Oryx
CoquettishCat
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- Age 31
- Seen Jan 30, 2015
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?
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?