Gene Pool Decline: Are we Becoming Bad Survivors?

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[presidenttogekiss]

Poor Newton. Those were some GOOD genes gone wasted.

[rufioh]

A little note about eyesight in humans:
In the last century eyesight seems to have gotten worse in humans far faster than would be expected if it were some genetic factor. So it seems to be an unfortunate byproduct of modern human lifestyle.

[codekillerz]

I do not remember subscribing to this channel

edit:
I can see why I subscribed

[beenaalavudheen]

It wasn't bad luck for Newton. He wasn't interested, that's all.

[workaccount]

Do you think major wars might contribute some what to decine the quality of the gene pool? Since strong healthy men were selected to go into battle and (a lot) died and unable to pass on their genes.

[Acsion]

I know that it's a meme to make fun of Isaac newton for not having a girlfriend, but keep in mind that he shared a home with a man for 20 years and later had a 'friend' write him this: "the reasons I should not marry will probably last as long as my life", and this "I could wish sir to live all my life, or the greatest part of it, with you." So he was probably just gay.

[LimeyLassen]

Adaptive pressures have changed but that doesn't mean we aren't under any at all. Not everyone survives and not everyone breeds. In specific ways we're under more pressure than ever. There was a time once when all someone needed to make a living was a strong body, but those days are coming to an end. The value of unskilled labor is at an all time low and that's a trend that's going to continue. Genetic engineering will disproportionately benefit those of higher social status, so the key to a person's genetic future is going to be getting themselves some of that social status, by whatever means necessary. Even in an egalitarian society without prejudice this would be true, moreso in fact.

[The-Rest-of-Us]

Dear all, I really hope you enjoy my newest video! Can't believe it's already been 2 months since my last one - trying to speed things up. Honestly! 😅

Editorial comment on the video: I know that I've touched on a more edgy topic than usual in this one. While it was mostly intended as a fun and interesting brain teaser (I tried to point out all the asterisks and caveats regarding the statements I make), I see a lot of respectful discussion in the comments (and unfortunately a few not so respectful one). So I'd like to leave a comment myself: our goal as a common humanity must be to minimise suffering and achieve self-actualisation for as many people as possible. And as much fun as it can be to ponder about a possible regressive evolution, it really is not a threat to those goals. The real threat to well-being and self-actualisation are policies, which cause them - meaning any discriminatory policies against anyone, based on their nature. As far as gene editing tools and other technology in this area can help us towards the goals named above, I think they should eventually be free to be used by the ones who chose to do so.

[BrendenFP]

There has been recent research that good eyesight is correlated with childhood exposure to bright sunlight (i.e., time spent outdoors), explaining why Chinese children's eyesight has taken a nosedive in recent years as they spend more and more time indoors studying for placement exams.

[pkmntrainermann]

If you were wondering, the reason why more mutations are bad then benign is that there are two types of mutation at the DNA level, frameshift and substitution.

Substitution is where a single base is changed, however sometimes this doesn't actually change the protein being produced, so no effect.

A frameshift is where one it more bases are added or removed, causing every base to be read into different 'packets' or codons, causing a completely different protein.

[bruhdabones]

I always knew that a lot of our medical advances “baby” our genome into weakness.

[siphonophore]

this is maybe just semantics, but wouldnt blind cave fish actually have an advantage, since eyeballs are more vulnerable and prone to infection?

[zakosist]

Really interesting, and I have been thinking about the same issue myself, we have taken away almost everything that causes natural selection, and after a while it could become a real problem that people who cant even survive without healthcare or excessive help in their everyday can bring on their genes. Especially if society were to collapse some day.

[odin]

100 years ago.. (or so) Anyone who had a severe allergy to things such as bees, or peanut oil.... died.
BUT with our medical technology, (specifically antihistamines) has made those people be able to pass those genes on.
Hence the dramatic increase of these allergies, and an increase in the severity of them.

[GrzegorzDurda]

We are in a system of entropy. We always lose information over time and will eventually run out of gene material.

[grimtygranule]

Nah, not speculation. We look back 150 years ago and almost every living American was fit and healthy. Now we have people who want being obese to be a cultural norm.

[SupLuiKir]

8:00 Minor nitpick: Another possible cause is that nonfunctional eyes cost less resources (building the eye, and brain effort to interpret the ocular signals), so for the situation where the fish isn't gaining anything from having functional eyes, those fish in the population that were more blind didn't have to eat as much, by at least a slight margin, to survive and propagate their genes. Each time you need to seek something to eat, you risk the chance that you don't find anything, and also the chance that to fall to predators that take advantage of your feeding behaviours, etc. Even needing to go eat a few less times in a lifetime can be a significant boon to your germ-line's survival rate.

[AlexVoxel]

I don't know if i should feel happy or sad...

[evanesqueda]

Bro I have always thought of this but never knew how to explain it, you did perfectly well.

[seanjhardy]

also selective pressures, people are attracted to the strongest most intelligent people.