If You Had A Twin, But Didn't Realise...
Family Life8 mins ago
I posed this question a while back on answerbank, but got bombarded by religous nuts going on about god (pehaps because at the time there was not a science topics).
Have we stopped evolving?
We have no natural predators, we cure the sick, and have developed ways of dealing with weather & natural disastors. Provided we dont blow ourselves up will we stay like this indefinately?
Because we cure the sick are we polluiting our bloodline with disease and weakness (Puts on moral bulletproof vest) are we de-evolving?
Discuss.
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For more on marking an answer as the "Best Answer", please visit our FAQ.With our current technology, human evolution is only occurring at a tiny fraction of its "normal speed". There is still genetic mutation, of course, and genes that are extremely disadvatageous (i.e. allow little chance of survival) are quickly removed from our gene pool simply because people born with those genes can't be saved.
In the future, however, it will certainly be possible for couples to genetically "customise" their baby by choosing only the desired genes from the mother and father, or even create a "super human" by combining the best genes from a wide range of people. It may even become commonplace to do so. After all, while genetic tampering is frowned upon today, once the technique is perfected there will be literally no disadvantage in using this method to conceive a child. The child could be more intelligent, more athletic and have superior senses and skills to anyone alive today. If this were to happen, human evolution would take a giant step forward. No undesirable gene need be kept in the gene pool - there would be no children born blind or disabled, no more cystic fibrosis, sickle cell anaemia, or any other genetic diseases.
On the other hand, there would be many people whose religion or beliefs forbid the genetic enhancement of humans. And, while the rest of the world evolved, this group of people would remain in evolutionary stasis. In a sense, then, only a percentage of humanity will benefit from the evolution to come, while the rest will merely be observers.
I suspect we may be evolving in ways we don't expect - tolerence to pollution for example.
There is a widely reported story (Don't know how true it is) that Westerners posess a gene absent in Easterners that makes them more tolerant to alcohol. Alcohol was widely drunk instead of water in the West because the water was not safe to drink.
Pretty difficult to second guess something like that
dimmy - dont mean to offend and religous non-nuts, just inspire free thinking and a good old debate.
GOOD POINTS ALL OF YOU!!
food for thought - By the modern worlds reliance on money for survival, and jobs for money, and inteligence for high paid jobs. Are we evolving to be hyper inteligent and tech-friendly (take a look at 5 year olds on computers nowdays).
Yes we are taller and smarter, but id this evolution?
Arnt we just bigger and better because of better nutrition during adolesance?
Is our real evolution now just within our own gene pool and not against other species?
Thanks everyone.....
Evolution is created by two things: people growing old enough to have children and people actually having them.
Anything that reduces the chances of this happening is selected against over enough time. On the other hand anything that increases the chances of this are selected for.
People getting taller has more to do with nutrition and more recently antibiotics. Even a cold or flu in childhood will actually stop your growth for a certain amount of time while your body fights it. I can't see any obvious selection pressure for tallness (people might fancy taller people but short people have children too, although do taller people have more children?).
An evolutionary process that is self evidentially occuring is that the world as a whole is becoming more dark-skinned. While western (read predominately white) countries birth rates are dropping and becoming negative in many places. Many third world countries still have high birth rates, as we used to before medical treatment reduced the mortality rates of babies, children and young adults. While such treatment is now more widely (but not universally) available there is a certain "lag" period between less people dying and people having less children to compensate for the high death rate. As this occurs then the world's population will stabilise, by then there will be proportionally more people in those countires than there are now.
Another more dubious (and possibly unsupportable) evoultionary process in humans concerns your "religious nutters". Any community which has a celibate clergy would be at risk of breeding out religious belief, or at least it may become less fervent. If fervent religious belivers become priests or nuns and aren't able to have children then any genetic component and some nurture component to that strong religious belief is lost within that community.
Another possible example is puberty in girls. It has historically fallen in the western world since the 19th Century from around 17 to about 12 now. Again Nutrition and health care are most probably involved. But there may also be an evolutionary element. If you consider two things: one - that before this time children under the age of 16 could be married and after this time it became increasing less possible (through laws and social mores) and two - that early teenage pregnancies are dangerous for the mother and the baby. Then you can see that women who got preganant later (when the rest of their body had caught up to their womb) were selected for (ie they and their children wouldn't die in child birth) while those who got preganant earlier were selected against. Death rates due to these early pregancies would have dropped as they married later and women that could of been had preganant in their teenage years were now delayed until they they married at an older age. So the fact that women in general can pregnant before the rest of their body is ready for it is no longer a selection factor.
Of course there exceptions to such things but when you talking about evolution you have to talk generalisations and percentages not particular cases.
I agree in part to the de-evolving side, as in nature the weak are weeded out really soon so don�t get a chance to procreate and further weaken the gene pool.
We are a product of nature and at our disposal is the inelegance to further our evolution faster than nature could ever do. We will also learn to colonise terra-form and adapt nature to suit us,
We are on the way to becoming the Gods of our ignorant past beliefs.
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