Next Step in Human Evolution 660
PrivateDonut writes "Where is evolution taking our species? MSNBC has up an article that examines where evolution could take the human race. The gist of it is that no further evolution will occur unless humans can be separated into isolated groups." From the article: "Such ideas may sound like little more than science-fiction plot lines. But trend-watchers point out that we're already wrestling with real-world aspects of future human development, ranging from stem-cell research to the implantation of biocompatible computer chips. The debates are likely to become increasingly divisive once all the scientific implications sink in." Class, please read Transmetropolitan for homework.
possible first split (Score:2, Interesting)
Human evolution (Score:5, Interesting)
Over the years we've evolved to use tools and tools have kept us up with the latest evolutionary fad. We're pretty much a stable mutation of a monkey (with other obvious mutations still happening once in a while). Other then learning to fly or breathing water we can't adapt any more to our planet.
When humans move to another world with more problems we will probably start evolving again. Untill then why risk evolving and screwing ourselvs over if we take the wrong path?
Evolution in the most unlikely places? (Score:2, Interesting)
Actually, there are still a few isolated groups of humans living in the world today - the two that immediately come to mind are the bushmen and pygmies of Africa. Does this mean that "civilized" men are doomed to be an evolutionary dead-end, while groups that seem primitive in our eyes will make the next leap forward?
Not exactly (Score:5, Interesting)
No, the gist is that we won't have two seperate species of humans without isolation. Evolution doesn't stop.
Not only is that a very basic and obvious concept, it says exactly that in TFA.
FTFA:
"Evolution is still at work. But instead of diverging, our gene pool has been converging for tens of thousands of years -- and Stuart Pimm, an expert on biodiversity at Duke University, says that trend may well be accelerating."
And at this point, not only do we have natural mutations that could be dominant, we also have the ability to alter evolution through our own means.
Re:Human evolution (Score:5, Interesting)
Really looking at the situation (Score:4, Interesting)
It's pretty clear that the environment has been dysgenic for intelligence in the modern world for at least a century. The more intelligent you are, the better education you get, and the more education you get, the less children you have.
The most likely outcome of future human evolution might be something like Kornbluth's "Marching Morons." Over the next few centuries, the average IQ of the human race will drop to 60-70.
The Flynn effect might be raised as an objection, but the Flynn effect is not genetic, so it can't affect this.
Re:Pinky toe (Score:5, Interesting)
Does that pinky toe hinder your ability to breed? If not, then why should 'evolution care'?
Racial Amalgamation (Score:1, Interesting)
1. "Races" will interbreed as technology provides transportation and completely eliminates seperation. Nationalism may slow the process a little but in the end humanity will look basicly Eurasian. Couple of centuries tops unless all our tech suddenly is taken away in some Neo-Apolocoliptic stastical impossibility. Wake up thats whats going to happen and anyone that says otherwise is deluding themselves with racial purity crap or very very stupid.
2. Genetic engineering will alter the human form most likely in small ways or refinements but it will change us most likely in fashions we can't yet comprehend and again anyone that deludes themselves into claiming otherwise is clutching at straws or pushing hard for a PHD without a real idea to back them as there isn't yet enough technology to theorise without a bucketload of unfounded assumptions based on data that is pre-GenEn tech.
We control our own development (Score:5, Interesting)
All of these technologies may work together, of course. It may be that human genetic engineering would help a person be more compatible with synthetic augmentations, for example. I also believe these are all good things. The core of what makes us us is our minds, and it seems tragic that so many people are restricted by the box their brain must travel in. I hope to be able to help make it so that losing limbs and getting paralyzed are simply no longer problems that need to be worried about beyond some inconvenience. I think that transferring to artificial bodies, or at least advanced gene therapy, will be important for future efforts to colonize space. It appears that in many ways, the primary threat is luddites shutting the research down. Fortunately, so far most of this has passed under their radar, so I am hopeful that will continue to be the case until actual products are ready to go. At that point, it will be too late to stop it. It is an exciting time to be alive though, and I encourage everyone to go and do some research on the subject, especially if you have access to a college or corporate net that has subscriptions to primary research engines, like ScienceDirect or JStor. Also, everyone can look at becoming a member of the AAAS, which will get you online access to Science.
Some links:
University of California Neuroelectric Research Group [berkeley.edu]. Some interesting information, with PDFs available, on BCI.
Gene Delivery Systems [ucla.edu]. A free quick intro (from a lecture/course) on some of the different vector systems being studied for gene therapy, and desirable characteristics.
Those of you with access to journals can go read a very interesting study published in the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 16(6):1022-1035. "Optimizing a Linear Algorithm for Real-Time Robotic Control using Chronic Cortical Ensemble Recordings in Monkeys," by Wessberg and Nicolelis.
Re:Evolution in the most unlikely places? (Score:5, Interesting)
Ah yes, the wild bushmen, left alone to live out simple lives... oh, and fight court battles with the government. So much for isolation.
http://www.wpherald.com/Africa/storyview.php?Story ID=20050420-094002-6437r [wpherald.com]
Re:Really looking at the situation (Score:3, Interesting)
I have to disagree - I find that social pressures play as much of a role in eduction as does intelligence. I certainly know of 'uneducated people' who I would consider to be brilliant - just not trained. Some of the individuals are there due to economic / immigration reasons (my janitor is Smart, with the capital S), while others either have difficult dealing with authority, are apathetic, or just plain lazy. On the flip side, I can think of several people who are incredibly book smart but can't think themselves out of a paper bag. On of my highschool classmages (way, way back when) is about as smart as a rock - but has an incredible job and makes tons of money thanks to his dad (must be nice).
Let's just say, I'm not too worried.
Re:Human evolution (Score:5, Interesting)
I can think of numerous potential beneficial evolutionary changes, some incremental and some more radical:
One word - Disease (Score:5, Interesting)
The most polymorphic genes in our (actually most any) genome are the MHC genes - genes that are central to the adaptive immune response. These genes are under extreme selective pressure, to the point that we can track how peoples migrated by monitoring how haplotype ratios changed or new ones emerged over time.
New diseases are emerging all the time - as a prime example, HIV is a brand new disease that made the species jump to humans less than 100 years ago. As an immunologist, I fully expect another 'Black Plague' to emerge and wipe out 25% of the world's population within my lifetime.
Evolution by disease clearly isn't as flashy as evolving wings or gills, but it's evolution none the less.
Re:This presents a dilemma... (Score:1, Interesting)
~kalinga
Comment removed (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Really looking at the situation (Score:3, Interesting)
If you want to get silly, take a look at this page [chrisevans3d.com]. Clearly the future will be populated by idiotic Republicans, breeding like mad, while a handful of super-genius tree-hugging Democrats survive in Utopian nanotech habitats.
More practically, bearing children seems more closely related to urbanization rather than IQ. What's happening is that people are moving to cities where children are a burden [msn.com]. You still have high population growth in rural places, such as parts of India and China. Once 90% of the population are in cities, I say there's a good chance that populations worldwide start to decline.
Humanity is defined as a TECHNOLOGY USING SPECIES (Score:1, Interesting)
what you probably really want to argue about are *externalities* and that we have only begun to purposefully *internalize* our technology through molecular biology (genetic engineering & nanotech).
1999 is calling you, it's ray kurzweil and he says he already wrote a book about this AND started a geek cult following. http://www.kurzweilai.net/ [kurzweilai.net]
Re:Human evolution (Score:5, Interesting)
Heightened sex drive and fertility... birth control makes it tougher to get pregnant, those who have sex more often should wind up with more children.... who, when older, might be predisposed to having sex more often.
From the article: "Others believe we could blend ourselves with machines in unprecedented ways -- turning natural-born humans into an endangered species."
Like... c-sections.
Oh and earlier sexual maturity... there's no longer a risk of killing the mother. With social safety nets, infant mortality and the ability to provide for the child is not an issue. Horrifying as it might seem.
Multiple births are also non-fatal these days, although fertility drugs make that tougher to determine if it is a factor.
It's all speculation of course.
Re:Survuival of the fittest isn't evolution (Score:2, Interesting)
Sexual selection allows mates to select the best possible candidate based on whatever arbitrary characteristics he or (usually) she desires. Have you noticed some people are more successful in bars than others? This is sexual selection in action.
If you want to learn more, google for "Sexual selection", and even for "peacock" at the same time to see how peacocks are an excellent example of sexual selection in action. Do you thing those giant tails help them fly farther or faster? Or require less energy to maintain? Those tails are about one thing - telling the female you are a healthy male. The female isn't concsious of this, but she selects based on tail size, and the cycle continues.
Re:Space... (Score:3, Interesting)
Perhaps not as bad as you might think. (Score:2, Interesting)
Perhaps, but even if you're right, it might suffice if there is a nucleus of high intelligence is preserved even as the rest of humanity goes to rot. In fact, I'd say this is precisely what is happening. While some intelligent people are left to mix with the rest of the population, if they are educated, highly intelligent people do tend to cloister themselves with other intelligent people.
Consider yourself for a moment: how much time do you actually spend mixing with people vastly stupider than yourself in any sort of meaningful interaction? When you first meet a woman, even if she's very pretty, will anything kill your initial animal attraction to her faster than if she opens her mouth and says something stupid? Also, consider the brilliant people you know. Though they are perhaps having fewer children than the remainder of the population, what few children they do have are with other brilliant people. How many theoretical mathematicians do you know married to idiot slobs that spend their days on the couch watching NASCAR or football or whatever shouting "DEFENSE" every 10 minutes or so? It just doesn't happen. Though geographic isolation is breaking down, social and professional isolation is strengthening.
enhance sexual traits (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Really looking at the situation (Score:3, Interesting)
However, intelligent people are generally attracted to other intelligent people. There's your isolation right there.
Morlocks and Eloi, baby.
Re:Complete rubbish (Score:3, Interesting)
Obviously other animals have evolved to adapt to their surroundings, birds have evolved to be lighweight so they can stay in the air, fish in very deep and dark water have evolved to have colourful lights on them, polar bears to have lots of fur, and so on..
But humans no longer need to physically adapt to our surroundings as much as before, since we have enough intelligence to change nature to how it suits us (for example, making cars instead of evolving to run faster), instead of the other way round. So I think we probably won't physically evolve as much as previously (we clearly will still evolve physically, maybe to handle hotter temperatures or whatever, or take height for example; each generation seems to get taller than the last - or maybe this is just to do with dominant genes?).
I think the next main set of evolutionary steps for humans will be mental, rather than physical. Our minds play a much, much bigger part in our lives than our physical features do. Our brains aren't built to truly 'multitask'. Sure, we can walk and talk at the same time, but walking is pretty natural anyway, we don't need to think about it. Talking is similar but not the same, we aren't constantly consciously thinking about what we say, it just kind of flows out, but without some thought it wouldnt make sense. Maths, or other such things, on the other hand, do take a fair bit of real thought, and we can't do things like maths and talk about an unrelated topic at the same time. So my thoughts would be the brain evolves to multitask better, since we are expected to do it so much in this era.
Then again, what do I know, I'm a kid not a scientist.
Re:Human evolution (Score:3, Interesting)
So, for example, right now in Europe and Japan and a lot of other places, the population is aging pretty rapidly, because young people have birth control and aren't really that interested in getting married and starting families. So, these countries are all about to enter an era of population decline. But it's pretty much inevitable that in a generation or two, only the descendants of those people who are interested in having families (whether for genetic reasons or cultural ones [read hardcore Catholics and others]) will still be around.
So, natural selection isn't quite gone just yet. But it definitely isn't choosing for the traits that we might want it to (like intelligence, disease resistance, or happiness). It's choosing for the traits that lead to more people (family attachment, cultural patterns that lead to reproduction, etc.).
the singularity (Score:3, Interesting)
From the http://singinst.org/ [singinst.org]Singularity Institute: "What is the Singularity? Sometime in the next few years or decades, humanity will become capable of surpassing the upper limit on intelligence that has held since the rise of the human species. We will become capable of technologically creating smarter-than-human intelligence, perhaps through enhancement of the human brain, direct links between computers and the brain, or Artificial Intelligence. This event is called the "Singularity" by analogy with the singularity at the center of a black hole - just as our current model of physics breaks down when it attempts to describe the center of a black hole, our model of the future breaks down once the future contains smarter-than-human minds. Since technology is the product of cognition, the Singularity is an effect that snowballs once it occurs - the first smart minds can create smarter minds, and smarter minds can produce still smarter minds." There's a singularity group at Stanford as well. Pretty important stuff because it can have many possible outcomes, anywhere from some Matrix-like effect to becoming transhuman -- so there's a big underground movement that's trying to ensure a positive outcome. Anyways, it's pretty interesting stuff if you've never checked it out. A good place to start is google
Re:Really looking at the situation (Score:3, Interesting)
Since the better educated are more likely to understand money, and were likely raised in an environment where they were pressured to understand and prepare or suffer the consequences, they're less likely to create a lot of children they can't pay for (or attempt to raise children in an inhospitable environment). I also think it's worth noting that our westernized culture is less agrarian in nature that it was even one hundred years ago. Having lots of children to help around the house isn't econmonically advantageous, and since society now places strict limits on what children may do before the arbitrary age of adulthood, it's not like they're of any use in urban and suburban areas, (a parent can't take his kids into his place of employment and put them to work full-time).
There's also a relationship of dependance there. The well-heeled and the better educated pay for the poor and ignorant, so when the former thrives, the latter survives. I'm not trying to make a political commentary here, just pointing out some stuff. There's a lot of other ancillary discussion that could go along with this, but I note that this reply is getting too wordy as it is, and I hope I've said enough to make sense.I predict that the average IQ of the human race will always be 100.
Next step? Backwards. (Score:1, Interesting)
Modern science and medicine, and political correctness, are allowing people with genetic defects to reproduce who otherwise would (or should) not. Thus, their defective genes remain in the human gene pool and propagate.
Now, nobody wants to see people suffering, and I'm completely against eugenics. Since that leaves little option other than personal responsibility, people who have serious genetic problems should really consider the impact their reproduction will have on the human species.
Otherwise, the only step possible is backwards.
Re:Human evolution (Score:2, Interesting)
However, if left unchecked compassion and empathy can lead to disaster, just as violence can:
An old professor of mine used to develop defenses to chemical and biological weapons for the US. Essentially her job involved killing of thousands of lab rats every week, as they researched cures for known biological and chemical agents. Eventually she quit, because she just couldn't stand killing all those rats everyday. She said that she eventually even felt sympathy for the harmful organisms they were eradicating.
I imagine such a job would be difficult for anyone. But if we all allowed ourselves to be so compassionate we would be left defenseless to a less compassionate adversary, even a non-human one. A disease could eradicate us all, assuming we were so compassionate, that like her we felt sympathy for microscopic organisms and hesitated to kill them.
Ultimately, in an evolutionary system, a life form incapable of violence will fall prey to one that is.
Re:Evolution in the most unlikely places? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:One word - Disease (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm not sure about 25%, but I agree that some sort of plague will likely cause an evolutionary event. For interesting reading on the subject, check out Laurie Garrett's book "The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance."
I saw her speak at the University of Santa Cruz a number of years ago, and it was pretty interesting. She talked about the large number of global airplane flights that cross country boundaries daily and could easily distribute an infectious desease around the world within a few days. She also talked about the number of "mega cities" around the world, many of which don't have the developed world's standards of sanitation that could lead to development of nasty diseases.
Apparently the descendants of the population that made it through the Black Plague filter in Europe are less susceptable to HIV infection today.
Re:Success actually (Score:1, Interesting)
But over the past 200 years, the population of Europe has interbred heavily with populations from elsewhere who never went through the 12th-century culling of the Black Death. As a result, CCR5-delta-32 is no longer common among Europeans. It's back down to about one person in three. In another hundred years, it'll be one person in nine. A hundred years after that, we're talking an insignificant fraction.
Of course, it's possible that the next CCR5-delta-32 culling is already taking place in Africa. CCR5-delta-32 is intimately linked to AIDS immunity. People with it don't get AIDS; people without it do. In Africa, people are fucking like there's no tomorrow, giving everybody within range AIDS. Millions have the disease; in twenty years, there's not going to be enough land to bury the bodies.
Those who survive will have CCR5-delta-32. Assuming some goody-two-shoes doesn't get it in his head to start sending rubbers and drugs to Africa and fuck the whole thing up.
Nature tends towards more biodiversity. Human intervention tends toward less. See?
human evolution (Score:2, Interesting)
Since I'm a pensive person, I've wondered what the human race will evolve into a few times.
A few years ago a science magazine, I'm thinking it was Sciam [sciam.com], had an article about how the male human is headed towards extinction because of the SRY gene on the X chromosome which is the master switch for determining maleness. This gene is "falling apart". There is speculation intersexuals [wikipedia.org], those who are born neither male nor female, may be the key to the survival of the human species.
FalconRe:Human evolution (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:One word - Disease (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:having children (Score:1, Interesting)
I disagree. People do not think much about their retirement in their 20s, and I doubt that they ever have. It's more a question of priorities and opportunity.
People who have kids mostly have them in their 20s. Even by the time you are in your early 30s it starts to become difficult children. By late 30s - early 40s it is too late for most people. This is particularly true for the woman of course, but fertility declines in men of these ages as well.
If you are interested in developing a career, you probably spend some of your 20s -- for some careers, most of your 20s -- in school. And in almost any career it is critical in the early years to work hard and get a good start. It's hard enough to have an extended personal relationship, let alone raise kids, while this is going on. And so the highly educated, career-oriented people often don't get married until their late 20s - early 30s.
And by the time they get around to thinking about having kids a few years down the road, it is almost too late.
Most women want to have 1-2 kids, but society in the US, Europe, & Japan is structured in a way that works against this.
Re:Human evolution (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Human evolution (Score:2, Interesting)
It is really sad when scientists are so blind as to consider the possibility of a creator.
And it's a shame those who believe in ID or creation are blind to science. I'll say I used to believe but I lost my belief after I survived an accident it would of been better if I had died from. The docs told my family it'd be a miracle if I lived. NOT!!! For years and years I prayed all too naught so now I say that IF there is some "Supreme Diety", "GOD", it must be sadistic. I've been living in a living hell since. That's reality for me. As for science, here's some answers:
15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense [sciam.com]
FalconOpponents of evolution want to make a place for creationism by tearing down real science, but their arguments don't hold up
By John Rennie
Evolution is pure fiction (Score:2, Interesting)
Answer: Nowhere.
Evolution is pure fiction. Darwin himself admitted that the fossil record does not support evolution.
Natural selection only uses the genetic information that is available and it tends to keep species stable.
Mutations never add additional genetic information. When a mutation occurs information is mistransmitted or lost. Additional DNA information is never added, which would be necessary to produce higher life forms.
Re:First split will be Mars. (Score:3, Interesting)
As to mars I think we may be stuck living in enclosed averments for a long time. We might try a combination of terraforming and human modification to let people walk outside of habitats but I think such a terraforming effort is only a few orders of magnitude harder than changing it's orbit and adding enough mass to make it earthlike so we might end up doing that.