advances of modern science will do the exact opposite of what you are claiming. Take down syndrome. Genetic screening has all but eliminated the down syndrome trait from much of the advanced world.
It means evolutionary pressure will increase and accelerate. Modern science will allow couples to genetically alter/select for best embryos. It will be a genetic arms race to produce the taller, faster, smarter, healthier, etc children
People choosing which traits to optimize for isn't evolutionary pressure. Evolution is a very specific mechanism that optimizes through random mutation. Choosing what to optimize for, using science to continue 'undesirable' genetic traits, making people choose who to reproduce with by manipulating what's considered attractive through Pornhub and Instagram, etc are all ways humans are now a poat-evolution species.
The fact we happen to still pick the traits that evolution optimized for in the past is because this is something that's only happened very recently. We're only just starting to move past evolutionary pressure. We could select for anything through science and tech. The fact we'd probably go for things like height, intelligence, etc just means we're not being very imaginative. One day we might decide to push for smaller offspring so we can fit more of them on spaceships, or for children who can survive with less water because the climate is screwed, etc.
The outcome will be the same as evolution, eg optimizing for the survival of the species, but the mechanism that causes it will be very different and absolutely not evolution.
If anything, what you describe is intelligent design, just by humans instead of a god.
> People choosing which traits to optimize for isn't evolutionary pressure.
It sure is. Look up selection or selection pressure ( another name for evolutionary pressure ).
> Evolution is a very specific mechanism that optimizes through random mutation.
Random mutations are meaningless without selection pressure. It's the selection that drives evolution not random mutations. You could have evolution without any mutations - the environment could change which selects for certain existing traits.
> We could select for anything through science and tech.
Which is called evolution. You seem to have a misunderstanding of what evolution is. Evolution isn't only "natural selection". Artifical selection exists. For example, dogs evolved from wolves by human/artificial selection, not "natural" selection. Regardless, it is still evolution.
Of course we should. Relying on reasons that would have been acceptable to a caveman 10,000 years ago is no basis for modern society. We've beaten evolution. Modern science, medicine, and society means evolutionary pressures can be ignored - women with bigger breasts and hips aren't any more likely to have successful offspring now because women without those traits can go to Walmart for baby formula and a GP if their baby gets ill. Evolution has no bearing any more. Why keep using it as a reason?