Human Evolution...

[aussiesniper]

Evolution is one of the biggest farces in human history. There is no actual proof that it has ever happened, nor that it is happening now, yet so many people have fallen for the lie. All the things that have been promoted as being proof of evolution have been revealed to be hoaxes. It's worse than when people thought the Earth was flat.

check out sites like www.drdino.com to learn the truth about dinosaurs, evolution, the age of the earth and more. It's interesting stuff.

If you're actually serious, then I truly hope that we never begin a theological argument.

However, to prevent my post from derailing the thread, I'll contribute to the conversation.

I think that humans are evolving, but that we are evolving at the exceedingly slow pace that most evolution moves at. I also think that we are not evolving to be physically stronger, but that we are evolving to become more mentally capable. The majority of humans are not that intelligent at the moment, but the idea that we're getting stupider seems rather false to me.

 

[PsyberGoth]

this thread is going to end in tears

 

[Whobajube]

It is very difficult for humans to evolve any further. What with new technologies, people who would have once died, now live on to reproduce. There is no more natural selection, because we are thwarting nature by keeping those meant to die alive (sounds harsh, I know). Back even in the last century, those with diabetes would have died an early death. Now, people with diabetes have the technology to live a fairly normal life.

 

[LOOY]

Eventually Robots do all our manual jobs and we will use cybernetic organs to live forever, the oldest people eventually becoming brains in robotic suits, then we will be a race of machines and take over the universe.

Or something... anyway, physical evolution is too slow to notice, we've been around a lot longer than 2000 years and we only really started developing good tech about 200 years ago.

 

[Brian Name]

I read something where scientists speculated that if human beings were to colonise space and live in zero gavity conditions they would, over millions of years, evolve dramatically. We might end up with feet and toes more like those of chimps, so that we can grab hold of things to move around more easily, for example. But our bones and muscles would become less strong - because it would be an unecessary use of energy. That's the thing: evolution doesn't necessarily mean a progression towards being faster or stronger. It's just an adaption to the enviroment.

And for everyone complaining that only stupid people are breeding: http://www.darwinawards.com/

 

[NeedAUserName]

And for everyone complaining that only stupid people are breeding: http://www.darwinawards.com/

Yeah, but those are bottom of the barrel idiots.

 

[Samurai Goomba]

Technology has changed, but I don't think people are actually much smarter/faster/stronger/better. There's more information available today for smart people to draw upon than there was hundreds of years ago (and the archive keeps increasing, making further advancements easier still), but literature written ages ago is still both relevant and intelligent today. If it were written by stupids, how could this be so? How can something written over 2 thousand years ago (at the very least) be considered one of the most beautiful pieces of literature in the entire world (I'm speaking of the Book of Job, which is very highly regarded in literary circles.)

In addition, ancient societies of accomplished great feats of engineering and architectural design with primitive materials and resources in a manner than astounds me. To say the ancient Egyptians were less intelligent than modern people seems absurd to me.

 

[cuddly_tomato]

Ah, you raise an interesting issue. Artificial Selection. Are we allowed to tamper with nature? Can we decide what we should evolve into using genetic modification.

Evolution won't ever stop. There is no such thing as a "species" really, that is a human concept. Life just changes over time. You can see it happening all the time, look at people today compared to even 100 years ago. Faces are different, eyes are bigger, people are taller. There are even differences underneath the surface that are less obvious but even more profound. Two centuries ago people very often survived serious illness such as malaria, smallpox and meningitis without any medical help. These days people die of flu and getting a serious illness without medical help is a death sentence.

 

[mbv-]

evolution doesn't just stop.. only a fool would think that

 

[darkless]

We have a long way to go yet and don't be fooled we are still still evolving despite the technology in each generation the pancreas becomes smaller and the baby fingers and tows get shorter because the 3 are becoming useless this may not seem like a major change and it isn't its just showing that the human body is still evolving

 

[Chilango2]

Evolution hasn't stopped, of course, but it has been slowed by the fact that the human species is not small isolated communities any longer. Then there's the fact that generally speaking evoltion works somewhat slowly as perceived by humans..

 

[Helnurath]

So I was just wondering what peoples views on the evolution of humans are, if we have reached the top, or if we have a long way to go yet.

I saw the movie last night too. During the movie that professor guy tells Klaatu that it is only in the face of imminent destruction that humanity will change, just as Klaatu's people had. As far as human evolution goes, We in a way have stopped evolving, with a few exceptions such as the Bushmen tribes of Africa/Amazonian tribes/Papua New Guenianian tribes, the Bushmen for instance have evolved a way to use the fat and excess tissue in their behinds to help sustain them during periods of draught and food shortages which are more commonplace over the last 5-6,000 years or so. I really dont think we will evolve unless we actually need to, like say for instance we start colonizing other worlds with slighty different atmospheres or radiation. Several films and TV shows have addressed this like the recent remake of the Time Machine and an episode of The Outer limits.

 

[Helnurath]

Evolution is generally more apparent in animals because they live shorter, more danger-filled lives. As humans, we dont need to be the strongest or fastest because dangers are so few, or at least less so than a wild lemming or something. I think we have gone through a collective intellectual evolution, so i guess it's less evident. I think our ability to genitically modify ourselves is a direct result of natural evolution. If we didn't have the brain capacity to make these scientific discoveries, we wouldn't even be mentioning artificial evolution.

I agree, I wouldnt be surprised if in another 100 or so years after we can get rid of the religious nuts and use stem cell research to increase our lifespan by 40-50 years.

Evolution is one of the biggest farces in human history. There is no actual proof that it has ever happened, nor that it is happening now, yet so many people have fallen for the lie. All the things that have been promoted as being proof of evolution have been revealed to be hoaxes. It's worse than when people thought the Earth was flat.
check out sites like www.drdino.com to learn the truth about dinosaurs, evolution, the age of the earth and more. It's interesting stuff.

Not to derail this thread or anything but,
I kinda honestly feel that the people behind major religions in the world are the ones holding us back from living longer and eliminating dieases and such. The beauty of evolution is that back in the prehistoric days, the weak did not survive. Too bad this has all but been eliminated. The song from Korn called Evolution says it all, we are devolving because the weak are outbreeding the strong.

 

[Silver]

Ah, you raise an interesting issue. Artificial Selection. Are we allowed to tamper with nature? Can we decide what we should evolve into using genetic modification.

Evolution won't ever stop. There is no such thing as a "species" really, that is a human concept. Life just changes over time. You can see it happening all the time, look at people today compared to even 100 years ago. Faces are different, eyes are bigger, people are taller. There are even differences underneath the surface that are less obvious but even more profound. Two centuries ago people very often survived serious illness such as malaria, smallpox and meningitis without any medical help. These days people die of flu and getting a serious illness without medical help is a death sentence.

Eh... Species is a human name for a very existing concept. If there was no such thing as species we would be able to reproduce with dogs, which we can't, because we're different species. We may have evolved from the same microorganisms very, very long ago, but we have evolved into different species, proven by the fact, as mentioned earlier, we can't breed with each other. That's what different species are. They exist. Really, they do.

 

[cuddly_tomato]

Eh... Species is a human name for a very existing concept. If there was no such thing as species we would be able to reproduce with dogs, which we can't, because we're different species. We may have evolved from the same microorganisms very, very long ago, but we have evolved into different species, proven by the fact, as mentioned earlier, we can't breed with each other. That's what different species are. They exist. Really, they do.

There are a lot of humans out there who you can't breed with, even though you are the same species.

Tigers and lions are difference species but can breed with each other.

Species is only necessary because of language. The need to allocate a name to everything. If there is such a thing as species then you this glaring problem of working out the jumps. Ape-human for instance. If ape=species, and human=species, then what lies between?

--zubes--

Dude, lets not tar all religious people with the same fundamentalist brush, and please lets not get into all that religion "debate" again.

 

[haveyouseen_mywallet]

i have thumbs, I WIN!!!!

 

[Helnurath]

--zubes--

Dude, lets not tar all religious people with the same fundamentalist brush, and please lets not get into all that religion "debate" again.[/quote]

It will inevitably lead back to religion vs evolution.

 

[cuddly_tomato]

It will inevitably lead back to religion vs evolution.

Just as science has no place in determining the existance of god (that is a spiritual/faith/belief based matter), religion has no place in the study of evolution. If anyone brings religion into it like that then you would do best to completely ignore it as their case has little to no value.

Concentrate on fact and theory.

 

[Anton P. Nym]

Evolution won't ever stop. There is no such thing as a "species" really, that is a human concept. Life just changes over time. You can see it happening all the time, look at people today compared to even 100 years ago. Faces are different, eyes are bigger, people are taller. There are even differences underneath the surface that are less obvious but even more profound. Two centuries ago people very often survived serious illness such as malaria, smallpox and meningitis without any medical help. These days people die of flu and getting a serious illness without medical help is a death sentence.

Um, there is such a thing as species... unless you think you can have a child with a jellyfish. "Species" is the term for a group of animals (or plants or bacteria, or arguably viruses) that can have fertile offspring with each other; that's why dogs are still all the same species despite the variety of breeds, but are considered a different species than coyotes.

Two centuries ago *some* people could survive serious illness... but most didn't. Average lifespans are enormously longer today due to advanced sanitation and medicine, but I doubt that the immune systems we're passing down to our offspring are any more or less effective than those of our near ancestors as a result. Indeed, I suspect that our near ancestors would have had healthier immune systems if they'd had access to vaccines; that's what vaccines are for, training the immune system to handle particularly nasty diseases. Smallpox and cholera had fatality rates in the old days that made AIDS look positively lame...

There's another misconception going around, that evolution has a purpose. It doesn't, really; it's a blind process, like a river's course or a raindrop's path down a window, which isn't predictable beyond a general "down" direction. "Devolution" isn't a good term to use, because it's just more evolution. It doesn't so much make life forms "better" as such, it just weeds out those forms that are less suited to the environments they're in than others.

-- Steve

 

[Silver]

Eh... Species is a human name for a very existing concept. If there was no such thing as species we would be able to reproduce with dogs, which we can't, because we're different species. We may have evolved from the same microorganisms very, very long ago, but we have evolved into different species, proven by the fact, as mentioned earlier, we can't breed with each other. That's what different species are. They exist. Really, they do.

There are a lot of humans out there who you can't breed with, even though you are the same species.

Tigers and lions are difference species but can breed with each other.

Species is only necessary because of language. The need to allocate a name to everything. If there is such a thing as species then you this glaring problem of working out the jumps. Ape-human for instance. If ape=species, and human=species, then what lies between?

Yes, we have a need to name everything. That doesn't mean that the things we name didn't exist before we named them. We'd still die even if we didn't have a word for it, it wasn't invented by humans. We'd still go hungry if we didn't eat food, even if neither word existed. Species, as well as death, food and hunger are existing concepts, and were before humans named them. The word could be considered something that doesn't really exist, but the concept is a proven fact (and don't go arguing that facts don't exist either, or I'll be tempted to demonstrate the non-existant concepts of gravity, big rocks falling, and pain).