Poll: is the evolution of humans stagnating?

[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.

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)

 

[Estocavio]

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...

 

[Applejack]

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

Edit: spelling

 

[Pimppeter2]

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

 

[Dags90]

Since when is evolution directional? There is no evolutionary goal, many organisms haven't changed drastically in millions of years because they don't need to.

Evolution doesn't work that way.

Thank you for the dose of sanity. I'm this [---] close to going on a "people don't actually understand evolution" rage.

 

[DarkDain]

as Scott Adams put it, humans short circuted evolution via the printing press. We could pass on knowledge without the use of genes, our knowledge grew but our bodies did not. Wall-e probably has it right, we'll all be blobs in a few more centuries. Blobs with the best digital watches ever.

 

[2012 Wont Happen]

We have evolved to adapt to the new world we have built.

Unfortunately, we are treating it as a disease to be medicated.

Modern man has developed the ability to multi-task more easily than any generation before him, jumping back and forth between ideas as they are presented to him- a very important skill in the world of today. We call it ADD, and give you medication to "cure" it.

 

[Extraintrovert]

Well, considering evolution isn't real, it couldn't have stopped.[/sarcasm]

Seriously though, I don't think it has stopped or slowed or anything else. Evolution has no goal and can only work with what it has, and the very nature of "strong" characteristics is subjective because they depend on an organism's environment. So no, evolution for humans hasn't stagnated, merely changed.

 

[philosophicalbastard]

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

 

[Enzeru92]

I don't think it has stopped completely but it has slowed down for sure, now is it a good thing or not who knows. Though in my opinion we seriously need some Darwinism with the increase of idiot in the world

 

[Om Nom Nom]

We are still evolving. Though with natural selection all but eliminated, that might actually be a bad thing for us in the long term.

 

[LetoTheTyrant]

Well evolution won't have stopped, there will be just as many mutations as before, if not more. However, with no real natural selection there's no refining as it were. So as a whole the species won't move forward it'll move outward. If that makes sense. All mutations are kept, or nearly all, rather than just the useful ones.

 

[Calgetorix]

Since when is evolution directional? There is no evolutionary goal, many organisms haven't changed drastically in millions of years because they don't need to.

Evolution doesn't work that way.

Thank you for the dose of sanity. I'm this [---] close to going on a "people don't actually understand evolution" rage.

I'm going to have to agree with you. Just look at crocodiles. The only thing that has changed is the environment

 

[twasdfzxcv]

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...

 

[Mimssy]

*chuck my copy of The Red Queen at you*
Here, read that. Learn about evolution. It's not directional, there is no goal, and you can constantly evolve with no change (The Red Queen gets it's name form the quote from Through the Looking Glass- or is Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, never can remember- where the Queen tells Alice that one must keep running just to stay where you are).

 

[Sightless Wisdom]

I don't think it's that easy to judge evolution. The perspective needed to see real change is massive.

 

[Avelestar]

Steven Jones wrote an excellent article in a magazine called Cosmos about this very topic, and after a bit of digging I found it! http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/features/print/2676/the-end-evolution Give it a read, even if you don't agree with it he makes some good points and his background in genetics gives it credit (the issue was actually a special on evolution, only reason I picked it up).

But I couldn't help writing my own way of looking at it, being an ecology student and taking evolution courses on the side and all. Spoilered for length.

Spoiler

A creature evolves to better adapt to its environment, to get food better, to get more sex, for better defense against being eaten. All these things occur due to natural random (by chance) mutations, and are passed onto the next generation because the creature was 'better' in some way. If this 'better' was good enough, over many generations you see more and more of it in the population, and eventually becomes a part of the whole population (or species on a wide enough scale...or becoming a new species all together). A 'worse' mutation is going to get you eaten (a normally mottled brown rat is now BRIGHT PINK and gets picked off by predators almost instantly) or you die at birth, mates reject you etc. and doesn't get to pass its genes on.

These things take a huge amount of time, effected by variables such as mutation rate, generation time, selection pressure, climate, environment, how tasty the animal is etc. Now humans have a fairly long life span (70ish years) and whilst we can reproduce from our teenage years and onwards, on average we have only a few children. This is normal for larger animals, who show longer gestation and care periods, along with smaller litters (it costs alot more energy to make a baby elephant than a baby mouse). However the health of the child is at risk when reproducing at young/old ages.

So humans have a: long generation time, low reproduction rate

These are two huge factors contributing to our rate of evolution (decrease). Now add in other variables like increased medical knowledge, general increase in living conditions and lack of selection and we have an increased population size, making any 'better' mutation be more insignificant in the sheer number of 'normal' people (1 in 7 billion!), again another decrease in the rate. Finally remember that we as a species haven't been around that long...sure we've evolved to Homo sapiens, but it takes a hell of a long time to evolve wings or psychic powers (a man can dream!), far longer than we've been running around beating each other to death with sticks.

In conclusion humans HAVE the capacity to evolve and we sure as hell are doing it, but at such a slow rate based on our knowledge and the capacity to drastically change any climate to what we need. Remember that the time scale on which evolution happens is astronomical compared to what we as humans experience. 70 years is nothing, come back in 70,000 and we'll talk.

 

[Hazzaslagga]

anyone feel like watching the video evouloution by Korn.

 

[Axzarious]

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.

I think this is because we are better fed, have better medical care, and actually know what we need to be healthy.