Has Human Evolution Finished?

[Funky Monk]

Well, if you believe in Darwenism can you see human beings evolving?

For a start we have no competition forcing us to evlove. We live an easy life and have no incentive to get bigger, faster stronger etc

Secondly we dont have the survival of the fittest thing going on, the finest specimens dont always mate with the finest specimens to produce enhanced offspring. In most societies even those who would normally have dropped out of society are cared for.

Thirdly we all crave hte perfect baby. Any abormality is undesirable, be it something bad or something just different.

Yeh

[Marxist in Nebraska]

I see no reason to believe that evolution will not continue.

There will continue to be climate changes, and we are not indoors all day... that is incentive for evolution... a need for improvement

And while potential evolution could be seen as freakish, our science has not advanced to a state of genetic engineering where we can pull all the strings in the womb just yet...

[Al Creed]

Of course Evolution will continue, but not as noticable as it has been in the past.

Dont forget, Evolution was a process that took 6 Million years to get this far, and I don't think we're near-finishyed yet

[SonofRage]

with questions like these, I can't help but wonder if maybe evolution is going backwards...

[Rastafari]

I'm not necessarilly sure you understand what evolution is, FunkyMonk.

A big mistake people seem to make is that humans are the most "progressed," "evolved," "advanced," etc. species on Earth. They seem to think that humans are perfect and a dead end has been reached. Human interference is really not evolution. Our control over our environment could facilitate an end to natural selection, this is true, but evolution is a continuing process that will never "stop"

[Exploited Class]

Evolution is far from being over. We will be going backwards however.

One of the strangest thoughts I have was "How many six fingered people are around me?" As you may or may not know children are born with six fingers and it is occuring more and more frequently. The baby has the six fingered removed after birth and nobody sees it later on in life, but the gene for the 6 fingers is there.

So we will have this gene passed down to the next child, nobody the wiser. Nobody knowing who has six fingers, and perhaps six fingeres would have been something that a mate wouldn't have found appealing and the gene might have stopped. Since we remove the finger, that isn't an issue.

So I think we are going to keep evoling but it won't be very visible thanks to modern medicine. I don't think this is a bad thing, just like weak eyesight is going to probably rise, since people with bad eyesight won't be killed by a tiger or lion.

[Jesus Christ]

i dont see evolution as ending, ever
any animal, even humans will continue to adapt, maybe on a large scale, maybe on a small scale, but it will happen
the problem is adapting in time to survive

[Umoja]

We're going to change, but probubly not in the ways we like. For all we know, we could just become overly fragile husk that are forced to live off machines.

[Bradyman]

Evolution is far from over.

Yeah, so we have the ability to manipulate the enviornment at our disposal, but that will just further evolution. If we conitunally sit at our computers and our TVs, perhaps will have more fingers, or bigger eyes, or all sorts of crazy stuff. Keep in mind, though, that we are advancing at a far faster rate than evolution, so it might take a while for it to catch up.

Backwards evolution is an interesting idea. I think that, it will not necessarilly be "backwards" just different than our idea or what "forward" is. I think that we'll evolve to fit our needs, which may mean reducing things that we don't need. So it might be considered backwards, or prehaps a different direction forward.

[Sheep]

Originally posted by Exploited Class@Nov 12 2003, 10:00 PM
since people with bad eyesight won't be killed by a tiger or lion.

what about bears?!?!

---

i think evolution will continue, we are but a blip on the earths radar.

[Exploited Class]

Originally posted by Bradyman@Nov 13 2003, 06:51 PM
Evolution is far from over.

Yeah, so we have the ability to manipulate the enviornment at our disposal, but that will just further evolution. If we conitunally sit at our computers and our TVs, perhaps will have more fingers, or bigger eyes, or all sorts of crazy stuff. Keep in mind, though, that we are advancing at a far faster rate than evolution, so it might take a while for it to catch up.

Backwards evolution is an interesting idea. I think that, it will not necessarilly be "backwards" just different than our idea or what "forward" is. I think that we'll evolve to fit our needs, which may mean reducing things that we don't need. So it might be considered backwards, or prehaps a different direction forward.

I don't think you know how evolution works. Just because we do something over and over and over again doesn't mean we evolve to fit that.

I don't think you understand what I meant by "backwards" evolution. Meaning things we once were or got over to a degree, we would be going back to. It wasn't in reference to a quality like good evolution and bad evolution. We might get hairy, like we use to be but no longer are, we might be shorter on average, something we use to be but no longer are. It is on the timeline of evolution that I am referencing, actual PAST stages that existed in our evolutionary past. Backwards doesn't mean bad or good.

The way evolution works is like this. You have a mutated gene which occurs because they proved it millions of times. The mutated gene must benefit you in 2 ways, still reproduce, allows you to survive or survive better than non-mutated gene people and must not hinder your offspring.

So you have a mutated head, it is big, in fact too big to go through a vaginal canal. You die at birth and kill the mother. You did not live long enough to pass the mutated gene to your children.

You have a mutated gene that allows you to be taller. You can get to food easier so your chances of survival goes up, you can win in a fight with others for a mate, so your gene can pass down to your offspring.

You have a mutated gene, your eyes are blue. Nobody likes your blue eyes and kills you. Your gene does not get passed down, if they don't kill you they find you unattracted nobody has sex with you, the gene does not pass down.

You have a mutated mutated that makes you deaf. You can not hear wild animals approach or cars... your survival rating goes down and your chances to pass your gene to offspring diminishes.

You also have to take into account recessive and dominant genes but you should get the point. Genes don't magicaly mutate because they think it will benefit you. That is like thinking, since I am in the water all the time, my kids should just develop gills and web feet. Outside forces (other than radiation) do not contribute to gene mutation. It is luck, it is chance and if it pays off it might be passed into the gene pool, especially if other's in other locations experience the same gene mutation.

As for bears, they are our friends and have always been. Have you not watched the Jungle Book? hehe

[redstar2000]

Here is a curiosity.

Every 20 years or so, the people in the business of IQ testing have to "re-normalize" their test scores so that the average "stays" at "100".

In other words, someone 20 years ago who got 50 questions out of 100 correct would be assigned an IQ of 100...because about half the population of test-takers would get around 50 correct answers.

But now, about half the population of test-takers get around 55 or 60 answers correct...so that becomes the new benchmark for an IQ of "100".

This process of re-normalizing IQ scores has been going on since the 1930s, by the way. If we were scored now on the same basis as people in 1930, our "average IQ" might be 125 or higher.

There are several possible explanations and more than one of them might be true.

IQ tests don't really measure intelligence at all.

People have always been more intelligent than the general consensus--better testing is giving more accurate results.

We're getting better at taking IQ tests.

We are evolving more brain-power in a shorter time than any species has ever done before.

Oh yeah...every decade or so, blacks and Hispanics gain about three points or so on whites and Asians. In 50 or 60 years, they will "catch up"...and "move ahead"?



The RedStar2000 Papers
A site about communist ideas

[Tiki Man]

There is a limit. Until we evolve further, we will be stuck at a level soon, we are just realizing what we can do now. We've gone from simple muskets to the nuclear bomb in a few hundred years. We've gone from flight into air to flight into space in a little over half a century.

We'l eventually reach a limit of what we can currently do. But I beleive humans are changing rapidly on the evolution scale. Average height for example. There weren't many NBA-sized people. Now I am 6' 3", my entire family is fairly tall, and more and more people are developing taller in modern days. Extremely rapid by evolution standards. Is it just the eaten foods that have changed this?

[Don't Change Your Name]

We will continue with our evolution and there will be a point (as I already said in my UFO thread) when the brain will have developed so much that we will use telepathy to communicate and then we won't need to speak to get what other means because our brain will be faster. That's my belief, ut I am not an expert.

We will keep improving. If the nature is smart we will keep adapting to the environment to survive. What our genes learn will probably be passed to our kids. I dont know that much about this subject but it is interesting

[Mr Mojo Risin]

Originally posted by Exploited Class@Nov 12 2003, 05:00 PM
Evolution is far from being over. We will be going backwards however.

not to split hairs, but there's no such thing as backwards evolution. All evolution is one-way, 'de-evolution' is just evolution which seems to make humans less valuable by some societal standard.

[Exploited Class]

Originally posted by Mr Mojo Risin&#39;+Nov 16 2003, 11:14 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Mr Mojo Risin&#39; @ Nov 16 2003, 11:14 PM)

Exploited Class

@Nov 12 2003, 05:00 PM
Evolution is far from being over. We will be going backwards however.

not to split hairs, but there&#39;s no such thing as backwards evolution. All evolution is one-way, &#39;de-evolution&#39; is just evolution which seems to make humans less valuable by some societal standard. [/b]

You are splitting hairs.

I explained my term of backwards evolution. Whether or not it is "technically" correct terminology to use or not is besides the point, since I gave a thourough explination of what I meant by it.

Maybe there is a better term, or maybe 10 terms or maybe the term doesn&#39;t fit in 100% with existing terms. Critique what I explained and not the word.

You are being picky.

[Mr Mojo Risin]

what you described was an interesting point, but it was not &#39;backwards evolution.&#39; You talked about how evolutionary advantages of certain genes are being eliminated because we can correct for them with medicine. However, this doesn&#39;t describe any backwards evolution-- it describes an end to evolution, since we are eliminating the natural problems which would otherwise select against certain genes, and thus cause evolution, and there is thus no no evolutionary trend in the development of the species.

I think what you mean is that, for example, having humans with genes for 6 fingers is backwards evolution- it is not. Homo Sapiens as it exists today is not some model, and developing more 6-fingered humans is NOT backwards evolution.

[kylie]

to my knowledge, evolution occurs through natural selection right? So if a mutated version of a species develops, and that version happens to be better suited for living in whatever environment, then it will eventually become the dominant version of that species. So a moth a different shade of brown than normal allowing it to not be seen as much, and have more change of surviving to reproduce, for example.
But seeing as how humans choose who to reproduce with, unlike other animals, hasn&#39;t our evolution finished? Because with this choice the idea of a new varient of a species becoming the main one through reproduction becomes near enough impossible.
I&#39;m basing this on what i remember from high school biology though, so i might have got some of my assumptions concerning evolution wrong.

[truthaddict11]

6 fingers is a dominate genetic trait but is rarely exressed.