How much further can humans evolve?

[CarlMin]

When you look out of that buss, try to remember that you are seeing a very small part of your planet, where a very small percentage of the human population live, during a very short period of time on this planet. And it'll be gone soon enough.

Humans haven't gotten far. There are families of bacteria that are more successful. Just because some of us live in some unnatural level of luxury, with tools that makes our lives more complex but relatively safe, doesn't mean that we have achieved anything notable in my opinion.

This doesn't mean I hate human society, or that I'm some kind of misanthropic anarchist. I'm just sticking around enjoying this while it lasts, but I think that we should see humanity for what it is - some sort of evolutionary mutation. And we aren't lords of the planet simply because we have the power to destroy it.

 

[Venats]

Yes. We do still evolve and our bodies are in a constant arms race though granted we may soon subvert even that, our medicinal capabilities are set to skyrocket soon (high as they are now).

The stronger our medicine and the more resilient we make ourselves to one part of the disease spectra, we create/induce a far stronger disease that evolves within our very own resilient/healthy/treated systems. The arms race that our bodies and that nature are a part of is only going to get faster, more volatile, and more immediate.

Its funny, but we're driving some of our slower processes of evolution/survival into overdrive.

 

[Deverfro]

Well we buggered natural selection with medical advances. So evolution probably won't play a big role, those medical advances will. So I'd guess we'll get robotic limbs and stuff, like Deus Ex: HR (relevent ). Or maybe science will acelerate eveoluton and we'll end up with telepothy. OR we'll end up with mutants (ala X-men). So any way it does head, It will be awesome!

 

[Klopy]

Only our immune systems can evolve now to overcome disease. I mean... Perhaps our intestines will evolve to stop absorbing so much fat from greasy food nowadays... but I doubt it. With natural selection gone, all genetic differentiation will enter the gene pool, as oppose to only the 'best', so no more evolving.

Unless in the future scientists come out with Plasmids or something so I can grow a pair of wings :3

 

[The Stonker]

You do know that evolution takes... a very long time, riiiight?

 

[R0cklobster]

apparently we are getting taller. Thats evolution right?

I think that's got more to do with better diet, not evolution. I'm pretty certain there's a finite amount you can grow before you run into biological problems. For example, a lot of those really (and I mean INSANELY tall people, like over 8 feet) need crutches or other aids to be able to walk.

 

[lacktheknack]

Until the planet blows up. By definition, we can't stand still evolutionarily as long as the environment is changing.

 

[TiloXofXTanto]

Natural selection is in fact impossible for us.

But evolution isn't Natural selection, it is basically just extended genetics, and until we only a race of clones incapable of breeding, the evolution of our species will forever continue, using sexual selection and randomness in tandem.

 

[Gibboniser]

Wolverines are awesome, the're like half bear half wolf and twice as amazing. But well, tits are getting bigger, which is evolution, since for the main part bigger tits are seen as more attractive, which results in bigger titted(?) women having more children yada yada.

 

[NeutralDrow]

We'll evolve until we die off. That's how it works.

 

[TiloXofXTanto]

I respectively disagree. It's not just dark hair and light hair, there's all sorts of the inbetween when it comes to shades of hair colour, it's not one or the other as you claim it to be.

Crap I didn't explain it right, I just said dark. Assuming Dark is, lets say, Brown hair. Brown hair is the dominant Gene as compared to say Blonde Hair. I'm not entirely positive whether or not other hair colors are Recessive or Dominant, but that's pretty much the way it works. Works the same way with eye color I believe. Feel free to try and prove me wrong, Genetics isn't my forte. All I am absolutely positive about when it comes to genetics is that if I see a needle with a glowing liquid inside, I stab that bad boy into my arm! NO QUESTIONS ASKED.

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.

Actually, skin color is determined by a ton of different factors involving the production of various chemicals in the skin. Hair color does have a similar process, but most of the genes for darker hair colors are dominant and overtake the lighter shades entirely, similar to how eye color works.

The genes determining hair color are far less complicated than skin color.

 

[WhyBotherToTry]

There are some parts of the body we don't use anymore, like the appendix (and possibly the smallest toe, I'm not sure on that one), that will probably disappear altogether as humans continue to change.

 

[thirion1850]

We as a species have a certain other enemy and competition - our selves. There you go.

 

[Delsana]

Biologically we are probably stagnant as no real changes have occurred in us for quite some time.

So biological evolution is out of the question, but technological "augmentation", "application", and "adaptation"?

Well... that is possible.

I expect medical nanites in most of us.

 

[Delsana]

There are some parts of the body we don't use anymore, like the appendix (and possibly the smallest toe, I'm not sure on that one), that will probably disappear altogether as humans continue to change.

We use the appendix, urban myth that we don't... just like the preying mantis myth and most others.

It's not a sponge or an index... but it's very useful.

 

[Wickatricka]

They say by 2050 half a million people will be over the age of 100.

 

[Death God]

Taking out obvious evolutions like growing taller/shorter and living longer/shorter lives, humans could begin adapting to harsher climates such as extreme colds and warms; we could adapt by clotting faster to reduce blood loss; we could adapt by getting more white cells to combat against Aids, cancer, and multiple other diseases and viruses; or we could develop our organs with increasing lung sizes or increasing heart muscles. There are many, MANY ways humans can keep evolving, it all simply depends on a need or and environment that calls for such an evolution to survive.

 

[Patinator]

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)

Any chance there is a study or document on that? I would be extremely interested in reading that. Or anything else like that as well.

 

[JambalayaBob]

Social progress leads to further evolution. There are already some signs of two species diverging from humanity, one that is smarter, and one that is more brutal. Not saying it's gonna happen, but it could, just one possibility. But there has definitely already been micro evolution in the civilized human. post-infantile lactose tolerance is a recessive trait, most people couldn't drink cow milk until we figured out that some people could and we started selling it. And there's also this, which is interesting: (http://gyazo.com/ddd0b1150f68c50493ab0fc86bbcf914). We're still evolving, maybe at even a faster rate than pre-agricultural days, it makes sense, with how much population growth humans have seen.

 

[Xman490]

We are still evolving, faster even than most species. We are becoming taller overall and our digits are lengthening overall. Go back to a old castle and look at the doorways they are almost all too low for a human adult male to walk through without stooping somewhat. Usually these kinds of changes take hundreds of thousands or millions of years.

The other obvious one is that our bodies can tolerate gluten, only about 1% of us can't any more. Go back far enough to pre farming of the cereals , back then more peoples bodies were gluten intolerant, so we have changed and adapted in about 9000 years or so.
Oh and a small percentage of people are starting to show a limited resistance to the AIDS virus in Africa, something that is very recent in terms of evolution.

All that in around 10 thousand years? I thought evolution was much slower.