Is human evolution over?

ScumLord

I wasn't sure where to post this question but since I know evolution is an important part of the atheist argument I thought of here.

There's no place on this planet that the human animal can't survive in. Even if the earth plunged into another ice age the Eskimos would just take over. We have an ability to enter a new environment learn the systems and take advantage of it instantly, we have no need to evolve when the environment changes like other animals do. We can already just eat just about anything, even food unpalatable to herbivores like chillies make a delightful snack for us and if push comes to shove we can take down and eat any other living thing.

We still don't really take full advantage of our mental ability's so there's room for even more complex environments.

It's hard to come up with a reason for us to change beyond the minor variations that we already have and environments have always been the catalyst for changes.

Genghiz Cohen

Kids in malaria infested parts of Africa are being born with a mild version of sickle cell anemia. Making them resistant to it.

MrPudding

Are wisdom teeth and the apendix (sp) not being depreciated in newer human models?

MrP

Mickeroo

The more reliant on technology we become the more useless our bodies will become when it comes to surviving without it. Our bodies on their own are pretty badly adapted as it is. We need to put shoes on our feet to walk around comfortably outside for example.

If it comes to a catastrophic climate change,asteroid,super volcano etc I think we'd be screwed, smaller animals and insects are much more adaptable than humans.

Debunker

ScumLord wrote: »

We still don't really take full advantage of our mental ability's...

As a human, i disagree with this statement.
Also humans are mammals.

ScumLord

You don't need to put on shoes. You would build up a hard callus on your feet without them. It's more comfortable to use shoes.

What are we badly adapted for? Humans had spread throughout the planet long before we had complicated technology.

Overblood

MrPudding wrote: »

Are wisdom teeth and the apendix (sp) not being depreciated in newer human models?

MrP

The appendix plays a role in immunodefence doesn't it?

Mickeroo

Overblood wrote: »

The appendix plays a role in immunodefence doesn't it?

I'm pretty sure the general consensus is the Appendix has no obvious function.....right?

ScumLord

Debunker wrote: »

As a human, i disagree with this statement.
Also humans are mammals.

Did I call us reptiles somewhere?

Most people don't know about or use memory systems like loci, smart people are coming up with more efficient and powerful ways of getting the most out of the human brain. There's vast room for improvement if we educated children differently.

kiffer

Mickeroo wrote: »

I'm pretty sure the general consensus is the Appendix has no obvious function.....right?

Appendix stores intestinal fauna and helps you recover from catastrophic pooping.

Fighting Irish

Its hard to tell, if all third world countries were wiped out today, then i think evolution for humans would be focked
Its all about survival of the fittest, but these days developed countries do everything they can to try save the weak

Rb

Fighting Irish wrote: »

Its hard to tell, if all third world countries were wiped out today, then i think evolution for humans would be focked
Its all about survival of the fittest, but these days developed countries do everything they can to try save the weak

Indeed and sometimes I wonder whether, in terms of evolving as a species, we're actually benefitting (as a whole) having access to treatments such as IVF. People are, after all, having children that they're not *naturally* able to have.

It's certainly a controversial subject and one which I won't go into here though

Whether we're still evolving, yes, I believe we are. The skills and traits that we are evolving currently, or should evolve, are far different to those of earlier humans (such as hunter-gatherer instincts which we pretty much have no use for any more).

Fighting Irish

Rb wrote: »

Indeed and sometimes I wonder whether, in terms of evolving as a species, we're actually benefitting (as a whole) having access to treatments such as IVF. People are, after all, having children that they're not *naturally* able to have.

It's certainly a controversial subject and one which I won't go into here though

Whether we're still evolving, yes, I believe we are. The skills and traits that we are evolving currently, or should evolve, are far different to those of earlier humans (such as hunter-gatherer instincts which we pretty much have no use for any more).

In the developed world i can't see how we our evolving, our vision, hearing, etc etc are only gonna get worse
Unless I'm looking at this wrong and not thinking of something

Tar.Aldarion

No, I don't think it is over, mutation is mutation is evolution.

Mickeroo

Fighting Irish wrote: »

In the developed world i can't see how we our evolving, our vision, hearing, etc etc are only gonna get worse
Unless I'm looking at this wrong and not thinking of something

Yes, but those senses getting worse IS evolution.

Tar.Aldarion

Mickeroo wrote: »

Yes, but those senses getting worse IS evolution.

Yes, a lot of people seem to think there is some end point to evolution, a super human type being, no...

MrPudding

Fighting Irish wrote: »

In the developed world i can't see how we our evolving, our vision, hearing, etc etc are only gonna get worse
Unless I'm looking at this wrong and not thinking of something

Our lives getting easier will not stop mutation. Mutation by copying errors or environmental issues will continue. Some of the mutations will be more "successful" than other.

Survival of the fittest does not mean what it used to, selection still happens.

MrP

Mickeroo

Tar.Aldarion wrote: »

Yes, a lot of people seem to think there is some end point to evolution, a super human type being, no...

Indeed, they only way we could evolve to be "super human",for example, run as fast as a cheetah, would be if our survival depended on it, but since we dont need to be able to out run and tackle antelope to the ground theres no way we could ever evolve to do this. Refridgerators are very easy to out run :P

Fighting Irish

Mickeroo wrote: »

Yes, but those senses getting worse IS evolution.

I understand but isn't it backward evolution, what good can come from it?

kiffer

Fighting Irish wrote: »

I understand but isn't it backward evolution, what good can come from it?

Good? Backward?
You seem to think that there is a goal...
.

Tar.Aldarion

Mickeroo wrote: »

Indeed, they only way we could evolve to be "super human",for example, run as fast as a cheetah, would be if our survival depended on it, but since we dont need to be able to out run and tackle antelope to the ground theres no way we could ever evolve to do this. Refridgerators are very easy to out run :P

You've obviously not been in trouble with the missus enough. Nagging, enabling the evolution of man since the industrial revolution.

STBR

Mens' nipples.

Mickeroo

SirDarren wrote: »

Mens' nipples.

I dunno, it feels so good when i twist them :eek:

Tyler MacDurden

Good article on this a while back in Scientific American. It's fairly long so I shan't post it, link for anyone who's interested:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-future-of-man

Main points (if I remember correctly):

Apparently, human DNA underwent quite noticeable change in the last 5,000-10,000 years with the demise of hunter-gatherer lifestyles and the rise of urbanisation and agriculture. However, this has probably ceased in the last century or so as we head towards a more homogenised humanity....for the time being.

Directed evolution may lie in our future, with elective gene therapy eventually becoming accessible to the wealthy. Add in synthetic augmentation and the possibility of divergent evolution is strong, with our species splitting along a natural vs. enhanced line.

Mickeroo

Tyler MacDurden wrote: »

Directed evolution may lie in our future, with elective gene therapy eventually becoming accessible to the wealthy. Add in synthetic augmentation and the possibility of divergent evolution is strong, with our species splitting along a natural vs. enhanced line.

The film Gattaca(sp?) deals with this really well.

dvpower

ScumLord wrote: »

It's hard to come up with a reason for us to change beyond the minor variations that we already have and environments have always been the catalyst for changes.

Isn't that what evolution is all about: minor variations?
And soon enough (comparitivly) all those minor variations seem not so minor at all.

Overblood

Mickeroo wrote: »

I'm pretty sure the general consensus is the Appendix has no obvious function.....right?

Lah:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15228837?dopt=Abstract

CerebralCortex

Fighting Irish wrote: »

I understand but isn't it backward evolution, what good can come from it?

Is there a Doctor of evolutionary biology in the house?

pH

Take today's modern western world, in theory we should be evolving against things like contraception - ie those for whom contraception works worst, should on average have more offspring, and if their resistance to contraception has a genetic component this should be passed on the the children.

Also we seem to be currently programmed to want to have sex and nurture and protect our kids, I've asked a number of times before - what would happen in our current civilization if a sub-group with a genetic component that made them child-obsessed evolved. I mean most of us are having 2-4 kids these days, but a "breeding mad" couple could probably produce 15 with current medical and social support. Surely there would be strong evolutionary pressure here, any genetic component for "more kids" would be ruthlessly exploited?

Naz_st

Tar.Aldarion wrote: »

No, I don't think it is over, mutation is mutation is evolution.

dvpower wrote: »

Isn't that what evolution is all about: minor variations?
And soon enough (comparitivly) all those minor variations seem not so minor at all.

The fact of evolution is that organisms change from generation to generation. But "Evolution" in the sense of the Theory of Evolution is a lot more than that and is predicated on the concept of Natural Selection (in fact it was the Natural Selection part of Darwins work that was the most revolutionary at the time).

Natural Selection is the mechanism of evolutionary change. To summarise it:

"Parents possessing certain traits that enable them to survive and reproduce will contribute disproportionately to the offspring that make up the next generation.
To the extent that offspring resemble their parents, the population in the next generation will consist of a higher proportion of individuals that possess whatever adaptation enabled their parents to survive and reproduce."

Now, for natural selection to occur, there must be:
a) an inheritable variation of some trait (eye colour, hand size, etc)
b) a differential in the survival and reproduction rate of an organism associated with the possession of that trait.

(and the differential works both ways: traits that lead to a higher survival & reproduction rate are selected for more often, traits that lead to a lower survival & reproduction rate are selected less often)

I think we now live in a society that has negated (or at least massively limited) this concept of natural selection. There are no traits anymore that make it more or less likely to enable an individual in society to survive or reproduce: we have corrective engineering (e.g. glasses, braces, artificial implants) or corrective surgery (e.g. laser eye surgery, appendectomy, transplants) for most disabilities. You can't even say that being especially good-looking or smart are traits that are naturally selected for since we no longer live in small geographically disconnected communities - there a 6 billion people that are connected in a global community. Even the ugliest can find someone! And if they can't - there's always mail order brides!
Finally, the concept of monogamy limits somewhat the effects of natural selection also.

So I would suggest that the minimising of the concept of natural selection in westernised society means that "Evolution" in the sense of the evolution of the species as per Darwins theories, is over (or, more accurately, dormant, awaiting environmental disruption). But, as another poster linked to, unnatural selection may be beginning (IVF, Cloning, Genetic tinkering), so in that sense it may not be over yet...

Bottle_of_Smoke

If there was a huge catastrope or massive climate change we'd see some changes. Like if the only places that were habitable were aong the eqator people with Darker skin would be likely to have an advantage.

If the only places habitable were thick forests then shorter lighter folk may have an advantage

etc etc

In the current environment I don't know how it would work, perhaps having mobile phones in our pockets(or any kind of technological impact) could be making people less fertile, and only those who are immune to the effects will reproduce

Fighting Irish

kiffer wrote: »

Good? Backward?
You seem to think that there is a goal...
.

But isn't evolution where we evolve to be better and stronger and live longer?

I'm crap at talking english and getting my point across, but what i'm trying to say is how can we evolve "for the good" with the way things are

Fighting Irish

Fighting Irish wrote: »

But isn't evolution where we evolve to be better and stronger and live longer?

I'm crap at talking english and getting my point across, but what i'm trying to say is how can we evolve "for the good" with the way things are

Doesn't have to be good, just different

Tar.Aldarion

Fighting Irish wrote: »

But isn't evolution where we evolve to be better and stronger and live longer?

That's just comic book evolution.

kiffer

Fighting Irish wrote: »

But isn't evolution where we evolve to be better and stronger and live longer?

No...Put very(ie too) simply: Evolution is where whoever survives to breed, eventually outbreeds those that are less able to survive to breed... Depending on the environment that might be the strongest or the smallest, needing the least food and can hide the best...

We're not evolving towards some sort of super human goal.

Fighting Irish wrote: »

I'm crap at talking english and getting my point across, but what i'm trying to say is how can we evolve "for the good" with the way things are

Dades

Greg Bear's SF book "Darwin's Radio" is good read if you like this sort of thing.

The concept is that in humans huge evolutionary change can happen in a single generation to leave the rest of humanity behind.

The Mad Hatter

Dades wrote: »

Greg Bear's SF book "Darwin's Radio" is good read if you like this sort of thing.

The concept is that in humans huge evolutionary change can happen in a single generation to leave the rest of humanity behind.

Like X-Men?

Flamed Diving

God, I hate such pompous, arrogant reasoning. As if humans are somehow the apex of the animal kingdom. We are nothing of the sort. Nor is can we inhabit any part of the planet. We merely live on the crust of a planet, on a constant climatic knife-edge.

It boils down to this:

Mutation + Natural Selection = Evolution

Neither of these has stopped, or ever will stop, as long as a living carbon molecule exists.

End of story.

Sparks

Tar.Aldarion wrote: »

That's just comic book evolution.

Not the 'better' bit - but you have to be careful about the meaning of the word 'better'.

In the developed world i can't see how we our evolving, our vision, hearing, etc etc are only gonna get worse
Unless I'm looking at this wrong and not thinking of something

You're forgetting about the relatively recent discovery of tetrachromatographic vision* found in some humans in the UK.


*Instead of three kinds of 'cones' in their retinas, they have four - hence they have greater definition between shades of red. Highly useful for mothers to discern when baby is feverish apparently.

Overheal

iirc it was only in the last 10,000 years or so that humans developed a resistance to long term ingestion of lactose. We weren't built for milk and cheese. Similarly our ancestors weren't built to eat meat. But we learned to hunt and we learned to rear livestock and sow crops. The thumb was an advancement which allowed us to use tools and is responsible for oh so much.

Seems silly to think we aren't still evolving. Especially as we go into space, I suspect our bodies will adapt to the changes in gravity both in deep space and on other planets. Our legs may grow useless over uncounted generations in zero gravity. perhaps we will have 4 arms where once animals on our planet had 4 legs. Our cousins already have very good use of their feet but thats not to say we can't go one further, or evolve backward.

The Whale, a swimming mammal. Scientist have recently been unearthing more and more proof that the Whale was once a creature that evolved from the oceans, became a land mammal and then once more took to the oceans over millions of years.

The possibilities are endless really. Far from over.

AlanSparrowhawk

Naz_st wrote: »

The fact of evolution is that organisms change from generation to generation. But "Evolution" in the sense of the Theory of Evolution is a lot more than that and is predicated on the concept of Natural Selection (in fact it was the Natural Selection part of Darwins work that was the most revolutionary at the time).

Natural Selection is the mechanism of evolutionary change. To summarise it:

"Parents possessing certain traits that enable them to survive and reproduce will contribute disproportionately to the offspring that make up the next generation.
To the extent that offspring resemble their parents, the population in the next generation will consist of a higher proportion of individuals that possess whatever adaptation enabled their parents to survive and reproduce."

Now, for natural selection to occur, there must be:
a) an inheritable variation of some trait (eye colour, hand size, etc)
b) a differential in the survival and reproduction rate of an organism associated with the possession of that trait.

(and the differential works both ways: traits that lead to a higher survival & reproduction rate are selected for more often, traits that lead to a lower survival & reproduction rate are selected less often)

I think we now live in a society that has negated (or at least massively limited) this concept of natural selection. There are no traits anymore that make it more or less likely to enable an individual in society to survive or reproduce: we have corrective engineering (e.g. glasses, braces, artificial implants) or corrective surgery (e.g. laser eye surgery, appendectomy, transplants) for most disabilities. You can't even say that being especially good-looking or smart are traits that are naturally selected for since we no longer live in small geographically disconnected communities - there a 6 billion people that are connected in a global community. Even the ugliest can find someone! And if they can't - there's always mail order brides!
Finally, the concept of monogamy limits somewhat the effects of natural selection also.

So I would suggest that the minimising of the concept of natural selection in westernised society means that "Evolution" in the sense of the evolution of the species as per Darwins theories, is over (or, more accurately, dormant, awaiting environmental disruption). But, as another poster linked to, unnatural selection may be beginning (IVF, Cloning, Genetic tinkering), so in that sense it may not be over yet...

this is worth repeating

pinksoir

What is the deal with the human brain? How has it evolved to have so much potential that hasn't been realised yet? Was there a point, or points, in our evolutionary past at which all of the unused parts of the brain were active and it is just that now we don't use them any more? Is it down to the way in which we educate, and the way in which our systems and institutions are set up that somehow hinders the brains potential?

Basically, how did the brain evolve to be so amazing and advanced without us using all of it?

This confuses me no end.

AtomicHorror

Stopping evolution is like stopping the weather. It's always going to do something unless you take away the system entirely. In the case of weather that means removing the atmosphere. The only way to stop evolving is to go extinct, stop varying inheritably or stop replicating altogether. Stability of environment is irrelevant, as is reliance on technology.

AtomicHorror

pinksoir wrote: »

What is the deal with the human brain?

The "humans use only 10% of their brains" thing is a myth but sadly one repeated so often that the general public think it's science. It's good fodder for films and TV, but it's basically garbage.

pinksoir

So we do use all of our brain then? Thank jaysus for that, I can sleep again.

ScumLord

Overheal wrote: »

iirc it was only in the last 10,000 years or so that humans developed a resistance to long term ingestion of lactose. We weren't built for milk and cheese. Similarly our ancestors weren't built to eat meat. But we learned to hunt and we learned to rear livestock and sow crops. The thumb was an advancement which allowed us to use tools and is responsible for oh so much.

Seems silly to think we aren't still evolving. Especially as we go into space, I suspect our bodies will adapt to the changes in gravity both in deep space and on other planets. Our legs may grow useless over uncounted generations in zero gravity. perhaps we will have 4 arms where once animals on our planet had 4 legs. Our cousins already have very good use of their feet but thats not to say we can't go one further, or evolve backward.

But the problem there is when we do go to space we won't be floating around in zero gravity we will find a way of creating gravity.

Humans are adapting their environment to suit them selfs, more and more the environment is having less of an effect on us. We won't have the need to evolve any changes to survive in space because we'll be cocooned in an environment of our own design.

The current human body design is one of the best animal bodies that the planet has ever seen IMO. Our abundance is evidence of that.

Mickeroo

ScumLord wrote: »

Humans are adapting their environment to suit them selfs, more and more the environment is having less of an effect on us. We won't have the need to evolve any changes to survive in space because we'll be cocooned in an environment of our own design.

The current human body design is one of the best animal bodies that the planet has ever seen IMO. Our abundance is evidence of that.

Humans(for the most part) don't adapt to environments,they dig them up,bulldoze them over and build cities on them. We've only adapted to living in comfortable houses. Without a weapon of some sort to protect oursleves most medium to large size animals would make short work of us, and some of the small ones make short work of us as it is. Our abundance and ingenuity is the only advantage we have.

AtomicHorror

ScumLord wrote: »

Humans are adapting their environment to suit them selfs, more and more the environment is having less of an effect on us. We won't have the need to evolve any changes to survive in space because we'll be cocooned in an environment of our own design.

It's a reciprocal thing. As I said before, you can't stop evolution whilst staying human nor can we create environments that eliminate selection for all traits. We will always be undergoing some selection or drift which means that the way that we modify our environment will also change over time to suit how we evolve.

ScumLord wrote: »

The current human body design is one of the best animal bodies that the planet has ever seen IMO. Our abundance is evidence of that.

Animals no. Insect species disagree. Vertebrates, probably. We seem to have that one down. Mind you, if we're keeping score, some of our domesticated vertebrates are significant challengers to that. Their evolutionary strategy is that they are useful to us. Result being an estimated 1.3 billion cows in existence at any given time. If we convert that to genome copy numbers I suspect they outnumber us due to sheer biomass.

AtomicHorror

Mickeroo wrote: »

Humans(for the most part) don't adapt to environments,they dig them up,bulldoze them over and build cities on them. We've only adapted to living in comfortable houses. Without a weapon of some sort to protect oursleves most medium to large size animals would make short work of us, and some of the small ones make short work of us as it is. Our abundance and ingenuity is the only advantage we have.

It's also an adaptation to our environment.

Naz_st

AtomicHorror wrote: »

Stopping evolution is like stopping the weather. It's always going to do something unless you take away the system entirely. In the case of weather that means removing the atmosphere. The only way to stop evolving is to go extinct, stop varying inheritably or stop replicating altogether

AtomicHorror wrote: »

It's a reciprocal thing. As I said before, you can't stop evolution whilst staying human nor can we create environments that eliminate selection for all traits.

But what traits are being "naturally selected" for in our current westernised environment? It seems to me that medical science, technology and population size has significantly hamstrung the process of natural selection...

Stability of environment is irrelevant, as is reliance on technology.

Surely environment (and it's stability) is a fundamental catalyst of evolution by natural selection? Otherwise, what is a trait being naturally selected for?

CerebralCortex

Naz_st wrote: »

But what traits are being "naturally selected" for in our current westernised environment? It seems to me that medical science, technology and population size has significantly hamstrung the process of natural selection...

Would agree though that in human society there are things in it's environment and corresponding human traits that make it both difficult and easy to have offspring?

Naz_st wrote: »

Surely environment (and it's stability) is a fundamental catalyst of evolution by natural selection? Otherwise, what is a trait being naturally selected for?