I believe it was sf writer Larry Niven who said this about medical technology. Now that we can keep people alive who would have died in a state of nature, we’ve “stopped” evolving.
However, this is wrong…for two reasons. First, it puts more emphasis on sexual selection rather than differential survival: we’re all getting prettier and sexier!
And, secondly, we still have differential survival. Traffic accidents are making us quicker, just for instance.
There was an observation in a Scientific American article that human skulls are getting thinner, because we don’t hit people over the head with rocks or sticks as much as we did in our pre-technical closer-to-nature state. We don’t depend on thick skulls to keep us alive, because the other guy likely has a spear, bow-and-arrow, or handgun. So we’re investing less biological energy in heavy skulls.
The modes of selection have changed…but we are still evolving, both via sexual selection and differential survival.
There is no reason to think that we are significantly from the Homo saps who left Africa 50,000 years ago and conquered the world. What we have is the accumulated knowledge since we invented agriculture. The result has been a steady increase in what we can do. Are we still evolving? Sure but that doesn’t come close to explaining our civilization. As mentioned several times, the end of human evolution is extinction.
As a biologist, I vehemently disagree with this. Technology allows us to alter the elective pressures placed upon us by the environment, but it does not free us from the inevitable forces of evolution.
Further, the most interesting thing that’s evolving now isn’t people, but society / civilization. That’s the unit of evolution which will become more advanced. Not some pitiful hairless ape.
Yes, I don’t see any other alternative really. It is probably only 100-300 years away in my view, because machine intelligence will catch on and start to augment our scientific knowledge base. I have no idea what’ll happen in a million years, but we will probably achieve something akin to god status by the 22nd or 23rd century.
However our current lives are based on finding ways to fulfill our biological needs and wants. What happens when we can do that with high efficiency with no side effects? Do we invent new wants and needs? I have no idea. We are probably the first species to reach this point in the galaxy (possibly the universe).
If you consider human evolution to include the changes we make to ourselves through science, yes. We won’t be Gods, since Gods are by definition supernatural, but we will be gods in the 21st century point of view, just like we would be gods to the ancients. (Effectively hold the sun still - no problem with helicopters and floodlights.)
Immortal - sure. In the future death will be nature’s way of telling you that you didn’t do a good job of backing yourself up. We’ll be limited by physical laws, of course, but who knows if we can hack around them, and our understanding might be different in a few thousand years.
Inventing new wants is the basis for the top tier, at least, of our economy. It’s wonderful! Who knew we needed Lego toys and decaffeinated tea and Dejah Thoris comic books and Disneyland and all!
I once wrote a short sci fi story in which “immortal god-like” human descendants, having gone beyond any need or use for any material goods, and having explored art, music, and literature to exhaustion, had only mathematics – number theory, specifically – as the one literally inexhaustible field for intellectual endeavor. Coming up with a new theorem about the properties of numbers was the only way left for people to attain any kind of exalted status.
Good to know there’s one resource that can never, ever run out!