Sapience or evolvability?

This piece of authorship looks to be rather tedious as we approach it, so if'n yer in the midst of a crisis go on and find yer resolution, this will be ignored by so many, one more won't matter. For background it would be helpful to enlighten yer mind with the complete works of one George Mobus PhD, but for now his piece on “How did Mammals and Birds Survive the End-Cretaceous Event?” at http://questioneverything.typepad.com/question_everything/2013/02/how-did-mammals-and-birds-survive-the-end-cretaceous-event.html will do if'n yer having a hankering.

Put into terms that a normal hoser can decipher, why us humans are here as mammals and not dinosaurs has to do with junk DNA. Seems like evolution has been evolving to make evolving more evolutionary. At risk of oversimplifying, birds and mammals had more junk DNA in their gnome and mutations using this junk is easier than mutating fixed coding genes with less built in 'junk,' so they were quicker to adapt to the End-Cretaceous Event with it's nuclear winter. Seems like us humans have more junk DNA than most other creatures ever had.

Now we're on a roll here, us humans, 7.2 billion and growing. DNA is about 500 atomic mass units per base pair. One human has about three billion base pairs per cell and about 100 trillion cells. That means about 1026 base pairs of DNA or about 250 grams. According to a group of genetic scientists led by Dr Gerton Lunter of the University of Oxford’s Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, only 8.2 percent of human genome is likely to be doing something important. This means that 91.8% of the 250 grams or 229.5 grams is junk. That's 1652.4 billion grams (1.82145921 billion tons) of junk humans are toting around on earth. Talk about hoarding!

So what does this mean for the up and coming global events mankind is programming into mother nature's ways amidst shifting continents and volcanic episodes and asteroidal impacts? Has her a wee bit on edge, it does, this experimentation with splitting the atom and altering the biosphere and attempting to release most of the sequestered carbon in one wee century. Time to put some of that junk DNA to some use, she may be thinking, our mother nature. If global warming continues unabated, raising the Earth's temperature by 4.3C compared with its pre-industrial level the extinction risk rises to 8.5%. If we follow our current, business-as-usual trajectory, climate change threatens one in six species (16%).

“Evolvability is a property of a species to generate variations that are, in a sense, potentially pre-adaptive. That is, they can increase the rate of mutations, especially in selective genes, that increases the possibilities of advantageous results. This math works best for large population sizes or populations that are growing rapidly. There have to be many more individuals being conceived so that the increased mutation rate doesn't swamp the fitness of the species. This is because, as most people know, mutations are more often deleterious than helpful. There has to be an ability to “waste” individuals that end up with destructive mutations.” Ibid

So, 7.2 billion, we can waste a few mother nature reasons. We have genetically predisposed about 90% of these humans to holding strong intransigent values. Makes no matter what those values may be, yer economists, yer tea party cohorts, yer religious extremists, yer platitudinous socialists, let them bring forth their bit of atomic weaponry, induce a wee bit of global tepefaction and just wipe this slate clean, the modern flood of Noah. There. Now we can play around with mutations. What can survive the radioactive fallout, the chaotic weather, the hoards of gun toting scavengers? Why simple, she says, mother nature, we've got in that junk DNA somewhere a predisposition for psychic abilities. A bit of apportation, a pinch of psychokinesis, a dash of telepathy, a wisp of teleportation, that should do the trick.

Unto us one will be born. She will have children. They will have children. A clan amongst the remaining remnants of earth's human dregs will proliferate. By magick shall they overcome the riggers of survival. Their powers will increase through the generations, those most able to dodge the bullets by vaporizing, avoiding the clouds of nuclear fallout by jumping to the sunny hills, mind reading the trickery of the maniacal starving, munching on a juicy apple plucked from afar, those with these magicks will survive, and reproduce.

Glory be to the normal hoser. We carry within us the junk of salvation. We are the champions, my friends, and we'll keep on fighting 'til the end. We are the champions. No time for losers 'cause we are the champions of the world. It'll be no bed of roses my friends, no pleasure cruise, a challenge before the whole human race. But we ain't gonna lose.

Poosh

Glossary

Apportation is the ability to teleport inanimate objects or beings from one location to another.

Psychokinesis is the process of using only the mind, with no physical intervention, to manipulate physical objects. When the manipulation involves moving an object by mental effort, it is referred to as telekinesis.

Telepathy is the purported transmission of information from one person to another without using any of our known sensory channels or physical interaction.

Teleportation is the transfer of matter or energy, including oneself, from one point to another without traversing the physical space between them.