Assuming that human eveolution is a constant and unending process until we are extinct, what, possibly, will be some of the changes we may see in our physical biology? Which of our human qualities may be evolved away?
Can’t know. It’s all down to the location of muations and selective pressures, neither of which can be known for the next x hundred years, let alone the millenia required to move away from something that falls within the range of modern humanity. Whatever we can come up with will be WAGs because what is a beneficial mutation now may not be in 200 years time.
True Gaspode. This is probably a great debate thread. You’re asking where are we going, which is all prophecy and prediction, no facts there at all.
With that being said it is IMHO that I think we’ve largely erased evolution from humanity. People who are born with mild and even severely deadly mutations can survive whereas once those mutations would have been quickly erased from the population. We really have no selection to eliminate bad mutations but we do have a way to add new ones, good or bad. Leaving no force to push the genome in a specific direction, say being shorter or prone to less fits of anger.
Leaving us to suppose that in the future, barring genetic tampering by those in the know, there will be an increasingly diverse genetic range in humans with more and more negative genes (since most likely most mutations are negative). Leaving us with more syndromes to be counter-acted by drugs, more succeptability to various cancers or viruses.
Although that being said I bet we will move into genetic tampering eventually. There’s no way all countries will stand together on this for all time. We are a very wild and crazy bunch you know.
evolution always continues. some of the mechanisms behind it have changed as humans have gained control of their bodies & their environment.
but you should never stop looking at the basic evolutionary forces: What conditions are killing people off before before they procreate? In human history, this has traditionally been hunger, exposure, etc. Now it may be auto accidents or terrorists. Evolution doesn’t care.
Conversely, what conditions are allowing humans to have the most offspring? Good growing season … religious dogma?
a few examples-
it used to be that there was selective pressure towards being able to hunt/capture/find food - humans needed strength, vision, endurance, etc. or they wouldn’t live long enough to reproduce. Most modern humans no longer need those skills to eat, so that selection pressure will vanish. This means that we may get smaller/slower, or not. Just that evolution is no longer nudging us to stay strong & fit in that way.
Likewise, evolution is no longer exerting the same selection pressure on us for the strength of our imune sytems, since we have the capability to augment them ourselves. Without selective pressure for strong imune systems, a baby can be born with a mutation making him more susceptible to certain diseases. The condition is compensated for by modern medicine & the new gene is passed down & spread in the gene pool.
to the extent that there is a genetic component for violent behavior (and I ain’t debating whether that is true or not), I believe that it is being selected against. There are a lot of kids engaging in violence in the US, getting themselves killed before they have a chance to procreate. My conjecture is that if there is a genetic predisposition for cooperation out there, then it is being encouraged by evolution, the people carrying it having a greater possibility of surviving & raising families.
There are countless other forces at work, shaping human population. But I think that if you look at it from the simple questions of “What kills kids before they reproduce?” (and are able to successfully raise their offspring) and “In what conditions are people creating the most copies of themselves?”, then you will get some clues as to what, physically is happening to us.
one other thing, Osiris
you’re probably just using shorthand with the term “negative genes”, but that’s a very subjective view. I don’t think it buys us anything to call a gene good or bad (“there are no bad genes, they’re just misunderstood?” : )
genes can have a huge variety of effects on an organism. Some of those effects can help the organism survive in one environment and harm it in another, and have no effect in still another.
But i agree with you that human medicine will allow a greater variety of genes to survive. That variety could actually be a very good thing. Diverse genepools bode well for the long term survivability for a species.
NO offense, but that sort of comment irks me just a little.
Probably 70% of the world’s population don’t have access to the medical aid needed for their children to survive even basic infections, let alone severe mutations. For most of humanity disease and an ability to find sufficent food and water are still major problems. Disase mediated evolution and selction for humanity as a whole goes on.
Even ignoring that it’s only been one or two generations sine the Great Depression, wher even in industrialised nations an ability to hunt and farm and steal and scavenge meant the difference betweeen life nad death. One major event like this every couple of generations is more than enough to push evoution in the direction it’s always gone - towards the strongets and the smartest. If the world economy collapses next week there’s going to be a lot of folks in Montana who’s lives are going to depend on how well they can shoot. It would be extremely optimistic to assume that the world is now depression proof. (or maybe I’m just a pessimist).
audient’s view of the future human: 5 foot trailer-trash with latex dissolving reproductive fluids, an amazing ability to drive at high speeds and a complete tolerance to alcohol, marijuana, ecstacy and paint thinners and birth control pills.
I think I’ll opt out of the human race now.
<LOL> I see you understand my approach exactly Gaspode.
you’re better off if you can at least see it coming.
I think I knew her.
None taken. And I can assure you that I was well aware of the situation in the developing and impoverished world and their lack of continued access to decent health care. The reason I chose to ignore it in this post was that I took this OP as looking far into the future. Add to that the fact that I’m a rabid optimist and that I can’t see the current situation lasting past 2050 if that far, especially once population stabilizes. If it does then we will have seriously failed our progeny. And as to any new mutations that may come in this next 50 years I swept them under the carpet as being insignificant. Although truth be told I can see why you’re ticked, my tenses don’t show your intent, hmm. But I trust you’ll take me on my word that that was what I meant. (p.s. the world is definately not recession proof as more and more countries find out every quarter)
Audient, I don’t think you’re joking, so as per ‘negative genes’ I meant something like when you said “Without selective pressure for strong imune systems, a baby can be born with a mutation making him more susceptible to certain diseases” It is quite possible that that mutation has no positive side, making it in my opinion negative, as to its effect on the life of the individual. In that being free of scientific and medical propping up is a good and positive thing.
As per your examples (in my optimistic Star Trek future)
strength, vision, endurance: I’m not sure you could say wheather or not people with any of these attributes in goodly amounts will be more or less likely to have large amounts of children. They may wane much like eyes in cave fish. Of course that takes a very very long time. And as long as nothing drastic happens nothing is likely to be deadly and repulse a potential mate.
imune sytems: I concur except rather then saying compensated I might have used exacerbated.
violent behavior: Here I think I’ll agree to disagree. Although without any outcome of my own. It may be that those people who are mild manners choose to have a small amount of kids, whereas those who are hot tempered may choose to have large families. Thus even if they do loose children to violent behavior more will still survive then the mild mannered people. I’d need a study to accept your opinion here. Hmm I said this better here then I did in the first one.
I’ll admit that the “largely erased evolution from humanity” was wrong. I should have said largely handed over to social effects and no longer life and death physical effects.
blecch, this is why I stay out of GD, I have to write too much, and I have to do enough of that IRL already.
Future human evolution will be dictated as much by marketing and fashion considerations as genomic imperatives. With the ability to precisely craft children on the very near horizon, personal eugenics will come into it’s own (and is in some limited fashion here already).
IIRC SNL had a great skit on this over 20 years ago where Steve Martin was asking Dan Ackroyd and Gilda Radner what accessories they wanted their children to come with. Pods or flippers?
we won’t have pinky toes because we wear shoes.
what function does all the hair on top of our heads have (when thinking about survival of the fittest)? not nearly as philisophical as above stated posts, but these are the thoughts that first came to me. . .
What difference does that make? Toes do a lot of work, they just don’t get noticed 'cos they’re in your shoes.
Keeps the top of your head warm, which is where you lose the most heat. Put a hairy guy and a bald guy on the top of a mountain without hats and see who succumbs to exposure first and who survives to reproduce again. Hair also prevents sunburn and possible resulting skin cancer. Therefore having hair on your head has definite advantages in certain conditions and very few drawbacks in others. (Only drawbacks I can think of are insect infestation and the possibility that your hair is so bad that no-one wants to “share genes” with you.)
Or, to look at it another way; why else would we have hair on our heads if there wasn’t some benefit to it? Otherwise it would have gone the same way as the rest of our body hair.
but humans have hats now. I think evolution is no longer selecting against the baldness gene. At least not based on survivability. It may be that evolution is selecting for/against baldness on another basis, such as fashion.
also keep in mind that a baldness gene would not be selected against because baldness usually sets in after the male has had a chance to reproduce.
horses still have their pinky toes, they’re called vestigal. Just because something doesn’t to have an apparent use, doesn’t mean it’ll necessarily disappear (and horses also wear shoes : )
Put a hairy guy and a bald guy in a bar and see who gets laid first.
Now try it with a woman with hair and a bald woman.
This might be a fun thread for IMHO. I’ll shoot it over there for y’all.
curious, why do you believe this? I make no conjecture on family sizes. I singled out violent behavior as an example because it’s one of the leading causes of death of people who have not yet reproduced.
Evolution always goes on until extinction. That said, I’ll speculate about some future changes (barring extinction).
In the short term (hundreds/thousands of years), we’ll have different immunities/susceptibilities to pathogens. The “races” of humans will be in different proportions than they are today.
In longer terms (tens/hundreds of thousands of years)…more of the same. No drastic changes due to the homogeneity of our species (ability to control surroundings, world travelling, interbreeding races).
However! I see a few ways for there to be dramatic evolutionary changes in this “long-term”:
(1) Planetary catastrophy (asteroid/comet strike, global warming, ozone loss, epidemic, etc.) that wipes out most of humanity but leaves several small, isolated, stone-age technology tribes. That would give a new potential for evolutionary diversification.
(2) Off-world colonization. Generations of isolated bands of humans born on worlds with different gravity, etc. would appear very different (changes in muscle/bone densities, etc.) Not to mention that they would be subject to different pathogens, nutritions, etc. since the food, pathogens, etc. that they bring along would also be evolving.
(3) Heavy use of bioengineering in reproduction (gene manipulation).
Over millions of years…um…er…
I’m pretty sure all the Dopers will amalgamate Borg-style into some sort of supremely intelligent and invincible entity that will be the next dominant species. After a while it will just be us and the cockroaches.
…and then the Collective will collapse from intra-Doper infighting. Have you ever seen the stuff that goes on in Great Debates? 
So the roaches win.