Then you haven't heard of niche construction, one of the basic mechanisms of evolution? — StreetlightX
Sure, human activity including technological activity could be a mechanism of evolution. Why not? Artificial selection is. — Baden
I don't care to answer any of these counterfactuals unless you provide a reason, in principle, why these can't be considered part of evolution. Otherwise we'll be here all day. Let's discuss reasons not hypotheticals. — StreetlightX
It's one mechanism. Don't get hung up on the "natural" idea. — Baden
I guess bird nests are unnatural, coral reefs are unnatural, and everything that atmosphere permits is also unnatural. — Chany
Artificial selection is an artificial mechanism by which evolution can occur." — Baden
Animals building nests or sleeping in caves has nothing to do with what I'm saying. — TheMadFool
Anyway the term natural selection is sufficient for me to get my point across which is that humans are interfering with natural selection by preventing deaths of people with genetically transmitted illnesses through the use of modern medicine. Isn't this interfering with the natural selection process - some of us should've died out long ago.
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e.g. if a polar bear had a mutation that made it furless it would most certainly perish in its subzero temperature habitat.
It would just depend on whether changes were made to the genes in the process. If cats die out and we bring them back as they were, they haven't evolved. — Baden
his is particularly the case insofar as we are dealing with a question of science, that is, empirical questions. Science doesn't get to decide, in advance, what is and is not part of evolution - least you give up any pretension of empiricism and lapse into full blown dogmatism. — StreetlightX
So sure, technological changes to DNA is evolution in the broad sense. I'm questioning whether it's biological evolution in the scientific sense of how life diversified on Earth from the earliest life form. — Marchesk
And what makes you think 'the scientific sense' of evolution is so narrowly defined? What empirical fact would sanction such an artificial definition other than pure prejudice? — StreetlightX
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