Poll: is the evolution of humans stagnating?
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Evolution is an incredibly long process, and takes millions of years for any sorts of signs of evolving to show up. Even in all of recorded history, we have barley changed from the humans that lived thousands of years before. Sure, over time humans became smarter, stronger, and started to live longer, but this is mostly because of how our life-style changed over time.
well im just going to put my beleif out there so (prepares flame sheild) in a 1000 or million so years (if humans can live with each other that long) we will lose our hair, nails, ears (the outside part) and nose (the same with ears) sure we will look like freaky bastards but what would be the point having hair when you have the clothes to warm yourself up and you dont really need ear lugs or your nose extending outwards because they just get caught in the cold which is really annoying
Let me rephrase it then. We evolve in a direction of becoming less intelligent now as, from darwinian point of view, high intelligence is not a charactristic that's being passed on. Also, our heavy dependency on technology can be compared to a species becoming very specialized and well adapted to it's environment. It gives it some advantages but if environment changes in any way, the species will die. Luckily for us we adapt our surroundings to create our perfet environment, but we depend heavily on resources that are not renewable and, sooner or later, we will run out of them. It can qualify as a significant change in our environment, and there will be a great pain and war as tables will turn.PurplePlatypus said:
I love these threads, you always get the same three answers: those on opposite sides of the fence and those sitting on the fence. The problem with debating is you get different opinionated groups arguing about their belief and there is never really any progress because the ones debating become so engrossed in their ideas there is no changing them.
I know one thing that isn't evolving, and that is this thread.
I know one thing that isn't evolving, and that is this thread.
In fact, i think it is reversing, while we support the life of those with genetic imperfections, (mentally handicapped and physically handicapped) we are allowing their bad genes to propagate, the thing about evolution, its it creates a 100000 bad evolutions before it creates 1 inprovement, in our society 90% of those bad evolutions survive to reproduce.
Im not starting a kill the retard campaign, but you all understand what im saying.
It is kinda helpful, because those with a science path, not physically fit path, are also allowed to survive, instead of getting mauled by the bear cuz they were the slows one running from it.
tired.... i think in offended enough people, ending post.....
Im not starting a kill the retard campaign, but you all understand what im saying.
It is kinda helpful, because those with a science path, not physically fit path, are also allowed to survive, instead of getting mauled by the bear cuz they were the slows one running from it.
tired.... i think in offended enough people, ending post.....
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.
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.
We are actually evolving faster than ever, but not because of environmental conditions, but cultural conditions. Sexual selection now plays a more important role than fitness (though often those two are related) in human reproduction.garbutt said:
Think about it, when an animal dies before it is capable of reproducing, its genes don't get added to the gene pool. Nowadays, humans generally live past puberty. Now what limits their ability to spread their genes? Sexual selection. But sexual selection in humans isn't exclusively a physical fitness test, it's a large combination of factors, many of which are cultural in origin. Ideas about family size, views on/access to birth control, what makes a man or a woman good spouse material: these are all values deriving from culture. Thus, culture now drives our reproduction.
The idea that a species will always stop changing its genetic makeup when environmental stresses disappear is false. Cultural trends seem to actually act on species faster than low-mortality environmental stresses.
Ordinarily I'd post a few studies to back up my statements, but I'm tired right now. If you're interested just google it.
That?s better.cieply said:
Anyway, we aren?t becoming stupider, as far as I?m aware the average IQ goes up every so many generations or decades. Of course this doesn?t mean people might be smarter, we might just becoming more competent at certain tasks because of the way we are being taught or the things we are now exposed to. What humans are good at and what does get passed on is our ability to learn, after that it?s up to us to pass on the knowledge we have gathered and find the best way to teach. As things are going now with a lot of schooling systems, it has its problems.
Our dependency on technology, well it does a lot of good things for sure and I don?t think that should be something to let go of. Of course renewable and more efficient forms of energy are a must and maybe we are moving a bit slowly on it right now. And I don?t think we are moving slowly because of lack of progress in that area. I think the problem is in the implementing of such things into our everyday lives. I think it?s a mixture of peoples tendency to dislike change and of course money.
Got a question!
Evolution is basically a mutation in our genes, right?
It happens more or less randomly - due to adaptation etc.
So by just taking into the account the human population of the world compared to 500 years ago, shouldn't we see more changes - good and bad - in our genes?
Evolution is basically a mutation in our genes, right?
It happens more or less randomly - due to adaptation etc.
So by just taking into the account the human population of the world compared to 500 years ago, shouldn't we see more changes - good and bad - in our genes?
I once read somewhere that the average shoe size during the civil war was a size 6. I also notice the teenagers today are taller and skinnier on average than they used to be, and frail too... always breaking their lanky bones. The longest naturally living people are the shortest... looks like mother nature is set to thin the heard in an over populated world.
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Oh, societal evolution? That's just junk we made up. Its cyclical. Rise and fall. Ebb and flow.
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Oh, societal evolution? That's just junk we made up. Its cyclical. Rise and fall. Ebb and flow.
I think people are confusing 'survival of the fittest' and environmental adaptation. Both are occurring. After all, you all live in the USA and live 70+ years. Most people who live in Africa can't say the same thing. Survival of the fittest, due to our dominance, has not become an inter-species competition, but an intra-species competition. One which I am lucky enough to be on the winning side of, I suppose, although I'm not really one for nationalism like that.
And environmental adaptation is obviously still occurring. Has the environment changed in the last 1000 years? Yes! Hell, it's changed more than was ever imagined in the last 75! Of course we are still evolving, it just takes some time. It doesn't matter if we changed the environment, because that would be assuming that we would change it to benefit ourselves, which we clearly haven't because sometimes we're too tied up in retarded ideology to see what the most pragmatic course of action would be, and we end up doing the wrong thing.
Currently all we're doing is considering what changing our environment will do to us. That isn't stopping evolution. We're just harnessing it for our own ends.
And environmental adaptation is obviously still occurring. Has the environment changed in the last 1000 years? Yes! Hell, it's changed more than was ever imagined in the last 75! Of course we are still evolving, it just takes some time. It doesn't matter if we changed the environment, because that would be assuming that we would change it to benefit ourselves, which we clearly haven't because sometimes we're too tied up in retarded ideology to see what the most pragmatic course of action would be, and we end up doing the wrong thing.
Currently all we're doing is considering what changing our environment will do to us. That isn't stopping evolution. We're just harnessing it for our own ends.
garbutt said:
Phatnpround said:
cieply said:
I never said this was due to genetic evolution. Or evolution a la Darwin. I was talking about Cultural and Intellectual evolution. I adressing the notion that humanity hasn't improved (or evolved)