Poll: is the evolution of humans stagnating?

[Lavi]

Science-y answer: No. Ironically, I'm listening to a lecture that just stated that evolution has sped up in the last millions of years.

Non-science-y answer: It would be significant for humanity to break free of the laws that rule over our biology because we would break off from animalistic tendancies.

... DAMNIT! Guess what? Dennett holds Islamophobic views. I'd rather not have such unintelligent bullshit in my lectures -_-

 

[Kurokami]

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)

Wait till genetic engineering evolves a wee bit, I'm fairly sure its not far away, if not already attainable.

 

[tobi the good boy]

i think what the op is really asking is why dont we have psycic powers yet.

 

[Danzaivar]

...

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.

So do we class dinosaurs as birds, or are birds classed as dinosaurs?

Birds are dinosaurs, as simple as that. Just like we are apes. Just like we are mammals. "Dinosaur", "Bird" etc are not species classifications, but rather higher-tier classifications. Just like "vertebrate" or "mammal". One is simply a subset of the other, with subsets of its own.

So we're all primordial amoeba?

 

[tomtom94]

In a world in which anyone can breed, the human race is staying pretty much the same from generation to generation in lieu of any specialisation or focus.
Not that that's a bad thing, of course.

 

[Zacharine]

...

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.

So do we class dinosaurs as birds, or are birds classed as dinosaurs?

Birds are dinosaurs, as simple as that. Just like we are apes. Just like we are mammals. "Dinosaur", "Bird" etc are not species classifications, but rather higher-tier classifications. Just like "vertebrate" or "mammal". One is simply a subset of the other, with subsets of its own.

So we're all primordial amoeba?

No, no, no. We are all, however, animals or rather, members of the kingdom Animalia. An amoeba is a far more restrictive classification, including a lack of a spinal chord among major features.

perhaps this sheds some light to the taxonomic classification of species, specifically classification of humans. Linnean classification really is quite flawed, leading to common misunderstandings such as these.

 

[AVATAR_RAGE]

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

Indeed Evolution is often very slow anyway, we are not going to become a new species over night

 

[krimson_dropz]

i'm going to have to disagree the only reason evolution seems to be stagnating is the fact that evolving very minute changes in our beings has taken millions of years, and therefor we as individuals simply cant witness it it would be like a gnat trying to comprehend a solar system (pisspoor analogy i know but shove it) or on the other hand mabey oklahoma was right (it was oklahoma right?) lol

 

[Chrinik]

No, because as we change the world around us, our bodys still adapt to it.
Like how people are generally getting taller.

 

[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. It is all about spreading your genes down to the next generation. If a new predator is eating a species of rat that can be either grey or black, and the ground that the rats live on is black, then the species will soon be entirely black. So the black haired phenotype (the physical characteristic) has been selected for, and they passed their genotype (the genes) down to the next generation. This is called predatorial selection.
Or take this example: if as species of fish have females that only find males with long fins attractive, the short finned fishes will soon dissappear. It's not because they are dying, just because their genes aren't passed down.
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.

 

[ajemas]

No.
Imagine this. Let's say that we turned the timeline of life on the planet into a clock. So Midnight would be the very first occurance of life on the planet, and 24 hours later would be right now. Guess where humans fit onto that clock? The entirety of human history is one second before the stroke of midnight. That means that we have only existed for one second out of 24 hours.
Now here's the thing: it was just 200,000 years ago when the sub species homo sapien sapien appeared. But before that, the genus homo appeared 2,500,000 years ago. So all 4000 years of human history is insanely incosequential.
And yes, it is true that natural selection has stopped for this point in time. But for any effects on the species as a whole to be felt, it would take millions of years for any changes to take place. By that time, it is entirely possible that the human species will die out. Could you see this human culture still being around 1,000,000 years from now?
My overall point is that evolution takes a very long time, far longer than any of us could possibly concieve.. Don't worry about evolution stopping for right now, because in the timeline of the clock, our modern non-selective history is just 0.00001 milliseconds out of 24 hours.
(I'm a bio student, by the way.)

i am a bio student as well (well only going into second year of uni) and i did know everything u posted before hand i just didnt feel that i needed to put all that to get my point across (im also incredibly lazy ). i understand that any form of evolution is too slow and any real change occur in small increments and not suddenly. i was just wondering if we indeed existed for another couple millions of years, would we change significantly to be considered a new species or would we be essentially the same boring humans. i mean as i said in the original post we really have no selective pressures that force any real change in us.

o and sry for double post

My point is this: Yes, our evolution has stopped FOR NOW. But the time in which it has stopped is so short in the whole scheme of things that it isn't going to matter at all. We've only stopped the selection process for about 1000 years, and this is out of the millions of years that it takes for any changes to occur. In a million years, our civilization is certainly not going to be around (due to wars, pollution, etc.) so this 1000 year blip is inconsequential.
So to answer your question: Yes, our evolution has stagnated, but it matters about as little as one grain of sand in an hourglass in the overall timeline of our evolution.

 

[Danzaivar]

No, no, no. We are all, however, animals or rather, members of the kingdom Animalia. An amoeba is a far more restrictive classification, including a lack of a spinal chord among major features.

perhaps this sheds some light to the taxonomic classification of species, specifically classification of humans. Linnean classification really is quite flawed, leading to common misunderstandings such as these.

So lightning hit a pool of amino acids and out popped animals?

[Edit: To clarify I don't mean amoeba as in the stuff in puddles kicking about these days, I was just using it as a short hand for 'single celled organism' (Hence primordial)]

 

[Prince Regent]

Nice poll

You can't stop evolution, it's a natural proces wich will always occur. We are not more evolved than a lion or a tree we just evolved diferently and we will always continue to evolve. It's not certain If or decendants will be smarter than us, but as with al live they will be more evolved.

Already the human gene pool is different than a few hunderd years ago, because of globalisation different races with different genes(Allele) are mixed. Also a lot of people with genetic illnesses can live and have children today, where they would die young in the past.

When you see how we change today, you can't deny we will look different tomorow.

 

[open trap]

Justin Beiber is proof of Natural selection not being as powerful on humanity as it used to be.

 

[Prince Regent]

Justin Beiber is proof of Natural selection not being as powerful on humanity as it used to be.

This only proofs that we are changing and evolving.

 

[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

mmh, perhaps, but only because that (or extinction) is the eventual future for any species. The species-classification simply moves one tier up once sufficient changes has occured. But again, I strongly object to the use of the words "something else" when describing such a situation, as such a descriptor is fundamentally flawed in that evolution never produces "something else".

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

 

[Oomii]

Human evolution hasn't stopped. We are still evolving, but because we can now save people from genetic illnesses, and the slow and weak have the same opportunities as the strong, survival of the fittest is no longer true, or at least, is a lot less true.

So yes, natural selection in humans has gone down significantly, but we are evolving and changing. Though I imagine it will be a long time before we see any significant negative effects.

 

[Zacharine]

So lightning hit a pool of amino acids and out popped animals?

[Edit: To clarify I don't mean amoeba as in the stuff in puddles kicking about these days, I was just using it as a short hand for 'single celled organism' (Hence primordial)]

And now you are talking of Abiogenesis, instead of the Theory of Evolution or taxonomic classifications.

Besides, it was hardly 'lighting and a mud puddle'. Some of the latest research (from 2009) explained. Really starts getting to the point at around 2min40sec mark:


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.

 

[Mechsoap]

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?

evolution gave us in the first place to have the ability to change it to our needs so it could maybe tend to other species for a while?