How much further can humans evolve?

[Venats]

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.

Uh... most things in sci-fi have remained sci-fi. There are exceptions wherein science marches on but much of sci-fi is based on misconceptions of science or psuedo-science, whereas the things that have come to pass from sci-fi were themselves grounded in popular science at the time. Just look at what people thought was possible of the future (World of Tomorrow) in the 60s. Almost none of that has come to pass because it was either stupid or a gross misconception of reality.

I can for certain tell you that most space opera sci-fi from the 60s to today, is artistic not scientific. I am still of the impression that most transhumanists are also lost in their own fantasy worlds driven by a fear of death that they believe just about anything from the mouth of Ray Kurzweil. The idea of 'next gen' humans has merit (and is innevitable if we live long enough as a species) but not to the extremes that people seem to take it. Yes, augmentation is nice and would help people with disabilities, but mechanical parts while resilient to damage tend to have problems with magnetics and electromagnetism in general and have no reason to be used to replace fully functioning organic limbs.

... Of course, if it does come to pass and robot-humans become the new norm. Magnets will become the new guns, and carrying an electromagnet will be consider a capitol offense.

 

[ShindoL Shill]

well technology isnt actual evolution.
we can evolve to have perfect immune systems, or to have perfect metabolisms, or to not be twats or remove genetic defects or have superpowers.

 

[intheweeds]

I hate it when scientists and others alike say thing like "humans can't evolve." They don't look at the bigger picture, humans have evolved from neanderthals (is that how you spell it?) over millions of years and the CAN evolve, just not while natural selection has gone out the window with handicapped people and those with less desirable natural traits can roam around breeding. Personally I'd like the old meat and two veg to be refined a bit more, it always looks a bit of an after thought.

We didn't evolve from neanderthals, they were a completely different species that died out though certain characteristics of the neanderthals did outlive the species due to in breeding with homo sapiens (us)

The point I'm trying to make is that we're expecting humans to evolve over a period of ten thousand years, being generous, but that is a tiny number in comparison to how many years it's take us to get to here and still pathetic when looking at a species that has evolved fast, like certain types of fish, their name escapes me right now.

Oh I know that, as a species humanity has evolved massively faster than other species where changes take millions of years.

You think that's fast? Look at dogs. They evolve over a few generations.

OT: I can't remember where i heard this, but it has been said to me that science has a theory that we will eventually lose our pinky fingers. Sorry to all musicians.

 

[Raioken18]

Blue eyes a genetic mutation? Isn't that technically how all evolution happens? Sexual reproduction is an imperfect process and the changes that allow someone an edge in continuing their genetic line are those that eventually are considered a true part of the evolutionary process.

Blue eyes may have been considered a defect in the past, however blue eyes tend to be fairly desirable in our current society, green more so. Meaning that individuals with blue or green eyes would have an advantage in the selection of a partner.

Brown eyes being the dominant gene doesn't mean that it is more likely for the next generation of a blue-brown pairing to have the outcome of being brown, it just means that at the moment more people have brown eyes. If blue eyes continued to be prioritised sexually over thousands of years it may become the dominate gene itself.

However with billions of people across the world this process may take substansially longer.

Anyway this may be easier to explain in relation to height, individuals whos genes mutate in such a way that increases their height have a higher opportunity to breed than those who do not, this also applies to looks and other details, tall, dark and handsome, people who's genes mutate to give them those traits are valued much higher than those who have not.

The counter to this process is that the mutation must also occur within acceptable parameters, as any looks that deviate too far from the norm are usually considered undesirable. For example an extremely tall man will often be considered a freak, like I have a mate who is 7' and he is constantly ridiculed about his height.

Anyway that's how evolution happens. There are other factors that can influence it, but it would take too long to explain them all. Also, this is based around the classic model where weaker or inferior mates are often ignored, and desirable males mate with multiple partners for the purpose of sexual reproduction, (which is why it is technically flawed).

Also since money can also be a determining factor in sexual selection, it is likely to influence this process. So harder workers may be bred into society as opposed to lazy jobless types.

Again the exceptions are like bogans who have lots of children, this is also a stratergy to enable more of a chance for further cultivation of a genetic line... So bogans who have lots of children may be breeding fertility into the lower classes.

-ugh this would take forever to explain properly..

 

[Jacob Haggarty]

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.

This is going nowhere fast. In no particular order:

-You DID however say third world, which africa fits nicely into.
-I agree, thats a very interesting point.
-Whether its billions or thousands, the point is that the earth is overcrowded because of what we have achieved in order to preserve older people longer, and usher in new ones faster.
-Im not sure we're on the right page (about the whole chchchchanges thing). You say macro changes that are happening which we cant control, i'm talking about the way we control different areas of our lives as humans. Not how we control the planet. That responsibility rest soley with fish-people.

Shall we just put a stop to it here? This debate will go on until the trumpets sound, and god descends on a flaming chariot to say that we're both wrong. And that we should probably start praying or someething.

 

[health-bar]

No.

the earth only allowed us to live so we could invent plastic.
after that we are useless to it and shall be the first to go in the next great cataclysm.

but the plastic will remain so the planet can finally build the master race...

 

[Artic Xiongmao]

None, because macroevolution is false.

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.

You guys are kidding... right?

Wow. Education is really fucked up wherever you people are from. Statistically you lot are bound to be either from an islamic state or from the USA. Eitherway... holy fuck. Can't you just read the Wikipedia page to know why you are so utterly wrong and there is nothing but a "time-scale" difference between micro-evolution and macro-evolution?

Just... wow. I don't know where to begin. If someone wants to get a stab at it, okay. Or just recommend this people to read a fucking book.

 

[Venats]

This is going nowhere fast. In no particular order:

-You DID however say third world, which africa fits nicely into.
-I agree, thats a very interesting point.
-Whether its billions or thousands, the point is that the earth is overcrowded because of what we have achieved in order to preserve older people longer, and usher in new ones faster.
-Im not sure we're on the right page (about the whole chchchchanges thing). You say macro changes that are happening which we cant control, i'm talking about the way we control different areas of our lives as humans. Not how we control the planet. That responsibility rest soley with fish-people.

Shall we just put a stop to it here? This debate will go on until the trumpets sound, and god descends on a flaming chariot to say that we're both wrong. And that we should probably start praying or someething.

You know, you don't need to quote the whole thing.

I apologize if I made it seem like I was talking purely third world, I was saying it more as an inclusive of the third world but also cultures even in first world countries that have many more than 2.1 children per female. As for overcrowdedness, decreasing on the global scale by dropping our birth rate below 2.1 would certainly drop our populace but it creates generation gaps, which are largely negative to society and culture. There's no "best" way to fix overcrowdedness, either we leave the planet or a lot of people need to die/suffer/not be born.

I'm fine with stopping.

 

[Thetwistedendgame]

Give me some goddanged angel wings on the spot here nature! We already broke the rules that you made up beyond repair AND I WANT SOME AMUSEMENT!

 

[McNinja]

We won't, at least not much more. We have evolved to the point where instead of being forced to adapt to the environment, we can generally make the environment adapt to us (A/C, building cities/buildings in general). I do think that we will eventually reach a point similar to what is shown in Deus Ex: HR in terms of human modification.

Although we might just evolve into immortal, amoral, time-travelling beings (see the book Dancers at the End of Time).

 

[HooterNanny]

apparently we are getting taller. Thats evolution right?

yes it is.

selective through sexual preference.


we are getting taller, smarter (by 3% every decade), the dominant digit on the hand has changed in just the last 20 years (from forefinger to thumb, because of the "tools" we use) blonds are likely to go extinct and i suppose eventually someone will be born without an appendix.

its not standing still

in fact recent developments have shown that changes are happening far faster than they previously though possible (the dominant finger thing really shocked evolutionary scientists)

Regarding the appendix thing. Even if someone was born without an appendix, it's not like that would spread very far. Because a (I'm about to sound stupid) takey-out-appendix-operation, isn't a difficult procedure nowadays, and it's not like its a desireable trait for the opposite gender. Other stuff it correct though.

 

[Je Suis Ubermonkey]

*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.

(I am led to believe that) human refers to the genus, not the species, but I suppose it's a simple mistake/misunderstanding (I was never too hot on Kingdom/Genus/Species/Whatever anyhow. All seems a bit of a convoluted way to tell if something's a fish or not.)

Oh, and I saw a Doctor about the cough. He asked what I was doing at his house at 2AM. Apparently I have Getoffmylawnyoudarnyobitis. : )

 

[Zipa]

I hate it when scientists and others alike say thing like "humans can't evolve." They don't look at the bigger picture, humans have evolved from neanderthals (is that how you spell it?) over millions of years and the CAN evolve, just not while natural selection has gone out the window with handicapped people and those with less desirable natural traits can roam around breeding. Personally I'd like the old meat and two veg to be refined a bit more, it always looks a bit of an after thought.

We didn't evolve from neanderthals, they were a completely different species that died out though certain characteristics of the neanderthals did outlive the species due to in breeding with homo sapiens (us)

The point I'm trying to make is that we're expecting humans to evolve over a period of ten thousand years, being generous, but that is a tiny number in comparison to how many years it's take us to get to here and still pathetic when looking at a species that has evolved fast, like certain types of fish, their name escapes me right now.

Oh I know that, as a species humanity has evolved massively faster than other species where changes take millions of years.

I.
You think that's fast? Look at dogs. They evolve over a few generations.

OT: I can't remember where i heard this, but it has been said to me that science has a theory that we will eventually lose our pinky fingers. Sorry to all musicians.

doubt we would lose our pinkys since there is no evolutionary reason to do away with it, a few people might mutate and not have one and possibly have already but its not a benefit to the species so unlikely to happen

 

[DracoSuave]

So, while saying that I'm wrong about species adaptation, you go on and describe the process of species adaptation.

Just sayin'.

I feel like this is arguing semantics to some degree. Evolution in and of itself is not adaptation; adaptive species/lifeforms that survive simply tend to have the biggest sway in how evolution moves. Again, though, I feel like this is semantics except for one key detail: evolution can go backwards, adaptation doesn't tend to do such.

You're right, and a semantic argument isn't worth the time cause it clouds the point I was trying to make, which is that evolution is what ensures species will tend towards fitting their environment better over time, not about becoming faster/bigger/stronger/whatever.

An example is intellect. Many people have talked about intellect and sentience as proof of evolution's continued 'forward march' and that evolution must tend towards intellectual advancement.

The thing is, this is bullocks, because evolution doesn't WORK that way.

The truth of the matter is that this intellect has created for us various tools (which is our natural advantage). By the same token, we have members of our species that are creating weapons of mass destruction, doomsday devices. There exists gizmos that, if used, will eradicate most of humanity on the planet.

What this means is that the intellect of our species not only could endanger us individually, but could DIRECTLY be the cause of our self destruction. Therefore, from the stand point of evolution, we have yet to prove that intellect is even a desirable trait! It doesn't even matter if MOST of us smart monkeys know that self-destruction is bad... our intellect is such that it only takes a small number of monkeys with a small number of gizmos to eradicate our species from the map.

The only way intellect can be proven to be beneficial to our evolution is when intellect is not a threat to our continued existance as a species. And if we hit the button? Then evolution will have decided humanity fails, and we'll be fossils.

Evolution is NOT about maximizing a trait. It's about surviving. That's the ONLY proof in this pudding.

 

[LHZA]

No matter how well a species is adapted to their current environment, that is no indication that they will be well adapted to any changes in said environment.

 

[intheweeds]

I hate it when scientists and others alike say thing like "humans can't evolve." They don't look at the bigger picture, humans have evolved from neanderthals (is that how you spell it?) over millions of years and the CAN evolve, just not while natural selection has gone out the window with handicapped people and those with less desirable natural traits can roam around breeding. Personally I'd like the old meat and two veg to be refined a bit more, it always looks a bit of an after thought.

We didn't evolve from neanderthals, they were a completely different species that died out though certain characteristics of the neanderthals did outlive the species due to in breeding with homo sapiens (us)

The point I'm trying to make is that we're expecting humans to evolve over a period of ten thousand years, being generous, but that is a tiny number in comparison to how many years it's take us to get to here and still pathetic when looking at a species that has evolved fast, like certain types of fish, their name escapes me right now.

Oh I know that, as a species humanity has evolved massively faster than other species where changes take millions of years.

You think that's fast? Look at dogs. They evolve over a few generations.

OT: I can't remember where i heard this, but it has been said to me that science has a theory that we will eventually lose our pinky fingers. Sorry to all musicians.

I doubt we would lose our pinkys since there is no evolutionary reason to do away with it, a few people might mutate and not have one and possibly have already but its not a benefit to the species so unlikely to happen

I think that is precisely why they are saying that. It's useless, so eventually it will disappear. It a useless relic that will eventually drop off since there is no reason to have it.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Evolution is simply adaptation over time; at some point, it has to plateau into a cycle.

 

[ScorpioT]

Spoilers for DX:HR - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdHLJ92aSto&feature=related

The answer is right there.

 

[Joseph Alexander]

None, because macroevolution is false.

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.

You guys are kidding... right?

Wow. Education is really fucked up wherever you people are from. Statistically you lot are bound to be either from an islamic state or from the USA.

eh.. even here in the bible belt macro-evolution is generally accepted.
hell where do you think the whole "intelligent design" idea came from.

 

[Anthony Abney]

To do so little as to imagine that evolution could ever possibly end is... Mind boggling.

Both, human technology and evolution (Ninja'd on both! Aagh!) is skyrocketing in speed. Faster than ever before, and it will continue to go faster and faster.

This right here is the answer and end of the thread really. Evolution in all aspects of things cannot end, at least to our limited understanding.

Technically, it CAN end, after all, I find it hard to believe that an extinct species can continue to evolve.

Now that I have the slightly trollish comment out of the way, we will continue to evolve, and I kind of like that. I won't be alive to see it, but every time someone talks about human evolution, I think about the idea that one day, millions of years from now, everyone is Superman.