The Evolution of Man? (to come)

I want to see what the scientific community feels the evolution of man will be in the years (thousands that is) to come. Perhaps we will grow shorter arms and legs so that operating at a computer at a desk will be more practical since that will be the majority of the jobs in the future. Perhaps our bodies will adapt to mass obesity due to the lack of the need to walk or run anywhere once public transit will become easier and easier. Perhaps we will have formed into a super human race once it will be the norm for all babies to be coded with all forms of perfect genes during the pregnancy.

Any other thoughts?

Predicting evolution is like predicting weather, you know what will happen but only if you know every last detail of the system. ANd since we can't predict the influence on us in the future well....but anyways...just for fun...

Due to increased exposure to toxins, and the resulting cancer levels, cancer becomes rare and humans can withstand greater amounts of toxins and radiation making us more suited to space travel.

Humans in still isolated tropical areas will spawn a new gene preventing them from mating with the rest of humnity, effectivly creating a new species.

A mass outbreak of flu in china wipes out half the population leaving only 500 million chinese who are all now immune to all forms of the common flu.

Obiting self sustaining colony experiment in preperation for long distance space travel yeild tall thin humans permanently space bound in oly a few generations.

A mutation in india spreads quickly through the population. A new formation of frontal lobes allow for massive mathematical calculations, and india becomes the mathematical power house of all science around the world.

After an epidemic of a new virus ravages the earth, only humans on the mars colonies are left with lips. (Odd as hell, but stranger can and has happened.)

Fun stuff, too bad predicting evolution means predicting random events and virtually everything around us.

We tend to improve those traits that improve our chances of mating and passing on our genes, Over time we'll probably become more good looking, wittier, and possibly better dancers too..

I believe there was a previous Scientific American with a main topic on future human evolution - I doubt I still have the issue but it was after 2000 I believe.

Scientists predict we will have a longer lifespan, probably to 120+

[edit on 15-6-2004 by Socalbmx]

Longer life span isn't always good. We would have too much memories stuffed up in our heads. More deaths will come from stress, and other related symptoms.

Today we are on the verge of bioengineering the human DNA it wouldn�t surprise me if in ten years we start altering it to create �better� humans, disease free, stronger, smarter and probably longer life spans. Our future evolution will not be shaped by out environment but by our own hands. That is to say the human mind will ultimately decide what defines humanity and the physical characteristics found in the form by selective manipulation of our own DNA.

personally i dont understand why everyone is so hung up on prolonging life so long.

I see life as a journey toward death which is really just a metamorphosis into something wonderful and beautiful.

I feel that if people spent more time answering their own personal questions about life and death they would come to understand it is something to embrace not to fear. To live your life by following your heart and listening to your spirit.

If families understood that dieing is actually a beautiful thing then losing a loved one would hopefully give the grievers a sense that this person was ready to go and it could be a wonderful bittersweet event BEFORE they died instead of making it a special event AFTER they die. I understand not all deaths come with warning and death is a very painful experience. But just as there is beauty in love their can also be immense beauty in suffering which leads to understanding.

I think advances in medicine are important for extending our children's lives not for prolonging our adult life. Accepting death will help us preserve our earth and help prevent us from sucking the life from it by essentially achieving population control through natural means instead of covert governements deceiving the world with their own agendas for population control.

this is just my opinion
But having said that i think it is of vital importance that people learn how to discover their individual spiritual side and should not "seek death". I think suicide is a tragedy for the person experiencing it and would never ever be seen as a weakness as it shows the person to be a someone who is experiencing unimaginable suffering.

The evolition of humans is an interesting topic, no doubt. To guess the future outcome of our species it would be logical to look at our past. But that only seems to raise more questions as to why and how we've developed the way we have. I would guess kinglizard is pretty close to the truth when it comes to what'll make us change in the future.

I too would agree most with KingLizard. Of all the possible theories, the most logical would bprobably be the manipulation by man itself, not the environment. I hate when people have to revert to movies to make a point but I'm gonna do it anyway and just have to live with myself. When I was a teenager I saw Gataca. The movie with Ethan Hawk where people were no longer born in the "natural" sense. But their genes were altered during pregnancy, (of before even, I can't remember) so that they would have stronger immune systems, greater physical strength, higher mental capabilities, and over all better looks. I think that's where were likely to go.

I predict that Humans will evolve rapidly. We wont be fat little chubbies with short arms and legs.

It will all be about health, fitness, and fitting your work into your lifestyle ;P

Eventually we will move away from petroleum and fossil fuels. Once that happens and free energy devices, clean energy, alternate energy becomes available, the way humans will live will ultimately change for the better. People will become mroe respectful to the environment. all the teaching through schools will help awareness and get things moving lean and green.

Humans will stay the same, but more healthy, or genetically altered to have better children, stronger, faster, smarter, disease free, etc. We will either have devices implanted in our heads, brains, etc to be able to connect and talk to computers wirelessly. Or....devices will be created that can read brainwaves without us even needing to touch anything. Just having a device in the room that can read your brainwaves and know what you're thinkng and telling it to do, etc ;P

Humans will stay the same, but more healthy, or genetically altered to have better children, stronger, faster, smarter, disease free, etc.

Do you think this would be a natural or artificial evolution? Personally I think it's quite improbable that this would be a natural change. Fact is, the way we live (at least in the industrial part of the world), with the help of science we're getting rid of the natural process of killing off the weak or ill. Now, please don't get me wrong; I'm all for that, I'm just speaking theoretically here. Anyways, with no artificial help, there's really no reason why we would get stronger, faster or disease free; we just don't need to.

It will be genetic changes, not natural. Though if schooling keeps going as it is, gyms keep popping up, and so much mroe advertising keeps going into health, health pills, health science, etc, It wont matter if we dont evolve, purely, use science to help us out, everyone out, a pill for this, a pill for that, a bit of work here, going to the gym here, build up some muscles, staying slim, etc. There wont be a need to evolve.



Though we are all evolving constantly, well personally, i dont know if it will carry over or not, i dont think it does, but anyways... Colds, flu's, old strains we become resistant to,

[edit on 16-6-2004 by DaRAGE]

I would love it if we evolved and gained gills, that would be the coolest thing to be able to breathe underwater. Like in waterworld, then we could scavenge all the sunken ships and steal their treasure!

I can tell you one way we're evolving right now. Wisdom teeth! I don't have any, but many other people do and have to get them taken out. Evolution made it so I don't have to grow the useless teeth and have them taken out and be in pain for days. Go evolution!

Colds, flu's, old strains we become resistant to

Quite the contrary, actually. Colds and flu's are becoming a biggier and bigger problem in the industrial world. Though viruses are evolving at the point where they're becoming resistant to penicillin. People are really getting more and more suseptable to bacteria, thanks to our improved personal hygine. Allergies has become a huge problem in Sweden for example. It seems we're going to need more artificial help to stay healthy in the future.

Maybe humans become so lazy that we learn to fly.

Walking? Oh Please, that's so 21st century.




Seriuously, I think our increase in intelligence (which will lead to better medicines, vaccines, cures, etc. which in turn will make more humans immune to stuff) will be the only noticable change in our evolution for a long long time.

I'm not so sure that our intellegence will increase that much. Our knowledge of the world might, but that's different. Intellegence is the ability to learn. With the public schools churning out more and more stupid kids and video games and tv becoming the parents and babysitters of the present, I think that we will have to move towards geneticly altering our newborns to help thier abilites to learn. We will have to integgrate our brains with some sort of computer so that we can have instant access to information in order to compensate for a lack of actual learning in schools.

if we created vaccines, and perscriptions to cure everything... we would not be immune to anything...

our immune system works naturally to destroy bacterias, and viruses. If we relied on pills and medication to make us healthy, then our immune system does no work, and it will not keep up with the new virusses...

also, if we rely on pills, then the weak ones that are extrememly suceptible to a certian disease will not die... theyre genes will stay in the gene pool, they will continue to reproduce, and create weak sick offspring.

The only way i can see us evolving for the better is by NOT making better drugs. Charles Darwin created an idea called Natural Selection... The phrase "survival of the fittest" refers to natural selection. The strongest in a species will survive, and reproduce strong children. The weak ones die, so they can not spread thier "bad" genes.

Thats just my take on it all

Human evolution may have hit a dead end. So far our bodies have been geared toward supporting a massive brain only a skull so big can fit though the womb, and the bigger the brain the longer it will take for signals to be sent. So we may have to have childeren outside the body so they can have larger brains and more intelligence. We may become very very intelligent but very slow witted. That is of course if intelligence is a survival advantage for us.(no so sure when I look at all the stupid people around)

Wow. Most of the people who have posted in this thread I couldn't disagree more with.

Quest, I hope yours was meant to be funny, like, hypothetical what ifs and craziness.

Muppet, that was awesome

DaRAGE, wow, have you noticed why there's so many fitness and anti-obesity things lately? Because we're all so damned fat! Humans aren't getting fitter and healthier, my lord no. In America, something like 3 in 4 is terribly obese. They don't want to exercise, because they once tried something for a week that didn't work out and they're lazy, they don't want to eat better, they just want to pop a pill and lose the pounds, or get the lypo. If the world had no lyposuction or women's magazines that are filled with weight loss ads, then most of the fatties out there would die of heart failure and we'd be rid of the problem. It is because people are tricked into thinking that obesity is like a thing that you can hit a button and end that they allow themselves to become it. I'm not saying that the computer/tv/console gaming obsession of the times has nothing to do with it, but perhaps if kids were raised knowing that they are literally destroying themselves, and it isn't like bad hair that you can get recut, they would turn out better... Wow, that turned into a 'fat' rant.

Anyway, people here seem to be under the impression that we evolve to whatever seems cooler, or appears to be an advantage. We seem to think that naturally, since humans do a certain thing, they'll evolve to make that easier. But evolution doesn't work that way. Unlike what Quest said about things being foretellable if everything was known in a system, genetic mutations involve out-of-system modifications and a certain very random element - people can only evolve to make a task easier if more than one person mutates a way that manages to do that - and they won't particularly. Sure, if we do a task for long enough, the odds stack that we will improve at it because there will be mutations that aid it. That doesn't make it any sort of a guarantee, or even a particular likeliness.

Lastly, stupidity isn't a future likeliness, intelligence is. Schools may not be in the greatest state, but what is at present grade 8 knowledge used to be first year university. Witht the advent of the net, you can basically take university in High School. People now have massively larger amounts of information stored in their brain, and they aren't even aware of it. Ever wonder how you manage to navigate your way seamlessly through 30 different maps in each of the 15-20 video games you have? You've got the equivalent of a whole giant city mapped in your head, and that's just the average child. We also remember where things are on the internet, learn quicker, and have a hand/eye coordination that is shock and awe. Not to mention sociability, kids age 6 have full MSN lists, it has changed the face of social life.

I really don't think a lot of people here thought out their ideas on rising stupidity, a healthier world, and lipless earth. Gwah..