Will humans continue to evolve, or are we at a climax due to advances in technology and medicine?

Question

Are humans going to remain the same as we are today? In an evolutionary standpoint creatures evolve to adapt to their invironment, humans change there invoronment to adapt to them. So, will be continue to change or stay the same...??

Answer 1

We are constantly evolving. If you look at statistics over the last hundred years, people are getting taller. (Go into an old, old home - the stairs will be smaller - people were smaller.)

Every time that DNA replicates, there is a possibility for an error. These can be positive or negative, but it the error is transmitted to the next generation, it will make changes in person. These changes are EVOLUTION.

Unfortunately, the survival of the fittest isn't accurate anymore, as people with defects are now living long enough to reproduce and making faulty copies of their DNA.

We will continue to change, slowly, but evolution is happening all around us, and in us, everyday.

Answer 2

Evolution has a funny way of working around anything you throw at it, given enough time and the right conditions. While it is true that technology allows those who would normally have been unfit to survive a few hundred years ago to live and reproduce, and while we do tend to change the environment to make it comfortable for us, that same technology creates conditions that change us all the same. Take height, for example, which tends to fluctuate depending on general health of a population. With the current trend toward better fed Americans, we're all tending to grow taller than our grandparents' generation. Children (particularly girls) are reaching sexual maturity progressively eariler with each generation, with some girls reaching first menses around the age of ten (and eight is not unheard of). With the rise in incidence of heart disease, there may be some evolutionary pressure favoring those who intrinsically can handle a higher fat, higher cholesterol diet. These are small factors, but ones which can, over the next million years, may have some influence on the form and function of the human body. Ultimately, we have only to wait and see how things turn out.

Answer 3

Yes, people who wouldn't have lived live, etc. It doesn't slow down evolution, it changes its course. When humans started using tools, some were able to survive that weren't able to before. The same with agriculture, and state-level society. We are already ultra-dependent upon tools and the like for survival. Medicine is just another extension of that. Picture this: if we lived by the idea of 'nature red in tooth and claw' the Charles Darwins of the world would be out bred by the ultra aggressive rapists and those who were just stronger or more violent than average (think Atilla the Hun). So, most modern males (and females) can be happy that we live in gentler times. We're breeding for those who can function well in a group and for intellectual creativity. That's not a bad thing.

Answer 4

I used to think that humans were done evolving because there was no more survival of the fittest. However, I read a recent article that said that humans were still evolving. I didnt understand it compltertly. However, if you look at evolution as a change in the gene pool, then the increase in interracial and inter-ethnic breeding can be viewed as evolution. So, yes.

And, to Johana and the other simpleton above her... monkeys evolve too... and the time span you are considering is too short to prove evolution... its like you two choose to be ignorant !!!

Answer 5

We will evolve in the sense that we will integrate the technology and medicine into us. We already have taken steps to this-medicine extends longevity, and many people have synthetic implants and other devices, such as pacemakers, and I know of only one case, but sight is being given to blind people with the aid of computers and cameras, and in another case a man had linked himself to the internet (I dont know how this was exactly done, but it involved nerves and wiring.) We are the masters of our future, and will evolve if we allow so (of course within the bounds of the natural world and biological limits, but even biology can be superceded by itself if we harness it.)
*relevant to an ealier comment, we did not evolve from monkeys, we evolved with monkeys, at the same time. Every species on earth is the most evolved form of what it is, granted there may be varations-there are different types of ants but the ant is the most evolved "ant". any type of "ant" in history was never superior to the current ant in the modern world (that is to say that an ancient ant could not survive today, and todays ant could not survive in the ancient "ant" world, depending on climactic variation.)

Answer 6

well we may evolve into the enviroment that we created. However, as technology and medicine advances, we can change genetic patterns and DNA through such advances and take evolution into the hands of humanity. So the evolutionary path of man will most likely depend on the path man takes, whether by humanities own will or not.

Answer 7

Evolution is a continual process, even in human beings. Visit an Old West museum and look at the clothing they wore. Notice that the women are about the size of the average 10-13 year old girl. Even the men were shorter.

Look at their hands in photographs. See that their pinkie fingers are longer and closer in size to their other fingers.

You can see that just in 3-4 generations, humans have evolved *slightly*. We tend to be taller and our hands are changing. I don't see that changing - it just takes longer than one human lifespan to accomplish any noticeable change.

Answer 8

If people evolved from apes... why aren't the monkey's still evolving??? HUH? That evolution stuff is a load of bull. Also, the same goes for us... if we evolved... why aren't we evolved into something different now? I would say changing from a monkey to a human is a big step... so why aren't humans changing into other things? Evolution makes no sense...

Answer 9

i hope earth will be able to support us 200 years
the answer is no
because humanity needed millions of years to evolve
and in less than 1000 year we were able to destroy more than half of the lifeforms on earth and we used practically all the resources
and we are suffecating from our own dirt
for that i do not think that we will survive to evolve
we may adapt to become a very stinky species

Answer 10

Nobody KNOWs for sure what we'll be like in the future. We'll still evolve despite technological advances. Being able to give glasses to the nearsighted, and wheelchairs to the "stephen hawkins" will tend to give rise to a higher intelligence level. It may be that we'll begin to evolve intentionally, for a habitat other than our own. (ie: space, underwater)
Cerrtainly, environment, and passive eugenics, are trumped by technology. Determining who reproduces and who does'nt will determine what form our future holds.