Whats next in human evolution?

As for natural evolution, depends on our enviroment. Seeing how much of natural evolution seems to have to do with adapting to different enviromental changes, I figure heres where we are heading naturally. We'll be getting taller, the average caucasian will probably be able 6'4" or 6'7" to height, to keep cool as the planet continues to heat up. Skin will get alot darker as the Ozone continues to deplete slowly, helping fend off against rays. Our pinky fingers will get longer aswell.

Now, if we become space faring, and many people live in deep space. figure a grey-ish white skin pigment, thin, bony arms, tiny bones, long fingers.

Hello, im new to the board, wanted to say hi and I have just one thing to point out
first off, let me say that i fully believe evolution
1) No scientist believes we came from primates

2) Some religious anti evolutionists published that idea that humans came from primates only to get people to stop believing in evolution.

if needed, i would be able to find many links quickly

No offense but nearly every scientist I've met or read about beleieved we came from the ape/chimp family in evolutionary terms.
Though the ape/chimps did come from othger things, we all origonaly evolved from single celled organisms in the first part of evolution.

[edit on 12/21/2004 by iori_komei]

I think we will not evolve through nature as we know anymore, we don't need to. There are only 2 ways that humans can go from here either through DNA manipulation, bettering humans on a genetic level. This would bring about a very weird soceity as we know it. As everything will be based on genes like the movie "Gattaca". Or another view i have which i think would be cool is robotic implants. Take note from many different cartoon and movies, such as wolverines metalic bones to the matrix jack in head plugs. Now metalic bones is pretty impossible.....but to be able to directly link your brain into a computer is not. This is what will change the human race, if we can link our brains directly into a computer this will give us a huge advantage. As seen in the first matrix movie where a person can instantly learn something, as neo learns kung fu....another person could learn rocket science back to front with in seconds. Knowledge is power, and if a person was capable of learning high amounts of information in a short peroid of time, the human race will go through a golden age.
I know some people will say that this is jsut all movie crap.....but think about the possibilities that this could open. Being able to learn every language in the world with in hours, being able to learn how to play the most complicated symphonies within seconds. With everyone having access to such great knowledge....it will just speed up our growth on social, philisophical, and technological areas.
Ohhh how i am waiting for the day to plug myself into my sweet comp to play CS in my own head.

Hello,

New poster to ATS but have been a reader for a few weeks. (this is actually my virgin post)

Reading the discussion about what's next in human evolution and wanted to put in my observation. In the united states the population is acutely evolving in to an obese society as a result of environmental stimulus.

www.cdc.gov...

As was pointed out in earlier posts not only does is this not effected by natural selection due to "anyone" being able to breed, but children and the mother would not have survived due to the inability to successfully complete a vaginal birth but the 2 lives are rescued due to modern technologies ability to sustain life by caesarian section and modern medical practices. We are currently witnessing a small change in what humans look like in sections of our own society.

It has also been discovered that there may be a "fat gene".

news.bbc.co.uk...

Wouldn't this also enforce the continued propegation of this subset of our species? i.e. overweight people breeding with overweight due to commonalities in their interactions?

Comments?

Actually, without genetic engineering, I don't think we'll evolve much at all, and with just current medical capabilities, we could sort of de-evolve. People have been mentioning things involving senses and such. I highly doubt those are going to evolve on their own. A long time ago, bad eye sight/smell/hearing meant you might miss out on dinner, or become dinner yourself. Now, it doesn't matter so much. Those things hold people back at best, but don't cost them their lives, and a lot of it can be artificially corrected to make such things almost, if not completely, nonexistent, but that's only on the surface. The problem might be fixed, but inferior genetic material that brought about the result still exist.

That's a quick basic reason why I think we might sort of de-evolve in certain ways. As others have mentioned, natural selection is all about survival of the fittest, and then the fittest get to pass on their 'superior' genes. We don't do that anymore. Everyone gets to reproduce (more or less anyway), but more upon interpretation, it really means inferior genes have almost as a good of chance to be passed along as do the superior genes.

Yes - natural selection in human development is gone in modern society. Many non-viable offspring are kept living and breeding due to modern medical technology.

We also will continue to see reinforcement of certain characteristics due to social interactions (which have always been there), like breed with like typically but there will also be continued mixing of races as travel and interaction outside of one's environment continues. I'm sure there is come kooky cult out there trying to breed for certain things but who knows??

The big jumps will come with genetic manipulation and we already see this today - it is possible to select a male or female embryo. Down the road, you will probably be able tweak the offspring as you desire as long as the leaders don't cry "messing with the almighty" and try to stop it. Cloning is here alredy as well. Can I have 3 of me please??

Then we have to step back and say just what is the best adapted individual these days?? No longer must it be the fittest or strongest or biggest. Do we say those people able to make money or have higher intelligence is the next round of evolution in us or is it those that have lot's of offspring and learn how to milk the system for the least effort?? Who knows where we are headed....

I think that we'll probably be like the people are in the anime "Ghost in the shell: Stand alone complex".

You know it's interesting how everyone assumes that there will be an alien appearence taking the place of home sapiens in a million years. , All one has to do .. is remember that bigger is not neccesarilly better .. in the case of Neandertal brain.. The brain of the homo sapiens is more effeciently put together. When one thinks of the minute portion that homosapiens is using .. we are still rather ineffcient .. Perhaps in the future we will use 60 percent or our brains instead of 25 percent .. We could be doing things that child prodigies take for granted .. or things we dream of in science fiction i.e. mental telepathy.. Obviously this doesn't require a larger brain just using more of what you got... The Neandertal external features , hair , heaviness of limbs , were outdated in the last 30000 years ... with the receding of the iceage..Perhaps, likewise, as we become more technilogically advanced .. we will be more slender and gazelle like (musclewise) and move further away from our bulky ape exterior. Other than that ... why would we change appearences that drastically? Neandertal , even Homo Erectus are strong cousins lookswise to Homospiens.

Originally posted by wuffe
The brain of the homo sapiens is more effeciently put together. When one thinks of the minute portion that homosapiens is using .. we are still rather ineffcient .. Perhaps in the future we will use 60 percent or our brains instead of 25 percent .. We could be doing things that child prodigies take for granted .. or things we dream of in science fiction i.e. mental telepathy.. Obviously this doesn't require a larger brain just using more of what you got...

We use 100% of our brain, though we do not use all of it all the time, for instance we don't
use the part of our brain that processes sexual pleasure when we are doing something
like taking a math test.

Ok ... I stand corrected .. we do use 100 percent of our brain.. however if you go to the website www.ecotao.com/hollsm/hu_sap.htm it quotes finding an early homo sapiens skull. The skull capacity was listed as 1450 cc . Modern homo sapiens is 1350 to 1400 cc. We are obviously doing more with less. I say a million years from now our skulls now our skulls do not have to be bigger just better wired.

[edit on 13-6-2007 by wuffe]

[edit on 13-6-2007 by wuffe]

Maybe not evolution per se, but the interbreeding of races will make everyone look homogenous. No more Asian, Negroid, Caucasion. Instead everyone will be Mulatto w/ slanted eyes (don't know how else to describe it). Probably hairless.

Originally posted by 1337moose
Hello, im new to the board, wanted to say hi and I have just one thing to point out
first off, let me say that i fully believe evolution
1) No scientist believes we came from primates

2) Some religious anti evolutionists published that idea that humans came from primates only to get people to stop believing in evolution.

if needed, i would be able to find many links quickly

You realise Chimpanzee's, Bonobo's, Gorillas, Urang-Utangs and Humans are all Primates, right?

I think you meant monkey instead of primate.

[edit on 13-6-2007 by DarkSide]

Originally posted by TheComte
Maybe not evolution per se, but the interbreeding of races will make everyone look homogenous. No more Asian, Negroid, Caucasion. Instead everyone will be Mulatto w/ slanted eyes (don't know how else to describe it). Probably hairless.

I've actually wondered what would happen to human appearence in a similar vein to that..

I guess it all depends on the combinations of dominant/recessive genes..

Hopefully once we can decode the human genome more thoroughly, and technology advances far enough, we can run simulations along those lines and find out

Think seti@home only more along the lines of future-us@home

Originally posted by TheComte
Maybe not evolution per se, but the interbreeding of races will make everyone look homogenous. No more Asian, Negroid, Caucasion. Instead everyone will be Mulatto w/ slanted eyes (don't know how else to describe it). Probably hairless.

But the effects of the environment that helped create the races will still be a factor. Thus, for example, dark skin will still be the prodominant skin color in Africa because of the effects of the Sun on light-skinned individuals. ON AVERAGE, those dark-skinned Africans will not get as much skin cancer and live longer than the light-skinned Africans, so they will be around longer to have more children, also with dark skin. The forces that created the races we have today have not stopped working, and will continue to be a factor into the future.

...although maybe the fact that more people in Africa are working and living indoors, or the use of a good SPF 30 sunblock will throw a wrench into the whole "survival of the fittest" thing.

Originally posted by Soylent Green Is People

Originally posted by TheComte
Maybe not evolution per se, but the interbreeding of races will make everyone look homogenous. No more Asian, Negroid, Caucasion. Instead everyone will be Mulatto w/ slanted eyes (don't know how else to describe it). Probably hairless.

But the effects of the environment that helped create the races will still be a factor. Thus, for example, dark skin will still be the prodominant skin color in Africa because of the effects of the Sun on light-skinned individuals.

True, but what I am suggesting has nothing to do with the environment. The world is getting smaller (figuratively), which means people of different races will come into contact with each other even more than now. Eventually, interbreeding will result in a more homogenous looking human race. People that choose to not interbreed may hold out for a while but then eventually die off as genes become more dispersed among the populace.

I read an article not too long ago about this very subject. It suggested that it's entirely possible that we will evolve into two sub-species, one very graceful and intelligent, the other kinda of squat, stupid, and not at all an appealing thought. The article even mentions the Eloi and Morlocks from HG Well's Time Machine for illustrative purposes.

I went and found the article:

External Link

Humans will evolve from homosapien to homosuperior and mankind will roam the wastelands using their pysonic abilities to mind blast enemy geno soldiers. This occurs after the First Interstellar War while the children of the Annuuki prepare themselves for the return of the McRibb Sandwich (apparently a premium sandwich only served on occasion by the late McDonald's Corporation).
Offworld Colonists on Pluto will set up a refueling station for departing starships leaving the Sol System crewed mostly by cyborgs while using the experimental FTL engines -- future mankind's only hope of expansion.