How much further can humans evolve?

[Joseph Alexander]

The human evolution is done, I think, at least the significant parts of it. Evolution (as I understand it) happens out of need (and can, as such, not be a selective process), and since we've firmly established ourselves at the very top of the food chain and developed technology to help us overcome our inbuilt limitations, the need has ceased, and therefore so has the evolutionary process.
Who knows, maybe in a few thousand years our bodies will wise up and ditch unnecessary components like the little toe or the appendix, but other than that, yeah, no more change.

That said, if we could select the direction of further (hypothetical) evolutionary process, I'd opt for an extra set of arms and the ability to levitate. (Too bad it wouldn't do me any good, since the fruits of evolution are only yielded to subsequent generations.)

no it hasn't and frankly we are about to change what evolution means in the coming decades.
in the future we will be able to CHOOSE our evolution and augmentation.
we will cease to be homo sapiens.
the only possible point where evolution would "end"(more likely slowing to the point of centuries between generations) is when we reach a point similar to the protoss from SC, the dreanei for WC or the ancients of SG, where our life cycles span indeterminate and don't self terminate.
effectively we become immortal, then yes our evolution will slow to the point that it seems to stop.
and we cease to be bound by the "laws" of the universe as we see them today.
and after that? we will likely end up moving to the point the protoss are at, becoming beings based on pure energy.

 

[Loop Stricken]

We could always evolve into a higher state of being...I wouldn't mind becoming a floating glowing mass, speaking to people through telepathy.

I would. I'd miss my wang.
but, in all seriousness give me Adam Jensen's genetic affinity for tech and load me up with those robot pieces. That's enough evolution for my short lifetime.

 

[The Lost Big Boss]

Evolution is just mutations in the replication of the DNA from parents. Depending on natural selection, the good ones get passed on through the generations, while the not as effective ones get lost in time. So as we last longer, we will have situations where mutations get passed down and spread. Lets not forget the possibility of human forced evolution that may be possible, depending on the ethics of it all.

*Note I could be completely wrong, and I blame that on the fact the last time I thought of any of this was two years ago in my bio class.
**Is it DNA or RNA? Is RNA the blueprint of the DNA, that proteins follow the RNA to make the DNA, and in the process is where the mutations happen?

 

[Venats]

no it hasn't and frankly we are about to change what evolution means in the coming decades.
in the future we will be able to CHOOSE our evolution and augmentation.
we will cease to be homo sapiens.
the only possible point where evolution would "end"(more likely slowing to the point of centuries between generations) is when we reach a point similar to the protoss from SC, the dreanei for WC or the ancients of SG, where our life cycles span indeterminate and don't self terminate.
effectively we become immortal, then yes our evolution will slow to the point that it seems to stop.
and we cease to be bound by the "laws" of the universe as we see them today.
and after that? we will likely end up moving to the point the protoss are at, becoming beings based on pure energy.

I think you've lost some connection with reality to the ideas of science fiction.

 

[trollax]

lets do some human augmentation

 

[Sonicron]

The human evolution is done, I think, at least the significant parts of it. Evolution (as I understand it) happens out of need (and can, as such, not be a selective process), and since we've firmly established ourselves at the very top of the food chain and developed technology to help us overcome our inbuilt limitations, the need has ceased, and therefore so has the evolutionary process.
Who knows, maybe in a few thousand years our bodies will wise up and ditch unnecessary components like the little toe or the appendix, but other than that, yeah, no more change.

That said, if we could select the direction of further (hypothetical) evolutionary process, I'd opt for an extra set of arms and the ability to levitate. (Too bad it wouldn't do me any good, since the fruits of evolution are only yielded to subsequent generations.)

no it hasn't and frankly we are about to change what evolution means in the coming decades.
in the future we will be able to CHOOSE our evolution and augmentation.
we will cease to be homo sapiens.
the only possible point where evolution would "end"(more likely slowing to the point of centuries between generations) is when we reach a point similar to the protoss from SC, the dreanei for WC or the ancients of SG, where our life cycles span indeterminate and don't self terminate.
effectively we become immortal, then yes our evolution will slow to the point that it seems to stop.
and we cease to be bound by the "laws" of the universe as we see them today.
and after that? we will likely end up moving to the point the protoss are at, becoming beings based on pure energy.

You're talking about biological alteration through means of technology. I actually do believe that is coming - maybe not right now, but certainly a few decades down the line. Who knows, maybe that will officially be classified as a form of human evolution.

However, for the purpose of your argument you quoted me out of context. What I meant was biological evolution as documented in the past, which was never ever ever a matter of personal choice; I was also correct in saying that it's only triggered by prolonged external threats or other needs set by the environment, and the way things are now, we as a species have no need of biological change (and as such it doesn't happen).

 

[Jacob Haggarty]

When did i ever say that we will dictate who lives and dies? I said that we are taking control of our environment, not that we have harnessed the power of god, or whatever it is youre thinking of. Yes, things die. Thats the raw essence of nature. But we wouldnt last HALF as long as we do without the help of medical attention and various pharmeceuticals.

I am not talking about the power of god; I am talking about only the biological system on Earth that contains trillions of units and possibilities (if I wanted to invoke the power of 'God', I'd point out that we (and all life with it) can be wiped clean off this Earth at any moment by the black hole at the center of our galaxy). We are taking control of our broader, day to day environment but we are also losing control of parts of the bacterial and viral level because of our over use (an attempt to control) of pharmaceuticals. We have created and are continuing to create more and more diverse bacterial strains each of which are becoming more and more resistant to our medicines. Its an arms race, if you want to call it that, between pharma and bacteria... and its quickly becoming a question of which will kill us first. (Because, as you'll notice, pharmaceuticals are become all the more double-edged as they become more potent to fight the ever more potent diseases we ourselves have created.)

We are also losing control of our macro environment... unless you think that we're not changing it faster than even we can adapt.

And this is the point im trying to get across: its because of our control of the environment that has an impact on our evolution. We change the environment, not the other way around. We no longer NEED to hunt, our food is provided for us. We no longer NEED to have children, it has become a choice.

Do you see what im saying? Im sorry if you got the wrong idea, i didnt mean that we had complete control over nature, just a lot of control over our environment.

I would argue that with each step we take to controlling one aspect of our lives/environment, we are losing control of another. People are obsessive with making their own lives better but tend to be blind to future and its repercussions.

We have created a great society, sure, and its has eliminated many of our past needs but its hardly done all that you say it has: We still need to have children (in fact, an average female needs to have 2.1 children in her life time to maintain the human population at a static number! The reason people can make choices about it one way or the other now is because many third world countries and older cultures still have many, many kids per female.), in changing our environment we will inevitably have to change to whatever it is we end up causing (so, in a way we force ourselves to change), and so on.

I wasn't really arguing about overall control, I just think you overestimate what we've done but maybe I'm underestimating it.

I agrue not so. Admittedly, i did overlook the idea behind MRSA and various other super-bugs, and how thats a problem to us, but you can surely see that, at least in the short to mid term, the way we have utilised medicinal drugs is a symbol of our influence of nature? Drugs can cure a person who would die without them, now, tell me that that isnt going against the very fundementals of the idea of natural selection.

I will concede however drugs as we know them are becoming far more risky affairs, with some drawbacks that actually seem WORSE than some of the symptoms.

As for our control of the environment, im talking species wise, not just in the familly. We will never lose control of a particular area just by focusing on a different one, the idea is a little strange. It would be like learning to cook better, but at the same time losing the control of your blader. Whatever advances we make in one particular aspect of our lives, be it sanitation or comfort of whatnot, they arent going to disapear when we start looking at others.

Lastly, the number at which you say women must have 2 and whatever children to maintain, is too high as it is. Look at other organisms in our environment (discounting bacteria). A lot of them have EXTREMELY low populations in comparison to ours. We have over populated a planet that can house plenty. The mind boggles at how we do this... that is until you consider our grasp on the environment, changing things for us so that older people survive longer, and so that conditions for birthing are greatly improved as well. Also, why would some family in africa having seven children influence my choice as to having children of my own or not? They need to have more children because of the much more hostile conditions they face. We face no such problem (coupled with the fact that we aren't exactly about to become extinct any time soon), which gives us a lot more choice in the matter. Ordinarily, in nature, producing offspring would be the very meaning of life, in order to ensure the contiued survival of our species... but now, survival is almost garunteed, because any problems presented can be overcome without having to first adapt.

Think (if you know of it) the childrens story about bears in the woods ("if you go down to the woods today..." no?)

"we cant go round it, might as well go through it." except it's more "We CAN go round it, so im sure as hell not going through it."

 

[Pat8u]

wow some people are like super villians here saying things like cull the bad genes don't let handicapped people procreate. really... I mean really we don't need natural selection anymore we have machines, the future will probabley see smarter evouloution in developed countrys and if there are the circumstances that it is now for the third world, the more physical evouloution will take place there.

(I know I'm probabley spouting bullshit here...)
also whats with the ever so present naysayers on this forum give me insight why you are so worried/depressed about the world

 

[Da Orky Man]

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?

It's unlikely that mankind will evolve naturally much more. There just isn't any reason to. however, that doesn't rule out the possibility of genetic modification.
My best guess is that we're going to artificially evolve into transhumans. Essentially, use technology to improve our bodies, much like what Deus Ex is based around, though the general idea has been around for yoinks.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transhumanism

 

[Uszi]

Wrong.

Evolution is not the same as Natural Selection. They are closely linked but not the same. Natural selection is if your not suited to your environment you dont pass on your genes (or are less likely to). Evolution on the other hand is just caused by mutations affecting a speciesn for good or for worse
If you think about it Evolution wasnt really needed to begin with yet still happens. assuming life started off as single celled microbs, then how does joining together with others ultimately help? If you (the single cell) die then yh the others may continue but you still died so evolution didnt help that mauch but it still happened.
Anyway what i mean by that is that evolution just happens due to mutation which WILL happen almost every single time you reproduce so humanity WILL evolve, some changes may help others wont but it is still evolution which WILL happen.

I mean, evolve in the strictest sense of the word. Technically if 5% of a population is blue-eyed 1 year and 4.9% of the population is blue-eyed the next year, then the population evolved. But almost no one in the thread is talking purely about changes in allele frequency over time, everyone is talking about major changes.

So, wrong, I guess, if you're going to be picky about semantics. I still think I am correct if we're talking about major changes, especially the major changes people are talking about (i.e. large human populations lacking an appendix, human populations gaining better or worse physical features, etc).

You are not going to evolve "significant" changes without some directional force shaping how allele frequencies change from one generation to the next. As a species we've removed all of those directional forces through science and technology.

 

[spartandude]

I'm going to say this one more time then il leave before the lack of knowledge most people here possess drives me insane.
Evolution is NOT based in need.
Evolution is NOT linear and heading towards some ultimate point.
Evolution is NOT the same as natural selection (very closely related but not the same).
Evolution is NOT slowing down or stopping because we are at the top of the food chain.
Evolition IS going to continue very very slowly.

Evolution occurs due to tiny little mutations which happen everytime you reproduce. Over hundreds of thousands of generations these add up to so something substantial for better or for worse.
Also there is little chance the entire human population will evolve in the same way.

There im going now.

 

[Je Suis Ubermonkey]

(Massive Snipping abound)

From someone who studied Biology at college

I know for a fact [citation/multiple reputable sources needed] you won't find people who are more resistant to cancer having more grand children, since most cancers set on past when most people reproduce. Therefore, cancer has a negligible impact on human reproduction. Maybe an immunity to testicular cancer or breast cancer which might set in before people reproduce, but that's a bit of a stretch.

So, do you think that, from the economic divide between First and Third world areas, two separate sub-species of humanity might evlove? (P.S. I'm studying genetics, so I know that any organism will develop a divide between species if separated by say a geographical event, but could the same thing come about today, in an age of easy long-distance travel, and would it happen before technological advances could be shared that would allow developing countries to catch up to us?)

No. We would need to be completely isolated for millions of years. Since that isn't the case now (there's a lot of legal and illegal immigrations between countries), and probably won't be the case in the future, it won't happen.

The developing world doesn't need to catch up technologically. Interbreeding between the developed and developing world already exists on a scale sufficient to prevent isolation. Think about this: for the millions of years that human populations were isolated from one another in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe and the Americas, we still didn't split into multiple species.

*cough*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo *cough*
I count fourteen different kinds of human over two million years in that list. Wikipedia isn't exactly well known for accuracy, but I think we can trust it not to be out by 1300% when counting numbers.

Your stated qualifications from the start of your post should mean you know a lot about doing research and providing sources. Please try to do so when making statements involving such words as 'know' and 'fact'. They are words which belong in the field of mathematics, not science.

OT: We will continue to evolve so long as there is the need to adapt. There will be the need to adapt so long as there is environmental change. Even were there not any natural environmental change, which there always has been for the past billions of years, we would create our own change, like we are doing now.

Some people are saying we are 'top of the food chain'. We are not. Diseases use us as hosts all the time, with ease. We are caught in a perpetual 'arms race' of sorts with microbial life, a race with no foreseeable end. In many cases we are losing.

The only thing that stops evolution is extinction. The only thing that will stop human evolution is extinction.

Oh yes, and all the medical/ social changes that keep people alive, somehow 'stopping' natural selection, can make it possible for a mutation which is not necessarily beneficial to become widespread as it no longer harms chances of reproduction; all it needs is to be dominant and lucky. With mutations like this spreading one could reasonably expect evolution to accelerate.

 

[Joseph Alexander]

no it hasn't and frankly we are about to change what evolution means in the coming decades.
in the future we will be able to CHOOSE our evolution and augmentation.
we will cease to be homo sapiens.
the only possible point where evolution would "end"(more likely slowing to the point of centuries between generations) is when we reach a point similar to the protoss from SC, the dreanei for WC or the ancients of SG, where our life cycles span indeterminate and don't self terminate.
effectively we become immortal, then yes our evolution will slow to the point that it seems to stop.
and we cease to be bound by the "laws" of the universe as we see them today.
and after that? we will likely end up moving to the point the protoss are at, becoming beings based on pure energy.

I think you've lost some connection with reality to the ideas of science fiction.

I'd like to point out, how often does science fiction stay just that fiction?
time and time again what was deemed impossible notions in fiction has become solid reality.
flight, space travel, reaching the moon, and lately a panacea that fight any infectious disease.
the point i'm making here is; that if we can dream it we can make it.

 

[Valkyrie101]

We could evolve a predisposition against cancer and other deseases. A predisposition to be better at buisness.

They'd be useless from an evolutionary perspective. Cancer overwhelming tends to affect older people, at least people reaching the limit of, or past childbearing age. It would seem logical, but once they've dumped their seed they're no longer necessary. It's not about who survives so much as who survives long enough to mate a lot. As with business: poor or unsuccessful people have just as many kids.

 

[Venats]

I agrue not so. Admittedly, i did overlook the idea behind MRSA and various other super-bugs, and how thats a problem to us, but you can surely see that, at least in the short to mid term, the way we have utilised medicinal drugs is a symbol of our influence of nature? Drugs can cure a person who would die without them, now, tell me that that isnt going against the very fundementals of the idea of natural selection.

In a way, I agree we have undermined natural selection (on the immediate to very short term) but what I was asserting was that in surviving one aspect of what was once fatal, we have now created another thing that is fatal. Think of it this way: someone gets ill, and by natural selection they would have died, but human doctors intervene with strong medical cocktails and save the person. However, in saving him, a strand of the disease survives, mutates, and now spreads from him to others who would have NOT died from this disease before (in its original form, as they were immune/resilient) but cannot defend themselves against the new strain.

You've stopped natural selection in one state but in doing so created it somewhere else. This is my point and why I said that humans have control of the day-to-day world but not much else.

I will concede however drugs as we know them are becoming far more risky affairs, with some drawbacks that actually seem WORSE than some of the symptoms.

My personal favorite was something my mom was given for her fractured ankle. Side effect: Death. She laughed and threw it away.

As for our control of the environment, im talking species wise, not just in the familly. We will never lose control of a particular area just by focusing on a different one, the idea is a little strange. It would be like learning to cook better, but at the same time losing the control of your blader. Whatever advances we make in one particular aspect of our lives, be it sanitation or comfort of whatnot, they arent going to disapear when we start looking at others.

Family? I am speaking macro changes to our environment which are happening, which we have sped up, and which we can (probably) no longer control/stop.

Lastly, the number at which you say women must have 2 and whatever children to maintain, is too high as it is. Look at other organisms in our environment (discounting bacteria). A lot of them have EXTREMELY low populations in comparison to ours. We have over populated a planet that can house plenty. The mind boggles at how we do this... that is until you consider our grasp on the environment, changing things for us so that older people survive longer, and so that conditions for birthing are greatly improved as well. Also, why would some family in africa having seven children influence my choice as to having children of my own or not? They need to have more children because of the much more hostile conditions they face. We face no such problem (coupled with the fact that we aren't exactly about to become extinct any time soon), which gives us a lot more choice in the matter. Ordinarily, in nature, producing offspring would be the very meaning of life, in order to ensure the contiued survival of our species... but now, survival is almost garunteed, because any problems presented can be overcome without having to first adapt.

Think (if you know of it) the childrens story about bears in the woods ("if you go down to the woods today..." no?)

"we cant go round it, might as well go through it." except it's more "We CAN go round it, so im sure as hell not going through it."

The number I quoted is not for maintaining our current billions it is the number needed to maintain ANY number of humans at a steady position (no growth or decline) without massive and damaging generations gaps (see: China). As for what I said about other cultures/peoples having more children, that was my telling you as to why human populace continues to increase as many people have more than the 2.1 per woman. I wasn't specifically speaking of Africa or places where children don't live past 13.

 

[Kevin7557]

The limit lies within us.

 

[Randomosity]

We can always continue with Micro-evolution but as for Macro-evolution (such as us coming from apes) that is scientifically impossible, Macro-Evolution is pure sci-fi seeing as both the Law of Biogenesis and the second law of thermodynamics both go against Macro-evolution. Though Micro-evolution is a very well proven thing and is constantly happening.

 

[Uszi]

*cough*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo *cough*
I count fourteen different kinds of human over two million years in that list. Wikipedia isn't exactly well known for accuracy, but I think we can trust it not to be out by 1300% when counting numbers.

Your stated qualifications from the start of your post should mean you know a lot about doing research and providing sources. Please try to do so when making statements involving such words as 'know' and 'fact'. They are words which belong in the field of mathematics, not science.

Homo is genus, not a species.

I was talking about humans as a species, homo sapiens. I was not talking about other species within our genus.

The only thing I did wrong was say "millions of years" when I showed have said 200,000 years. Of course, I was also responding to people talking about how we're going to be born without appendixes in the future, so it wasn't a distinction that I was very careful with.

La-di-da, dude. You should go see a doctor about that cough.