Will modern humans ever evolve?

We as a people will always harm one another. When we breath the air to when we touch something. If we were to truly evolve to a peaceful entity, we will die. For this existance has negative affects where there is no such true positive affects despite healing that keeps us in balance.

7A

P.S

Evolution is a mere statement for "privilage"

[edit on 8-2-2007 by 7Ayreon]

Interesting thread. Yes i think humans will evolve given the assumption we dont nuke ourselves for example. Medical science will see to that. Bio/computer implants, artifical hearts, limbs. bionic eyes and ears for those who are deaf or blind etc. We may eventually evolve into some sort of cyborg race!! Though we wont be immortal. Maybe one day we will find a way of achieving that by transferring out brains into a computer or something simmilar.
I would love to think that we will evolve spirtually but with our reliance on material things i think that is unlikely. However Tibetan monks have shown remarkable abilities like higher resistance to pain and more agile. Unless we in the west become at one with nature again i doubt we can evolve on this level.
Perhaps the ultimate form of evolution is the exploration of space. We can start by establishing bases on the Moon and Mars. And later make asteriods a liveable environment to work and live in. But to really branch out into the cosmos we need to invent warp drive!! or some other exotic propulsion system !

It doesnt seem as though modern humans continue to evolve. As others have said, we just dont face the selective pressures other species encounter.

For example, if a population of neanderthals move into europe from asia, those that couldnt handle the cold die off leaving the ones best suited for cold conditions to breed. So all their children have an inherent tolerance for colder climate. When modern humans move into colder conditions, we build a fire allowing the weak to remain alive to breed.

Now as has been said, intelligence was probably the selector in previous generations. But today any idiot can have children.

Will modern humans ever evolve? Sadly I believe so. At the rate things are going higher daily radiation levels will become the norm, adding in a selective pressure towards those whose physiology is best suited to handle the radiation damage to the body.

Yes yes massive radiation will kill any living organisim. However raised longterm exposure over the normal background levels will kill some faster than others, so the radiation becomes a selector in itself, as well as adding in random fubar mutations along the way. jmho of course, but could happen.

Reason why natural selection is not working for us is beacuse we have found ways to slip around it. Today we have medicine that can make you live twice as long. There is no such thing as the weakest link between humans anymore. Instead of killing off or leaving behind the old, injured, or sick, we take care of them and find ways to keep them alive. We have the ability to heal other which other species cant do.

Yet evolution always finds a way to reach up behind and bite us on the behind. So it is a solid event which can never be broken. We humans can control alot of things and prevent things from happeneing, yet this is something which is impossible to prevent.

We are evolving,

If you take a tour of a really old colony of first settlers in america you will
see that the door ways are smaller, the beds are tiny... this is not because
the people were not smart enough to build them larger, its because we as
a race are getting taller and larger.

although prb has something to do with women selecting taller men to mate
with.


[edit on 8-2-2007 by R3KR]

yea nowadays women like the "tall" dark and handsome look. This brings that idea to me that women can be the natural selectors for men. Would a women goe for a scrony, short, weak little man or would she go for a man with braun and sature. You see todays how men go on diets and later say "women cant keep their eyes off me". Its all on the women who decides which male to pas on the gene or not.

Is it up to the women?

Evolution happens because a certain species is threatened in some way by a natural force, or when it is needed to help continue the species- or sumthing like that

Now , does anyone here think that the Human race is threatened or endangered?

No, youre not entirely right there.

It's not so much as threats to our susrivial that cause evolution, threats to our survival cause adaptation, not evolution. Adaptation is us using our minds to save ourselves...

Evolution is the process of slight mutations in our DNA structure. Essentially a long series of gradual DNA screwups.

As these screwups occur, those mutations in our DNA that prove to be useful to our advancement are the ones that carry on. Typically this is because those with the new unexpected feature can survive easier, hence can focus more on breeding than the others without that mutation in their DNA.

These mutations occur all the time. Most of them are NOT useful, and typically would be eliminated through natural selection. Say you were born genetically blind... woops, cant use that, you die.

However, in todays world, we seem to be obsessed with giving everyone a future... this contradicts natural selection, as those with faulty genetics will live, when they should have been weeded out.

A fraction of our species will inevitably experience improvements... but the majority of our race will 'evolve' in a negative way, simply because we kept them around.

We aren't evolving in a positive direction any more, more like we will see a huge variety of modifications the further we go. Very few of these will be useful changes to our anatomy, most of them will be a hinderance to us, rather than a useful evolution.


Now, lets take into this, the knowlege that we have gained on how to modify DNA ourselves. Seeing as we will soon have absolute control over the DNA structure of our future offspring, very soon natural evolution will be a moot topic.
Essentially, why should we wait dozens of generations for a major evolutionary pattern, when we can immediately implement whatever changes we want onto the next generation.

This very concept of giving our future children absolute genetic perfection will be the end of our own evolutionary path.

Bodies just problably take the tgood genes automatically. There are two midgets that I have seen on TV that have 2 normal sized kids and only one midget. DNA is doing all the work.

Maybe the Greys are us in the future evolved into that. I've always wondered why a race would come so far in distance just to mess around on Earth. I'm sure there are closer worlds for them to play around in, why go all this way and mess with us? Unless maybe they aren't traveling through space, just time and want to mess with their own history? Seems almost equally if not more plausible than the "aliens from another planet" scenario? Would explain the general similarities between us, two legs, two feet, 2 eyes ect. I don't think evolution everywhere in the universe goes the bipedal route, do you? Just a thought.

Yea not every advance species in the universe needs to leges and two arms. Why not float on a bubble of methane or just the consiuosness of the mind take the form of light? There could be a point were we may not ever need to rely on any physical part of our body. So all the survives is our conscious in some form of light or some other force. Coul explain how they move so fast.

as johnsky rightly said there are some here who appear to be mistaking adaption for evolution.
evolution takes place on a genetic level and looking at humans on a genetic level we are evolving. we're becoming taller, we're growing longer appendages (proportionately) our heads are growing larger and our jaws are shrinking.
Evolution can't stop because it's dependant on what DNA is passed on and if natural selection doesnt take place then it's down to recessive and dominant genes and random mutations.
Due to global travel obviously the evolutionary process will in the short term be mixed up but a recent study featured in the independant (UK Newspaper) conducted by Dr Oliver Curry of the london school of economics and political science suggests homo sapiens will split into two groups. one of which will be tall, intelligent and attractive and the other short and stupid (an under class). which stands to reason based on current socio-economic trends alone nm other factors (the rich tend to marry the rich to poor marry the poor) and in this capitalist world as that gap increases so too will the gap in the genes available. even now the only way to cross that gap is through any of the follwing: skill/intelligence, beauty, luck, birthright.
for further info see:
www.lse.ac.uk...
flyfishingdevon.co.uk...
news.independent.co.uk...

of course the above assumes we dont start genetically engineering ourselves, od that as is assumed the case with the neandethals we dont get out bred by a more competative species, though in light of technology etc the latter is unlikely even if we assume we dont mess up this rock so much that only a selection of domesticated species survive

We are already geneticaly engineering our selves. Today we have incoming mothers engineering there incoming kids to have certain physical features like blonde hair, blue eyes, short or tall growth. But most turn out to be screw ups. We are playing God today with cloning and stuff of the sort. We will eventually later find ways to make our selves super human, hold our breath under water longer, have more stamina, probably even creating human kevlar skin.

Here's a video that talks briefly about that human brains cannot get any bigger. That we'll use technology to evolve.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

When they compared a bee from millions of years ago, with a present bee; in order to find diffrences at the DNA level waht was the surprise?

Now people will say it is because bees stopped evolving because bees are perfect and no need to evolve has come forth.

Are we perfect?

news.nationalgeographic.com...




Related Thread:
www.abovetopsecret.com...

Well see, the environment of bee hasn't really changed much and brains arent developed enough to develop new tools or ways to go on with life. It so easy to find a flowre and suck it dry. but humans dont have everything given to them just like that.

Like a few earlier posters suggested, we will probably use technology to 'force' our evolution, and much more rapidly than nature could ever accomplish. The use of DNA modifications, cybernetic enhancements, nanotech-these will determine our future.

Check out The Sigularity Is Near or other texts by Ray Kurzweil for some interesting (and educated) speculations on the future of man and technology. He also has a website devoted to artificial intelligence, KurweilAI.net, which he predicts will have great influence on our future.