Poll: is the evolution of humans stagnating?

[Zacharine]

i still hafta disagree with ur statement that evolution doesnt make "something else" because there r intemediary fossils that look like half of one thing and half of another. for example there is a fossil names tikalik rosea which looks part fish and part amphibian

Yet it wasn't 'something else', it was quite clearly a fish, albeit one with some amphibian features. Yet even those features didn't just 'pop into place', as in not having any trace of them the previous generation and then suddenly there the next generation. Evolution doesn't work that way. The fossil is an example of an intermediate species, yes, yet it had parents, and grandparents and great-great-great-great grandparents very much like it. There was no sudden change between generation 16798 and 16799, but rather we are compairing for example members of generation 50 (the fish with some hints of possible future amphibian features) and generation 15960 (the intermediate species) to generation 47980 (the amphibian). At no point was 'something else' produced between any one generation, that would be creationism.

 

[Mechsoap]

We havent stopped or slowed - Remember, it took 1000 years to get out of the Medieval Era, in which there was a new invention every lifetime or so...

That's not really evolution...

isent that more revolution?

 

[WaywardHaymaker]

We have transcended traditional evolution, to the point that we control our own genetic destiny!

How? With SCIENCE, of course!

 

[katsumoto03]

Evolution doesn't work that way dude. It only happens when necessary. There is no actual goal that it's trying to reach.

 

[lostzombies.com]

Well obviously yes, the day people started wearing glasses showed this. (I myself wear them) Evolution is passing the ebst genes on, we have been passing on bad, defunkt and generally terrible genes for hundreds of years. Add to the fact that the best physical specimens died before having lots of children due to wars, the influence of the Catholic church (have loads of kids and keep them nice and dumb-next point) and the religious persecution of anyone having intelligence means that the human evolutionary peak is not so much of a peak and more of a brown puddle slowly swirling down the toilet hole.

 

[Danzaivar]

Once you ahve very basic single-celled organisms, evolution can take over. Note that at that level, the division between plants and animals hadn't yet happened. That came much later.

Gradual change, over very long periods of time. At least, until sexual reproduction, which drastically increases that amount of variation between generations, and hence rate of evolution.

Yeah not interested in how that life got there. Just that it did and then start mutating into all the branches of life that we have now.

But by saying we don't become something different, a la:

No, we will never become 'something else'. Once a mammal, always a mammal. Once an ape, always an ape - including us. Our descendants will always and forever be humans. The point being, a species never produces offspring that themselves are not part of that same species.

You are saying that everything on the planet can ultimately be classified as a single celled organism (And I cba to look up the latin, so yeah), which is nonsense. When stuff evolves, it becomes something different; that's kinda the point of evolution.

 

[Zacharine]

You are saying that everything on the planet can ultimately be classified as a single celled organism (And I cba to look up the latin, so yeah), which is nonsense. When stuff evolves, it becomes something different; that's kinda the point of evolution.

My point is it never becomes 'something else', in that it is unidentifiable from it's ancestors down the line. We still have features left over from our days of tree-climbing. We still haven't fully adapted to walking on two legs. Our origins are traceable within us.

We become different trough evolution, but not 'something else'. Everything that came after those basic single-celled organisms, somehow built upon what already existed. Then further diversified and build upon what existed. And so forth. That is what I'm trying to say here. An organism with DNA will never give birth to one without. An organism with teeth will never give rise to a species without at least the genetic potential for teeth. Birds are still identifiable as dinosaurs, just as we are identifiable as mammals. And we can, because of our connected ancestry, identify our genetic relationship to the amoeba. We can tell not only how we are different, but also how we are the same and how both of us share curious features on the cellular level and in the way our body chemistry works. Precisely because we are not 'something else', but rather connected albeit different.

 

[Altorin]

evolution has stagnated. there is no real natural selection occurring.

I didn't know that all of our sexual couplings are mandated by some random lottery. Natural Selection occurs everyday. Every time you look at a girl and think "damn, she's hot." that's Natural Selection at work. You're seeing characteristics in her that your proto-monkey mind wants to see in all of humanity, so your proto-monkey brain pumps out all sorts of chemicals to make you ready to have sex with her. That's how it works. But she's got her own Proto-Monkey mind as well. and it might not see pit stains and unkempt hair as being suitable to survive and thrive in the corporate jungle and it's not interested in you. Thems the breaks.

 

[philosophicalbastard]

I actually have an extra chromosome that I can't wait to pass on to further human evolution.

could that be the feared A chromosome?

No, its a pointless add on that has no significant change to my body, I believe its in association to my liver.

 

[MelasZepheos_v1legacy]

I'd say the poll is a bit too general, because it has no option for 'How the heck will we ever know?'

Seriously, evolution takes several thousands of years, so there's no way that anyone in our generation will ever know if it stagnated now. In at the least a thousand years some scientist may look back and pinpoint our location as the moment stagnation began but that's a bare minimum amount.

Also, there are examples of potential human evolution, you just have to look outside the First World once in a while. One of my high school biology teachers told me that biologists were very excited to have found a girl who lived in the Amazon somewhere who had been born with webbed feet which allowed her to move around better in swampy terrain. In the first world we would call this a mutation and she might well be labelled a freak but in her tribe they were proud to have her and were waiting until she could have lots of children to carry the trait on.

Who knows, maybe diabetes is useful, maybe Downs Syndrome children have the potential to be crucial to our evolution. Autism would be hugely unhelpful in the 'natural' world (whatever the hell natural means anway) but Einstein likely had autism, and he wasn't exactly what you'd call stagnation. Humans have already taken ourselves out of the 'natural' world, so maybe our evolution shouldn't be judged on a 'natural' scale anyway.

 

[RicoADF]

I think we're getting dumber and lazier, so if anything we're de-evolving.

 

[Nomanslander]

Yeah, like everyone else has said before, evolution doesn't work that way. Evolution is about adapting to change, not upgrading to the next level or tier like some video game.

 

[Jedoro]

Yes

Due to an enormous amount of laws, it's too easy for stupid people to survive and reproduce.

 

[nelsonr100]

I can definitely see what you mean by this thread. Rather than the human race evolving through natural selection and the fastest/tallest/strongest/best adapted surviving the most and hence having the best chance to produce offspring and pass on their genes, the human race now has changed the focus of this selection. Today it is less necessary to be strong etc, more of a focus is placed on aspects of yourself such as attractiveness and intelligence. Intelligence I use as a broad term for personality, interests, skill of communiucaiton and cleverness.

So in summary we are still evolving, but the focus of our evolution has changed. You could now argue that the human race is simply going to evolve to be more attractive and intelligent, rather than strong and hardy. Its an interesting topic, but the social aspect and culture of humanity have definitely redefined our own evolution.

I'm sorry, but you're wrong. In order for natural selection to occur, organisms with less favorable traits have to die or not have kids, meaning that their genes can't be passed down. Sure, there are more intelligent people around now, but we aren't selecting for them. A dumb person is not going to die because of their lower IQ, so their genes are still going to be spread to the next generation.
I'm not trying to put you down or be mean to you, but you need to have a better understanding of how evolution works.

-snip-

With humans, however, nobody is going to die if they are less intelligent, and nobody isn't going to have kids because they're less intelligent. In fact, the less intelligent people actually have MORE kids, so if anything your point is backwards.

I'm afriad that I'm not wrong, you seem to be the one without the full understanding here. Natural selection can still occur even without organisms dying or not giving birth. All that needs to happen is for one part of a species with a certain trait to give birth more often than the ones without. This then continues and natural selection occurs as the part of the species without the trait gets slowly phased out. It can almost be viewed in terms of probability where a certain trait gives a higher probability of reproduction therefore eventually they will be the only ones still alive after several interations of the species.

I then went on to imply that this happens with humans, certain characteristics give us a better probability of reproduction and hence eventually that higher probability will result in the loss of certain traits. That is how natural selection works. one part of the species does not simply stop reproducing or die, thats ridiculous.

Oh and I used "intelligence" as an umbrella term as I explained in my other post for personality etc. I was talking in terms of attractive traits, I was not saying "people who are more clever will reproduce more" as that is not true. But people with a more attractive way of thinking/talking and acting, will, and I used "intelligence" as an umbrella for that.

 

[ajemas]

I can definitely see what you mean by this thread. Rather than the human race evolving through natural selection and the fastest/tallest/strongest/best adapted surviving the most and hence having the best chance to produce offspring and pass on their genes, the human race now has changed the focus of this selection. Today it is less necessary to be strong etc, more of a focus is placed on aspects of yourself such as attractiveness and intelligence. Intelligence I use as a broad term for personality, interests, skill of communiucaiton and cleverness.

So in summary we are still evolving, but the focus of our evolution has changed. You could now argue that the human race is simply going to evolve to be more attractive and intelligent, rather than strong and hardy. Its an interesting topic, but the social aspect and culture of humanity have definitely redefined our own evolution.

I'm sorry, but you're wrong. In order for natural selection to occur, organisms with less favorable traits have to die or not have kids, meaning that their genes can't be passed down. Sure, there are more intelligent people around now, but we aren't selecting for them. A dumb person is not going to die because of their lower IQ, so their genes are still going to be spread to the next generation.
I'm not trying to put you down or be mean to you, but you need to have a better understanding of how evolution works.

-snip-

With humans, however, nobody is going to die if they are less intelligent, and nobody isn't going to have kids because they're less intelligent. In fact, the less intelligent people actually have MORE kids, so if anything your point is backwards.

I'm afriad that I'm not wrong, you seem to be the one without the full understanding here. Natural selection can still occur even without organisms dying or not giving birth. All that needs to happen is for one part of a species with a certain trait to give birth more often than the ones without. This then continues and natural selection occurs as the part of the species without the trait gets slowly phased out. It can almost be viewed in terms of probability where a certain trait gives a higher probability of reproduction therefore eventually they will be the only ones still alive after several interations of the species.

I then went on to imply that this happens with humans, certain characteristics give us a better probability of reproduction and hence eventually that higher probability will result in the loss of certain traits. That is how natural selection works. one part of the species does not simply stop reproducing or die, thats ridiculous.

Oh and I used "intelligence" as an umbrella term as I explained in my other post for personality etc. I was talking in terms of attractive traits, I was not saying "people who are more clever will reproduce more" as that is not true. But people with a more attractive way of thinking/talking and acting, will, and I used "intelligence" as an umbrella for that.

As I stated before, more intelligent people are not having more kids. The crux of your argument is that the more intelligent and attractive people are more likely to produce offspring, and thus spread their genes on to the next generation. Yes, evolution can work like this, but not in this case. First of all, more intelligent people have LESS kids than the lower intelligent people. Take a look at the statistics, you'll see that the higher IQ people are not passing down their genes to the next generation.
Finally, as Popular Science so kindly pointed out, if your parents are attractive, it does not automatically make you attractive. Even if attractive people have more kids, their offspring will not always inherit their sexual fitness.
http://books.google.com/books?id=lnl-kZdVuHIC&pg=PA77&lpg=PA77&dq=%22popular+science%22+attractive+children+parents+chin&source=bl&ots=Syuvyx49Wn&sig=w80yf8h58xDPgTdQ6XO0NGEm7Ig&hl=en&ei=OfNrTOP9LYS0lQfE8vWLAQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBIQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false