Evolution seems solely concerned with the adaptation of a creature to enable it to better survive in a particular habitat.
Assuming the future of mankind is stable and we never again go back to caves, is it likely evolution will eventually overide our desire to partake in physical leisure activities: sport, hiking, yoga etc? Or will that desire shape the way we evolve to include these leisure preferences?
Is the desire to play sport merely there because the human environment has changed so rapidly we still feel the urge, and are still designed to, run, jump, throw … walk even?
Well, I’d say it’s more about producing fertile offspring. If you live to be 100 years old, but you never have kids, your genetic line will die out.
I doubt it. For one thing, leisure activities are often part of the human mating process - common interests help people meet each other, participating in activities together strengthens bonds, and working out makes you more attractive. Someone who never leaves the house and has no interest in staying in shape is unlikely to find a mate.
Nope. The sole winning criteria in evolution is leaving reproducing offspring. Adaptation to the environment tends to go along with that, but then you have something like the peacock’s tail, which is cumbersome at best. The only reason it exists is because peacocks without tails don’t get any peahens and therefore leave no descendants.
Mankind evolved in a very different environment, and good physical health was required to live long enough to reproduce. However, strength and speed couldn’t be the only factor involved since there are a lots of critters stronger and faster than us, but we’re still here.
Presumably, we’ll adapt to our new environment. Whatever traits lead to reproduction will be preserved. What Mr2001 said about leisure and mating activities is worth remembering. Some human activities, such as dancing, figure so prominently in our mating rituals they are unlikely to ever disappear and the physical strength and coordination required to dance remain an advantage in the mating game. At least among men, atheletic ability in the teen years remains a means of attracting the attention of the women.
So it may be that sexual selection for these traits will be strong enough to keep them in the species even after our living environments no longer require them for survival.
If sexual selection requires those traits for successful reproduction, yes, those traits could be retained for the life of the species.
Keep in mind that if our environment changes again - either through a collapse of civilization, or by a segment of the population going into space and colonizing other environments - natural selection for good health, strength, and coordination could resume.
I think it could also be the need for higher animals to play. Carnivorous mammals tend to play a lot while growing up to learn what exactly they can and can’t do with their bodies, to learn how to fight with others, and to learn how to take down prey. Kittens and puppies are always roughing each other up, and even animals you wouldn’t think about like otters play when little.
Maybe we just haven’t outgrown that? I’ve heard playing is linked to intelligence, so perhaps we are too smart for our own good and need some sort of outlet.
It’s important to note that evolution is unpredictable. It’s a moderately safe bet to say that things will keep going more or less as they do today (at least, it’s safer than any other bet you might name), but short of waiting a few million years to see, there’s no way to know for sure. Maybe women will continue to be attracted to athletes, in which case the human race will remain at least somewhat athletic. Maybe in the future most courtship will occur via text-only media, in which case the pencil-necked geeks will stand a fighting chance. Maybe in the future women will become even more attracted to jocks, and humans will become progressively more athletic. And maybe some segments of the population will tend towards one case, and some segments will tend towards the other, leading eventually to a split into two (or more) different species.
The biggest wildcard is that we can probably expect the environment to change a lot faster than evolutionary timescales: Who’s to say that we’ll retain the technology necessary for leisure for millions of years?
I think that’s the most important thing if my common sense is working properly. Animals play because it helps them to learn and it helps keep them in shape for fight or flight. You can only automate things so far before people are atrophied blobs hooked up to feeding tubes and protected by robots. People will have to do activites that keep them in reasonable shape for a long time to come, wouldn’t you think? How can you take care of kids if you’re too fat and uncoordinated to get out of your hammock?
But evolution would cull all the obese people as well. Maybe what marky was contemplating was a race of people who ate little and exercised little and spent all day in quiet contemplation. If so, I don’t see it happening, theres no pressing need at the moment to conserve food and if there ever did become such a case, the ability to hunt your own would probably be pretty handy.
But haven’t you got these two points the wrong way around?
Just because food is plentiful does not mean humans will evolve in such a way as to keep eating as much as we do now.
Also, as was mentioned above, evolution does not head in a set direction. Likewise, it surely does not anticipate problems that may or may not happen in the future and prepare for them.
Many of these post say they can’t see this happening “anytime soon”. What I’m asking is, is it likely to ever?
You’d have to conceive of an environment where the complete lack of desire to engage in physical activity created a REPRODUCTIVE ADVANTAGE over a long period of time. Since “play” is a crucial component in the socialization process of all primates, it’s hard to imagine that we would still be “human” if we lost the desire to engage in play activity.
Suppose that the air became poisonous to a degree that physical activity was dangerous and often deadly. That might create the environment you envision, yet it’s hard to imagine that in that environment, we’d be able to have plentiful food for the non-active at the same time.
In short, I think that any change in the environment that would favor a cesation of all physical activity would also destroy the social structure (eg, civilization) that makes food so readily available in the first place.