How much further can humans evolve?

[Heartcafe]

Apes probably thought that their form was the furthest that they would ever go. Now look at them.

We could evolve to grow wings, have 4 legs, develop psychic powers. We will always keep evolving.

And I won't be there to see it

Dammit scientist. Work your mutating-gene stuff faster!

 

[SilentCom]

Evolution isn't a linear path. This should answer your question if you think about it.

 

[Richardplex]

I'm still waiting for me wings to sprout. Genetic material unfortunately is pretty resilient against whining though.

 

[Continuity]

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?

Not many thats for sure, though I think a big one (negative evolutionary pressure that is) will be success. More intelligent, wealthy, successful people are tending to have less kids, or none at all.... Where as those at the bottom of society sprout children like they're going out of fashion.

Apes probably thought that their form was the furthest that they would ever go. Now look at them.

We could evolve to grow wings, have 4 legs, develop psychic powers. We will always keep evolving.

Your lack of understanding pains me. Pray tell, how exactly do you think evolution works?

 

[Zeriu]

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.

Please enlighten us oh great master of scientific law. prove Macroevolution to be law instead of the theory that it currently is. Also explain how it was Mutation when in fact most mutations result in the death of the creature instead of it becoming a new species or better. Take the four winged fruit fly. its extra 2 wings are useless and cripple it. We have never once found an anatomical mutation that benefits any species in any way. Also almost every "missing link" that has been found has generally come up as a severe case of rickets disorder.

1. Read this for the definition of scientific theory:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_theories#Pedagogical_definition

2. If certain mutations reduce the survivability of species, and the species is not currently extinct, it has some other trait that balances or even overcomes that handicap. Natural selection means "survival of the fittest", where fittest doesn't mean perfect. It means that species that still survive today must have certain traits that might leave it vulnerable in some cases, but a survivor in most.
Just read the second paragraph in this section:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_selection#Evolution_by_means_of_natural_selection

3.You are correct in the fact that most mutations have no effect, or are detrimental, but the ones that are beneficial will be more likely to increase the survivability of the species.

4. Read this section of the Wikipedia article for confirmation that macro-evolution is not a hoax:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macro-evolution#Misuse
If you don't trust some guy who wrote the article please consult the sources he referred to.

5. Keep your opinions to yourself, if you want to discuss science you should provide facts.

 

[AlAaraaf74]

Us Americans will grow to be sooo fat, that our children will be born without limbs and they must roll as a mean of transportation.

 

[Blatherscythe]

apparently we are getting taller. Thats evolution right?

As long as shelves get taller, so shall we.

OT: Evolution is adapting to you environment. The characteristics that are best suited to the evironment get passed on to the next generation. We can keep evolving as long as our change in environment isn't to drastic and sudden.

 

[uzo]

I'm just leaping in here before reading the whole thread ... too many damned pages ... but on the first few I've noticed already that people seem to have trouble understanding evolutionary and environmental changes.

Dominant fingers? That's due to PRACTICE, not evolution. Likewise, if we were required to all walk backwards everywhere all our lives we'd all get better at it. That's not evolution, it's just practical specialisation. Again, if we ran everywhere all the time, we'd get faster and fitter - through PRACTICE. Evolutionarily we are still the goddamn same.

Getting taller? That's due to medicine and access to better and more varied diet. We have a biological, genetic level for height - a 'best case scenario' - and that's what we're reaching. If you TRULY think that tall people are out-breeding short people to the point that it's influencing us at a genetic level, you *really* need to double check your stats.

Becoming smarter? Noooooo. We most definitely are not. Our *edu-ma-cation* is becoming more specialised - essentially, "taught-to-test". That's the reason European middle class kids invariably do better than an African slum-dwelling kid - they're taught how to answer IQ tests from an early age. How to 'appear' intelligent, without necessarily actually *being* smart.

So, in summary, EVOLUTION isn't a process that happens through practice. It's basically something that means you can pass your genes on - you SURVIVE where others DIE or become unable to breed. And frankly having agile thumbs and being able to answer logarithms and understanding calculus, like walking backwards quickly, means FUCK ALL on that level. A clear demonstration of evolution is things like the tendency of Europeans to be lactose tolerant - if you couldn't eat cheese through the winter, YOU DIED.

EDIT:

Let's just wait until evolution gives the first humans the "ability" to use more than 10% of their/our brain and see were that takes us.

Brains don't work that way. There's a balance of inputs and outputs required. Let me illustrate further:

A scientist one day said "you know we only use 10% of our brains ..." and some journalist went "OMG That's amazing!" and ran off before the scientist could finish saying - and this is the important part! - "...for conscious thought. The other 90% is required for maintaining our automatic phsyiological functions."

In other words, sure, we only use 10% for what we consider to be 'thinking'. But the other 90% is ALREADY IN USE keeping us vertical, bipedal, balanced, etc. Think of our 10% as being the GUI of Windows; your computer is working 90% however on the backend programmes, virus protection, printer drivers, iTunes helper, nVidia drivers, and system32 stuff that is keeping it from crashing (ie keeping us from dropping dead).

 

[antofdeath]

<.< basic definition of evolution would mean, humans would evolve 0, to evolve would make us no longer human, just saying. baiz

 

[Fleaman]

ROBOT BODY

 

[Samurai Silhouette]

Until humans die out. However, if we humans can instill enough of our "selves" into machines, we could give birth to a new species of sentient robot beings that can autonomously adapt and evolve as well. That would be AWESOME!

 

[Pillypill]

Infinitly, or at least to our extinction.
Infact i imagine that eventually humans will control their own genetic evolution, we might increase our body size to accomidate larger brains or greater muscle mass, we might place [name of photo-reflective cell found in the eyes of cats]behind our retinas to allow us to see in the dark, or even vain and commercial things like changing ones iris' to any colour or pattern.

 

[Warforger]

what traits would they select for?

A good thing actually, the violent people are going to die by getting killed.

Well if technology continues to advance we may evolve with it, our bodies depending on them more and more each generation. Until eventually we would literally die without them. Though on a shorter term eventually we will most likely evolve into just one race, rather than many different races. With the ease of travel and not needing the specific racial attributes that people of different parts of the world evolved to have, we will all end up combining into one universal.

That's not how evolution works. Evolution works by killing those who can't survive the new environment, no one is getting killed because they're not dependent on technology now. The society may get to that but not the race as a whole.

 

[2012 Wont Happen]

We need no more biological evolution. Now we merely need societal evolution.

And I think you can all tell by my avatar where I'm going with this.

 

[Badassassin]

We live cushy lives, no real natural selection. So, from what I can see, appendix will be nixed, as will tailbone, and we will become resilient to diseases.

More likely is technological evolution. I could bring up that exponential growth graph that shows how technology will soon reach infinity in growth.... but I'm lazy, and I'm sure you've seen it.

 

[Eventidal]

If anything we will continue to DE-volve as we have been doing slowly. There's probably not much evidence to support what I say, but we humans are among the LEAST evolved animals on this planet, or at least the ones worst suited to long-term survival that have been around so long.
The more technology improves, the less our bodies have to do to survive, and those features end up evolving away. Humanity will end up dying off eventually, whether by the forces of ourselves or nature. Maybe we'll just suck the planet dry of non-renewable resources and fly off into space in search of another planet to sustain life, only to find ours is the only one within reach. Who knows; all I can say for sure is we'll be long gone by then. xD

 

[Keepeas]

yeah...evolution never stops.
But it does take a long, LONG time.
And we are helping the "un-fit" survive with current technology.

What advances us as a human race now is mostly technology due to the accelerating speed at which make advancements in technology, which is helped by the huge population of us that has accumulated here.
(Seriously, people need to stop having children if they can't afford them and no more than 2 children)
The population is RIDICULOUS

 

[Condiments]

Humans have essentially created their next path of evolution through technology. Organic evolution is a very slow process that can take thousands of years(often MANY more) to get the desired result if said species survives. We're running on very old hardware at the moment, which has caused a cropping of problems in societies throughout the world.

Through the rapid technological development, we can rewrite what that limitations of humanity and what it MEANS to be human. We just have to open our minds when the time comes.

 

[Grand_Arcana]

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.

The scientist in me would like to tell you that no self respecting biologist would ever say that humans can't evolve. He would also like to let you know that we didn't evolve from Homo neanderthalensis. The relationship between our species is analogous to that between Lions and Leopards; evolutionary brothers instead of parent & child.

 

[conflictofinterests]

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?

Your last sentence says it all, as far as my explanation goes. Humans aren't individual evolutionary entities at this point. Evolution, as far as the human race is concerned, acts on our societies, not us. Natural selection does still affect us, but on a societal level. Basically, as each person in a society is dependent on and invested in the survival of others in their society, and breeding within societies neatly negates the vast majority of evolutionary pressures, societies act less like a confluence of individuals and more like organisms. Some ways of life are dying out, some already have, and some are flourishing. The environment that affects humans first and foremost affects their society and way of life.

I think I rambled... x_x