Poll: is the evolution of humans stagnating?

[cheftacular]

We haven't stopped evolving but we're certainly not making it easy for ourselves. A hundred years ago someone with allergies or a weak immune system would have just died. What all our fancy health care has done for us is essentially remove survival of the fittest.

 

[Housebroken Lunatic]

personally, i do think so. i mean this isnt necessarily a bad thing, but i think that we has humans have "Stopped" or at least slowed the incredibly slow process of evolution. we as humans change the environment to suit OUR needs, and there fore reduce selective pressures that allow for certain adaptations to permeate into populations so that they can survive better in changing environments.

Which in turn can be interprated as an "alternate way" of evolution to occur.

Until the intelligent, bipedal hominids evolved, most species relied on biological evolution to survive through the things that threatened their existence.

But because the primary source of man's success in surviving stems from her advanced intelligence and the ability to share the fruits of that intelligence with her peers (regardless if they themselves as a collective are as intelligent as the more prominent individuals), one could assume that this has steered our way of evolution in an unconventional direction.

Other species grow stronger by having large portions of their members getting killed off so only the best suited specimens survive and multiply. Man however becomes more adept at survival the more specimens are produced instead of killed off, since each and every specimen can share it's insights and intelligence with the group.

Also, this is all a completely natural process as well (since doing something "unnatural" is impossible by default since everything that exist does so thanks to nature). Sure it is rather unusual in comparison to how other species on this planet survived, but it is still as natural as anything else. Thus one can reasonably assume that it is just evolution as usual.

 

[chaos order]

personally, i do think so. i mean this isnt necessarily a bad thing, but i think that we has humans have "Stopped" or at least slowed the incredibly slow process of evolution. we as humans change the environment to suit OUR needs, and there fore reduce selective pressures that allow for certain adaptations to permeate into populations so that they can survive better in changing environments.

Which in turn can be interprated as an "alternate way" of evolution to occur.

Until the intelligent, bipedal hominids evolved, most species relied on biological evolution to survive through the things that threatened their existence.

But because the primary source of man's success in surviving stems from her advanced intelligence and the ability to share the fruits of that intelligence with her peers (regardless if they themselves as a collective are as intelligent as the more prominent individuals), one could assume that this has steered our way of evolution in an unconventional direction.

Other species grow stronger by having large portions of their members getting killed off so only the best suited specimens survive and multiply. Man however becomes more adept at survival the more specimens are produced instead of killed off, since each and every specimen can share it's insights and intelligence with the group.

Also, this is all a completely natural process as well (since doing something "unnatural" is impossible by default since everything that exist does so thanks to nature). Sure it is rather unusual in comparison to how other species on this planet survived, but it is still as natural as anything else. Thus one can reasonably assume that it is just evolution as usual.

fair enough but do u think that this "unconventional" evolution will lead to us becoming a new species, or will we be essentially the same human beings

 

[Housebroken Lunatic]

fair enough but do u think that this "unconventional" evolution will lead to us becoming a new species, or will we be essentially the same human beings

I think it will, yes. I mean we are already in the process of adapting the inherent frailties of the human body to be more resistant to disease and injuries (pacemakers, insulin monitors/dispensers etc.). We even go as far as remake our bodies to become more aesthetically pleasing (plastic surgery). Sometimes we even take steps to improve upon inherent weaknesses in the human form (corrective eye surgery using lasers etc.)

The next logical step will of course be a more intimate meld with the machines and technology that we have built to make our lives better and insure our survival, like cybernetic implants and prosthesis to improve upon the relatively weak limbs and organs that humans are born with.

This process of melding with technology could be interprated as giving rise to one or several new species of man, superior in many ways to the current biological form of man.

Of course, classical natural science might have a hard time recognizing this process of unconventional evolution. But then again, Carl von Linnaeus and his peers were pretty arbitrary when it came to classifying the different species of plants and animals of the world anyway, so it wouldn't exactly be very unreasonable to classify the human cybernetic organism as a "new" species in itself.

 

[SuperCombustion]

you must remember that evolution, genetic evolution, is about adapting to the changes in the environment in order to survive and reproduce. It affects every generation as they are born and will continue to until the dormant coding in our DNA that helps to facilitate the evolutionary process can't keep up with the change and stops. Evolution is about survival of the fittest, and since we top the food chain we haven't needed to evolve physically, but it has been proven that Human cognative abilities have improved over the years. Just because we haven't changed directly dosen't mean we haven't changed at all and evolution is definately not single track as it varies from gene pool to gene pool.
More to the point, I do think we are still evolving but in ways we may not be able to detect from superficial study. To say we have stopped evolving, or that evolution has slowed down would mean that Humanity is coming to extinction, and even I can see that this is not the case. Our changes are based on natural selection and it is working fine to my knowledge.
And just a quick pointer, our progress from the medieval stage is NOT evolution, merely technological advances.

to sum it up: Evolution does NOT work that way.

 

[quiet_samurai]

No, life never stops evolving. The only way something could is with a closely controlled environment, even then it may not.

"Life finds a way"
-Ian Malcolm

 

[Tolerant Fanboy]

We're evolving at the same rate anything does. If anything, with the number of pollutants to which many people are exposed, the rate of mutations may actually be a bit higher than average. However, since visible evolutionary development occurs at a rate comparable to continental drift, it's rather hard to tell. More worrisome is how we may be evolving. Darwin Award candidates tend to reproduce more and more frequently than the intelligentsia. The Idiocracy scenario seems frighteningly believable at times...

 

[Withall]

I'd say that while we haven't "completely" stopped evolving, we are certainly NOT helping evolution by making the dividing value VERY big. My 2 cents.

 

[Blindswordmaster]

personally, i do think so. i mean this isnt necessarily a bad thing, but i think that we has humans have "Stopped" or at least slowed the incredibly slow process of evolution. we as humans change the environment to suit OUR needs, and there fore reduce selective pressures that allow for certain adaptations to permeate into populations so that they can survive better in changing environments.

i mean in a "natural" environment selective pressures weed out the weak or disabled and the individuals with "strong" traits are able to pass there genes on into their progeny, and after a certain number of generations the "strong" traits become "normal" within the population. but with humans, i find that the "weak" and disabled live perfectly fine and no one is trying to kill them. ( now please for god sakes im not saying we should cull the disabled, this is why i said that humanities stagnating evolution isnt necessarily A BAD THING) what im trying to say is that due to the fact that we altar everything to suit the characteristics and needs we have now, that there is not need for any change in out biology to survive "better". however I am curious as to how we would evolve further.

so back on topic do u think that our evolution has stopped?

(yes i know i used a very general way of describing natural selection and evolution, but i really dont like getting into the nitty gritties, ill save that for my bio classes)

personally, i do think so. i mean this isnt necessarily a bad thing, but i think that we has humans have "Stopped" or at least slowed the incredibly slow process of evolution. we as humans change the environment to suit OUR needs, and there fore reduce selective pressures that allow for certain adaptations to permeate into populations so that they can survive better in changing environments.

i mean in a "natural" environment selective pressures weed out the weak or disabled and the individuals with "strong" traits are able to pass there genes on into their progeny, and after a certain number of generations the "strong" traits become "normal" within the population. but with humans, i find that the "weak" and disabled live perfectly fine and no one is trying to kill them. ( now please for god sakes im not saying we should cull the disabled, this is why i said that humanities stagnating evolution isnt necessarily A BAD THING) what im trying to say is that due to the fact that we altar everything to suit the characteristics and needs we have now, that there is not need for any change in out biology to survive "better". however I am curious as to how we would evolve further.

so back on topic do u think that our evolution has stopped?

(yes i know i used a very general way of describing natural selection and evolution, but i really dont like getting into the nitty gritties, ill save that for my bio classes)

I think you're actually talking about the elimination of natural selection in modern society, and if that's it you're right on track. But evolution is a process that takes millions of years to take effect. We've only been developing, as modern humans, for the last 10,000 years. It's no wonder that we haven't seen any major developments in human evolution during that time. Evolution takes time, just be patient.

 

[Irony's Acolyte]

I dont' really know if human evolution has slowed or stopped. It's a reeeeeaaaaaallly slow process that involves small changes over a long period of time. And even if "natural" evolution has stopped, "artifical" evolution is always there to pick up the slack. I mean we're nearing the point where we can mess with genetics on our own and theres also cybernetics that could help push humans beyond humanity. Hooray for transhumanism!

 

[Blue Musician]

I am a misanthrope, so you can already tell what I am going to answer: yes.

But it hasn't stopped, it just will take quite a looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong time to show that we are evolving as humans.

 

[Zacharine]

i was more thinking along the lines of us developing into a new species. i understand the evolution doesnt pop limbs on animals and that all changes are incrementally small. the explanation u give is change within the species but we are still essentially the same species. im just wondering if we indeed lived long enough, would we become something else?

And that shows a somewhat fundamental misunderstanding regarding the mechanics of evolution and classification of species.

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.

Now, sometime in the future, there might become a separate subspecies of humans. But they will be identifiable as humans. And since so much of speciation occurs via geographical isolation, that would practically require humans to establish a colony (somewhere on this planet/space) that would be genetically isolated from the rest of humanity for several thousand, if not tens of thousands of generations with some serious evolutionary pressures applied to the population.

I don't see that happening anytime soon.

 

[UBERfionn]

Or maybe God did it...

 

[chaos order]

i was more thinking along the lines of us developing into a new species. i understand the evolution doesnt pop limbs on animals and that all changes are incrementally small. the explanation u give is change within the species but we are still essentially the same species. im just wondering if we indeed lived long enough, would we become something else?

And that shows a somewhat fundamental misunderstanding regarding the mechanics of evolution and classification of species.

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.

Now, sometime in the future, there might become a separate subspecies of humans. But they will be identifiable as humans. And since so much of speciation occurs via geographical isolation, that would practically require humans to establish a colony (somewhere on this planet/space) that would be genetically isolated from the rest of humanity for several thousand, if not tens of thousands of generations with some serious evolutionary pressures applied to the population.

I don't see that happening anytime soon.

well i wasnt suggesting that humans would change to the point at which we wouldnt fit in our classification of mammal. more or less change to the point at which we could be classified as a different genus. kind of like how homo erectus and homo sapiens r very similiar but r different species

 

[Naheal]

Evolution doesn't work that way.

Second, the average human today is stronger, taller, fitter, and healthier than the average human of any period before us. Not that this is due to genetic evolution, but cultural and intellectual evolution as well

I'll take this a bit farther and say that intellectually we're evolving at an astounding rate. Really, if we want to-

We're gona develop mental powers via nano chips in the brain. You only stop evolution if you lack imagination.

Damn. She got my idea already.

 

[brodie21]

no, evolution just takes a long time

 

[Turbo_Destructor]

of course evolution is slowing down, perhaps even going backwards, as in we are becoming less suited to the environment. This is because medicine and care facilities and the like are keeping people alive and functioning who would normally die out not be selected for reproduction (e.g. mentally impaired people, people with chronic diseases). Instead these people are being taken special care of, and since they can be taken care of, they are more likely to be chosen as mates as "fitness" is not as important as it used to be.

I'm not saying I disagree with taking special care of impaired people. There are still plenty of "fit" people in case of some kind of catastrophe. I'm simply saying that evolution generally evolves the population's genotypes and/or phenotypes shifting in accordance with environmental change. Which means I suppose you could call what is happening to humanity evolution of a kind, but it's not really a positive form of evolution.

 

[Jfswift]

I would say it's going faster now. Consider how much progress technology has made in the last 100 years compared to history overall. Genetic tampering will probably lead to the next era of humanity in the near future.

 

[RN7]

There have been several...interesting points brought up.

Seeing as humans have evolved and sustained life by keeping their numbers up instead of letting the weak die off (a discussion for another day), we have already been sent in on an unusual evolutionary path. Instead of adapting to the environment, we survive by altering our surroundings to suit our needs. We rely solely on our capability to create what we need to convenience ourselves.

The next logical step would be to have humans integrate themselves with the technology they oh so need to survive today. These new creatures would be much more powerful than any human existing today. All those who do not ride upon this self-evolutionary path will be crushed, or enslaved. The homo-sapiens will lose all dominance and eventually die out, just as the neanderthal did so long ago.