Will Humans Evolve Further?

Oryx · Oct 24, 2011

This is something that I've thought about for quite a long time. Evolution basically works like this:

1. Something within a species mutates, making some individuals different than others.
2. This mutation helps those individuals survive, so they live longer and reproduce more than the other individuals without the mutation.
3. Because they reproduce more, the mutation is more likely to be spread until the helpful mutation is common and the species has changed.

This makes total sense when you think about animals - rabbits that mutated to become white in the North lived longer because they weren't seen against the snow, so more and more rabbits became white. Turtles with notches in their shells can reach more food so are more likely to survive, so notched shells become part of the species.

But it doesn't apply too well to humans. Imagine some people were born with a mutation that made them significantly stronger than the people around them. If humans lived like animals, this would give them an advantage, and the human race might evolve to be stronger. However, in society strength wouldn't determine if you reproduce more or not. Similarly, high intelligence, a trait that is unique to humans, does not cause a person to reproduce more, as evidenced by the fact that there are plenty of not so smart people reproducing (probably as you read this). Basically, the mutations that help animals in the wild and contribute to their evolution don't seem to affect us at all. The same goes for mutations that would make an animal die in the wild, therefore leaving the gene pool. People with mutations like that will be kept alive and give the chance to find love and reproduce, something that would not happen in the wild. (Not saying it's a bad thing, just that it happens.)

So basically, my question is, given all this, do you think humans will continue to evolve? Will a bottleneck happen some time in the future and cause only those with a beneficial mutation (such as someone affected less by radiation or something if a nuclear bomb hit) to survive, possibly moving us further towards our final evolution? Or are we there already?

Mr Cat Dog · Oct 24, 2011

Evolution isn't progressive; we're not striving towards a perfect 'model' of humanity. I've had debates over this with some of my friends who think that we're progressing towards perfection, and have sat them down and explained that we are who were are (heh... Ke$ha reference) because of what has happened before us, not because of some gameplan to evolve, Pokemon-style, into the best we can be.

I can't forsee a circumstance in which humans DON'T evolve, in all honesty; however, none of us will be alive when it happens, and it'd probably take a life-changing event, like an Ice Age (or the opposite) for something to finally change.

Lezza · Oct 24, 2011

As we discover more advanced technology we will evolve less and less but I still think we can evolve as there are problems all the time that humans face.
(The funny thing is i'm watching a program called origins of us that shows how we evolve lol)

Dawn · Oct 24, 2011

We evolve every single new generation of kids. It's just not immediately noticeable in any one batch. Only when stepping back and looking at people a long time ago would reveal a truly noticeable change through many small changes resulting in some more noticeable, bigger ones.

Lezza · Oct 24, 2011

Aparently it was cooking that increased our brain sized and made us human

Oryx · Oct 24, 2011

Mr Cat Dog said:
Evolution isn't progressive; we're not striving towards a perfect 'model' of humanity. I've had debates over this with some of my friends who think that we're progressing towards perfection, and have sat them down and explained that we are who were are (heh... Ke$ha reference) because of what has happened before us, not because of some gameplan to evolve, Pokemon-style, into the best we can be.

I can't forsee a circumstance in which humans DON'T evolve, in all honesty; however, none of us will be alive when it happens, and it'd probably take a life-changing event, like an Ice Age (or the opposite) for something to finally change.

But if/when we do evolve again, if we're not going to evolve into something worse, aren't we always getting better? And if we're always getting better, then isn't that one step towards perfection? I mean we're probably going to go extinct long before our species is perfect, but unless we evolve to be something worse then aren't we technically evolving towards perfection all the time?

I was thinking about this more and also thought of the main cause of evolution: environment. Would different colors of skin had evolved if we had had the technology that kept us from needing to be in the sun? Because we have so much technology now, we don't have much of a need to adapt to our environments, which is the biggest thing that spurs on natural evolution. One mutation helps an animal adapt more to the environment it's in, therefore surviving more. But with more and more technology, much of the world has no need for real adaptation to their environment, since they can negate most negative effects.

We evolve every single new generation of kids. It's just not immediately noticeable in any one batch. Only when stepping back and looking at people a long time ago would reveal a truly noticeable change through many small changes resulting in some more noticeable, bigger ones.

I was asking for logical reasoning why I was wrong, not just stating "we're evolving" with no reasoning at all. :( Yes, we evolved from people a long time ago. But a long time ago, we didn't have all the technology and societal customs and such that we have now, the things that make me doubt whether or not we'll evolve further unless there's a bottleneck.

Esper · Oct 24, 2011

Sometimes evolution is just a matter of being in the right place at the right time, not necessarily being the best adapted. If you can out-compete and out-number your evolutionary "rivals" then you don't need to be the best. That's the kind of thing I'm thinking will happen with humans: we'll simply evolve into whatever aspects are most common in the groups of humans who are having the most children. We won't have some exceptional quality that will make those people more likely to survive and pass it on since most people today can and do have the chance to have children.

Besides, from what I understand the divide between who is and isn't having the most children is mostly economic and social right now, rather than anything physiological. And just because you're poor/less educated/religious (not judging, but it's my understanding these factors are pretty common among people who have more children) doesn't mean your own children will be.

That leads me to think that we'll evolve as a species based on something that affects everyone more indiscriminately, like (hopefully!) higher tolerance for pollution or something along those lines. But maybe we'll evolve into a species of diabetics thanks to the food we eat.

Edit:

Toujours said:
But if/when we do evolve again, if we're not going to evolve into something worse, aren't we always getting better? And if we're always getting better, then isn't that one step towards perfection? I mean we're probably going to go extinct long before our species is perfect, but unless we evolve to be something worse then aren't we technically evolving towards perfection all the time?

It could be a change that's neither better nor worse. A lateral change, although I'm sure you could always argue that any change could have benefits/drawbacks in different situations.

Mr Cat Dog · Oct 24, 2011

Toujours said:
But if/when we do evolve again, if we're not going to evolve into something worse, aren't we always getting better? And if we're always getting better, then isn't that one step towards perfection? I mean we're probably going to go extinct long before our species is perfect, but unless we evolve to be something worse then aren't we technically evolving towards perfection all the time?

It's not a case of "worse" and "better": terms like that assume that previous generations of humanity were inferior to what we are today. I'm not the best at summing it up, so I'll let smarter people voice my opinions for me:

Elof Axel Carlson said:
Those that survive pass on their favored hereditary combinations for those adaptations to their progeny. Over long periods of time these accumulated changes can lead to new species and a divergence of body structure and organ systems adapted for new environments. The process of evolution is not progressive. There are no goals or destinies for life. Evolution is not on a trajectory to a foreordained end. Evolution is opportunistic: it makes do with what is there (it has no other choice). The process of evolution is not guided by a creator. There are no detectable signs of a creator's hand at work. The processes involved are natural and governed largely by chance.

Evolution will make us "better equipped to deal with our current environment", but doesn't make us better as a whole. If, in a hypothetical example, global warming goes all schizo and heats up like crazy, a good evolution would be to have skin much more resistant to heat. These new humans aren't better than any of us; they're just different and have adapted to their new environment. Likewise, if global warming goes the other way and the earth plunges into an ice age, another good evolution would be to turn cold blooded or something. This is an adaptation, not a betterment.

I hope that makes sense. I'm not entirely sure it did when I was typing it but... meh.

abnegation · Oct 25, 2011

There is both the possibility that we will evolve, as well as devolve. If time allows us, I personally think that certain cultures will evolve more than others. More so mentally as opposed to physically. I don't see us growing any extra hands or anything. When you consider how much we've evolved from apes, it's actually very little in terms of physical appearance. We needed less body hair, stood a little more straight, and in general our size has changed. We are no longer the hunter gatherers we once were. However, mentally we have evolved immensely, and I think that the intellect of people will evolve more than anything else. Only for certain cultures, I do not think that every culture has the ability to move passed our current intellectuality.

This is where I think devolution comes into play. People will start to rely on technology so much more in certain cultures, while others will be the ones creating it. While one culture will move on and the other will look behind. Good technology has led to people will unfortunate genes with certain disabilities or even as simple s laziness, to be passed down the line because they are able to have the health to move on and find others. Meaning that those genes can be found in their children.

Guided evolution is going to be massive in future generations, we're going to see certain generations really look advanced, but it does not mean this is permanent. I believe this will happen a lot, and begin to slowly affect the evolution of people. However, people don't have the chance to evolve. To merit one reason as to why we're not evolving as rapidly as we did several hundreds years ago, is due to the fact we don't think for ourselves in that sense. The relinquishment of politics is the first step forward. Governments control so much of our existence. If we tore down the walls of our own destruction to this planet with our selfishness, and start being good to the planet, and then perhaps our technology will become good to the environment. But currently, in some cultures, all people are taught, is how to be indoctrinated puppets, and up to the age of about 18 they simply must conform to the education set by the government, and who's to say that they're creating what is right to learn?

Our evolution to this day is so rapid and so large, so our speculation can go from hopeful to dystopian. But the common assumption is that it will be the latter. I simply believe it depends on which culture, I think we already know there's more advanced ones out there.

femtrooper · Oct 25, 2011

It is very possible that there will be a migrant population that will become reproductively isolated and become a new species of the homo genus. We won't become fish or something, that's not how evolution works. haha There may be another human-like species to come around, like how there use to be neanderthals and such. Humans could die out and the new homo genus species could take over. You never know. But this is something that takes thousands of years, sometimes a few million to happen. Humans could become extinct before a migrant population has the change to occur.

I am really iffy on this, however, there are other great apes that have the potential to produce migrant populations out there, so you never know. Another human-like species could happen...just not for a LONG time.

Alex · Oct 25, 2011

Evolution is very dependent on the environment. The reason mutations become norms is because, as you said, species without that mutation would be more likely to die out. The thing about humans is that our brain has pretty much led us to surpass any type of danger that would require us to have a mutation in order to survive. We have a one-up over every other living creature: intelligence.

You would think that the human species is not done evolving, but for us to evolve, something has to be genuinely threatening our existence. Right now, our population is ever-growing. We have several diseases that threaten our existence, but not in a genocide fashion. It'd take something of an apocalypse for us to start growing mutations which would lead to our evolution. And that's what I'm afraid of here. I'm starting to genuinely believe that man will succumb to its own creation: machine. Man is always striving to do the impossible: imagine way back when the thought of space travel, let alone flying, was a man's imagination running wild. We've done it. Perhaps Man is so obsessed with proving (or disproving) that there is God, that we will eventually bring ourselves to God status and create artificial intelligence. However, that is counter-intuitive. We're smarter than to create something that could eventually be our downfall. I'm afraid we accidentally stumble upon artificial intelligence.

But even then. We're so numerous. The human species could probably outlive anything. It'd take several nuclear meltdowns, acts of God, as well as an outbreak of a (or several) new diseases that we just don't have the time or money to fight against. If an apocalypse does happen, that's when the human race would have a chance to evolve. Our numbers would have to be whittled down tremendously.

But maybe our incredible high population will eventually be the death of us. We're seeing ressources, primarily oil, run out very fast. We're only now taking action against that and researching alternative energy solutions, like wind and solar, hybrid-electric transportation vehicles, and recyclable plastics. The planet is big, but it's only so big. If our population keeps growing exponentially, which we can probably assume will happen unless all governments put a limit on how many children adults are allowed to have, that could be our downfall. We may run out of ressources. I'm not exactly sure how a mutation would spring from that, perhaps we'd need less food to function and more sleep, perhaps our body would start creating necessary enzymes, proteins and vitamins that just aren't available to us anymore through food. I'm not sure.

But to properly answer the question: yes, I do think the human race is subject to further evolution. It just won't be very easy.

Ineffable~ · Oct 25, 2011

Toujours said:
But it doesn't apply too well to humans. Imagine some people were born with a mutation that made them significantly stronger than the people around them. If humans lived like animals, this would give them an advantage, and the human race might evolve to be stronger. However, in society strength wouldn't determine if you reproduce more or not. Similarly, high intelligence, a trait that is unique to humans, does not cause a person to reproduce more, as evidenced by the fact that there are plenty of not so smart people reproducing (probably as you read this). Basically, the mutations that help animals in the wild and contribute to their evolution don't seem to affect us at all. The same goes for mutations that would make an animal die in the wild, therefore leaving the gene pool. People with mutations like that will be kept alive and give the chance to find love and reproduce, something that would not happen in the wild. (Not saying it's a bad thing, just that it happens.)

This.

The thing is, we have something other animals don't have: equality.
For better or worse (I think better but that's just me), we are beyond natural selection because we protect the needy. We keep sick people healthy so they can pass down pass down their sickly sick genes to their kids; many of us look for "mates" based on "true love" rather than logical instinctual aspects such as strength or intelligence or good looks. Don't get me wrong, of course people want a guy/girl that's "cute, smart, funny . . . " but that's not so important that whenever two guys see the same girl they immediately duel even if neither of them knows her, which tends to happen in nature. Also, certain traits of one's appearance won't get selected for this same reason, so we'll continue all looking different. And, if I found out suddenly there were people who could fly thanks to a magical mutation, I wouldn't right away think "WELL I GOTTA HAVE BABIES WITH THAT SEXY BIRDWOMAN RIGHT AWAY" as I believe most people wouldn't, and so far flying hasn't seemed to be a very important skill for us as far as survival goes, considering there are over six billion humans out there who in fact have to buy airplane tickets if they want to do any flying.

Anyway, the way I see it, since natural "better" traits (although who in the blue hell decides what traits are better than others) are not particularly encouraged in our society, and a lack of "better" traits is not discouraged, we're not really due for evolution any time soon.

Unless, of course, we have a nuclear disaster and only the few roach-people among us survive.

Impo · Oct 25, 2011

everyone's making such smart posts, all I want to say is I hope I get a tail if I evolve further.

blue · Oct 25, 2011

I don't see this happening, not for millions of years.

The Nightmare · Oct 26, 2011

if we evolve further then wouldn't it mean the human race would be extinct and the new generation would be a different race that like they had tails or wings that were called something else?

But I think we will evolve further but we don't exactly know what we will look like in the future.

Reddit · Oct 26, 2011

The Nightmare said:
if we evolve further then wouldn't it mean the human race would be extinct and the new generation would be a different race that like they had tails or wings that were called something else?

But I think we will evolve further but we don't exactly know what we will look like in the future.

Technically yes, although we will also be called the equivalent to "humans" in whatever language exist then.

Humans, and all other life on the planet are constantly evolving.

Dawn · Oct 26, 2011

Toujours said:
But a long time ago, we didn't have all the technology and societal customs and such that we have now, the things that make me doubt whether or not we'll evolve further unless there's a bottleneck.

Something to keep in mind, but all this technology and society is a perfectly natural part of evolution. We're not nor have we ever been above nature. At worst, we're rather unlikely statistically speaking.

Oryx · Oct 26, 2011

PkMnTrainer Yellow said:
Something to keep in mind, but all this technology and society is a perfectly natural part of evolution. We're not nor have we ever been above nature. At worst, we're rather unlikely statistically speaking.

I'd like to hear your reasoning that the technology we have is 'natural'. Our ability to keep someone alive indefinitely that would die the second they were taken off a machine or stopped taking their pills does not at all seem part of the natural order.

Alex · Oct 26, 2011

PkMnTrainer Yellow said:
Something to keep in mind, but all this technology and society is a perfectly natural part of evolution. We're not nor have we ever been above nature. At worst, we're rather unlikely statistically speaking.

I have to agree with Toujours here. Humans have quite extended the natural life expectancy of our race. Our advancements in technology and medication have helped keep alive those who, without treatment, would have otherwise died.

Ineffable~ · Oct 26, 2011

Toujours said:
Our ability to keep someone alive indefinitely that would die the second they were taken off a machine or stopped taking their pills does not at all seem part of the natural order.

This this this all over the place.
By the way everyone figurative evolution (advancing, progressing) isn't the same as genetic evolution. I mean, that's what I assume we're talking about.

Will Humans Evolve Further?

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Oryx

CoquettishCat

Mr Cat Dog

Frasier says it best

Lezza

The Guy who loves Braviarys

Dawn

[span="font-size:180%;font-weight:900;color:#a568f

Lezza

The Guy who loves Braviarys

Oryx

CoquettishCat

Esper

Mr Cat Dog

Frasier says it best

abnegation

femtrooper

Starfleet Commander

Alex

what will it be next?

Ineffable~

DAT SNARKITUDE

Impo

Playhouse Pokemon

blue

gucci

The Nightmare

"I fight for what I belive in"

Reddit

Indubitably.

Dawn

[span="font-size:180%;font-weight:900;color:#a568f

Oryx

CoquettishCat

Alex

what will it be next?

Ineffable~

DAT SNARKITUDE