How much further can humans evolve?

[Hamish Durie]

well you see while humans can do all those things they also can't fly so the next evolutions will be us (mabye a bit taller) with jetpacks and mabye the next evolution we might be able to breath fire

 

[Rems]

Of course we will keep evolving. Evolution is caused by genetic mutation, which has a chance of occurring every time dna replicates, everytime you have a child.

 

[MichaelTheBold]

The human race will keep on evolving until we all become sterile.

yeeep
or at least till we all grow wings.
thats when im happy~

 

[Overlord93]

Maybe evolution is going at a steady pace, but scientists view is changing...
Earth was once flat and Sun revolved around Earth... see what i mean... Wee know shit about stuff.

 

[renegade7]

This reminds me of the movie Idiocracy

Anyway, there are no selective pressures to cause us to evolve.

 

[tehroc]

Uploading your consciousness and sub-consciousness into cyberspace and existing with other AI count as evolution?

 

[OniYouji]

When we can grow wings, breathe underwater and can telepathically communicate with our closest friends, rendering phones virtually useless.

 

[Wushu Panda]

This is just a thought which came to me the other day. I was looking out the window of the bus and realised how far humanity has come since the early days. Scientific and technological advancements have compensated for nearly all our shortcomings. Cars, heavy machinery, computers, medical achievements, have allowed us to become lords of the planet.
Then a thought struck me; have we taken ourselves outside of evolution? Wild animals have predation, harsh weather conditions, foraging or hunting for food, sickness, and a myriad other worries, but for humans, dangerous animals can be repelled or destroyed, houses (and in extreme cases, bunkers) protect us from the weather, or food is easier to access than ever, and . So I wonder, do humans have ANY remaining evolutionary pressures, in the First World climate at least, and if so what traits would they select for?

I think you're looking at it wrong. You cannot escape evolution. We have pressures all around us at all times.

Overall I would say Humans have chosen as a mass to evolve intellectually, as you said "we have a greater understanding of diseases and inherent frailties and how to compensate for them than ever before." Instead of waiting for evolution to take over we started inventing and creating structures; buildings instead of caves, cars instead of fast legs, planes instead of wings, etc. We have been artificially enhancing ourselves for hundreds of years now to have qualities of animals our DNA hasn't built into us. And will continue to do so I'm sure for the rest of our existence.

As for current pressures, space on Earth. People like to act as if there is plenty of room but Humans currently use resources as if we had about 4 Earths. We will either evolve to find a way to solve this problem (ie. colonizing other planets) or die as a species giving way for something else to have a chance.

Personally I think it might be Cephalopods (octopi, squid, cuttlefish). Not only do they have some of the coolest naturally gifted abilities, but it's been proven they also have remarkable problem solving skills and large amount of intelligence. If they find a way to walk on land and grow....we're boned.

 

[Futureman]

my friend is convinced we will grow another finger just for texting..

 

[martin's a madman]

Not watching?
1% difference in DNA from chimps is everything humans have ever accomplished. Rockets, Quantum Theory, Medicince, atomic theory.

Now 1% more different in the same direction we are from chimps.

Holy shit.

 

[BytByte]

Humans might not be able to evolve much more because the evolved ones will be considered a new species.

 

[blankedboy]

I'd imagine not very much as long as there are 6-7 billion of us. It's very hard to get significant amounts of variation with such a large population, unless we split into small isolated groups. So yeah, I'd say we won't evolve much until there's less of us. At least not particularly fast.

 

[Plazmatic]

This is just a thought which came to me the other day. I was looking out the window of the bus and realised how far humanity has come since the early days. Scientific and technological advancements have compensated for nearly all our shortcomings. Cars, heavy machinery, computers, medical achievements, have allowed us to become lords of the planet.
Then a thought struck me; have we taken ourselves outside of evolution? Wild animals have predation, harsh weather conditions, foraging or hunting for food, sickness, and a myriad other worries, but for humans, dangerous animals can be repelled or destroyed, houses (and in extreme cases, bunkers) protect us from the weather, or food is easier to access than ever, and we have a greater understanding of diseases and inherent frailties and how to compensate for them than ever before. So I wonder, do humans have ANY remaining evolutionary pressures, in the First World climate at least, and if so what traits would they select for?

well we would definitily evolve, the problem though, is that we have so many fetishes even sexual natural selection doesn't work out too well for us, however scientists believe we will become taller (than we are now) and more symmetrical, as there is no fetish for non-symmetrical people). The reason we would become taller (and already are as we can actually see natural selection taking place in this aspect) is because we(well most of us, even in poor countries) don't have to worry about getting enough food, or there not being enough to feed us, selecting the taller people who can now live and sustain themselves because they now have the nutrients to live, This was Opposed to before, where we were not always guaranteed food, or could maintain 6ft heights and eat enough.

Another example of human evolution today is sickle cell anemia, a genetic blood disease that changes the shape of your blood cells, which, in Africa, is chosen over normal people due to the fact that Malaria can't infect you if you have it.

Besides this because we are not really selecting for anything else the human race could go anywhere, because people aren't selecting for anything, and most people are not particularly susceptible to anything any more due to genetic traits, because of modern medicine.

 

[Rex Fallout]

I have no idea what you're saying in your last two sentences. Hair colour is like skin colour rather than the ability to roll your tongue. Black man who can roll his tongue gets with white woman who can't roll her tongue; the result will be a child who is either able or unable to roll his tongue, NOTHING IN BETWEEN, but with regard to skin colour; he won't be white just like his mother, or black just like his father, he'll be something inbetween, (though he'll look more black than white as black skin is dominant), it's not one or the other, hair colour is exactly like skin colour in this regard.

*sigh* the last two sentences were a joking reference to Bioshock that you obviously didn't get. But ignoring that very sad fact, you just effectively agreed with me. Chances are the blonde will not show very much or at all compared to the dark hair.

 

[stutheninja]

genetically we already are evolving, but i think we can even speed it up further with technology if we apply it to our bodies, Deus Ex style i suppose, just not as extreme to start out with, you gotta work your way there first

 

[Bobbity]

[HEADING=2]Random mutations of someone's genetic code cause evolution, not the environment around them.[/HEADING] The environment only determines in which direction that progress moves. That means, therefore, that we will never stop evolving, contrary to what seems to be the predominant attitude of this thread.

In my opinion, we're entering an incredibly interesting and unprecedented area of our development; the explosion of evolution. The world's population is insanely high, flight permits us to travel to the other side of the globe in a matter of hours (and therefore to be able to crossbreed amongst the entire global population), and modern medicine, technology and society as a whole mean that no longer will people with potentially negative mutations die and be unable to reproduce.

If anything, things are about[footnote]About being a relative term - referencing a period of millions of years. [/footnote] to get a lot more interesting.

 

[Astoria]

I guess we'll eventually evolve to the point where no one has appendixes or wisdom teeth but apart from that I can't see much changing. We make everything adapt to us now instead of the other way around.

 

[Slayer_2]

Well, we'll eventually lose most body hair, our toes will recede further, we'll lose toe/finger nails. At least I think so, considering they all serve little point in our day-to-day lives. Our fingers will likely get stronger and longer, too.

This was pretty much what I was going to say. Of course, I was also thinking that we might grow a sixth or seventh finger... somehow.

I was actually gonna say that too, but that'd be really far in the future, thousands of years instead of decades or hundreds of years.