what might the next steps in human evolution be?

Answer 1

There aren't any.

Because humans write and share ideas the process of evolution is different in humans. For example, in a regular organism survival traits are only inherited from the parents. However, in today's world it is possible for my life to be prolonged by a medicine discovered or created by someone I've never head of, who isn't related to me, and perhaps died before I was born. There are many of these benefits life more food, clean water, sanitation, etc.

Consequently, there is an evolution of survival of ideas and knowledge more than individuals. The notion that one day humans could have oversized brains and skinny bodies with no hair is incredibly silly. Once the traits of survival are removed from the function of reproduction the physical characteristics are no longer pushed or shaped by this process.

Unless you come up with a way to artificially control reproduction the process is nearly random with very few characteristics being selected out. Primarily the ones that are are those that cause death at an early age or prevent reproduction.

Answer 2

Human biology is more or less done for evolutionary purposes. natural selection does not prevent certain types of people to have greater reproductive success at the expence of others.


(ie my kids are not going to stop your kids from reproducing.)

But a kind of social evolution will take place.
It will begin with designer children.

What average married couple would not want to optimize the best feature from each parent.

They will pick gender, mom's eyes, dad's hair, physique, intelligence will be optimized to get the best possible brain. Health will be optimized especially if there is a desire to create athletically gifted children.

Genetic disabilities will be eliminated, so no sickle cell anemia, no diabetes, or cancer, no homosexuality, no near sightedness.

So 60 years from now people will start to look like whatever is trendy forty years from now.

Things that may seem unattractive now will no longer have stigma because everyone will assume that is the way a person will want to look plus peopel wll have the option to sugically alter their appearances well beyond what we see now.

Since these people will be physically and mentally more capable than the average person now, the bar for what society expects will raise too.

Some people will experiment with body morphing features like waterbreathing gills or wings or superhuman strength, but the majority of people will not go that way because frankly those others will be considered freaks.

The more well off a society is materially, the fewer children are born and raised, as the people want to enjoy the freedoms associated with wealth. With advances in technology, fewer people will be needed to support the plaetary billions.

As time passes, the population of Earth will peak at about 9 billion, then after a short peiod of stabalization, begin to fall quite dramatically. Robotic beings will pick up the economic slack.

homo sapiens sapiens is an evolutionary dead end.

BUT

Advances in artificial intelligence will create fully rational non human life forms capable of creativity, curiosity, reproduction and independent thought within a century.

These cyborg or fully robotic beings will not be constrained by our emotional and biological drives or needs. They will not ever become "killer robots" because they will not have any need, nor will humanity be in any position to be threat to them.

They will be able to live under the sea, or in the hard vacuum of space and they will care for their human "parents". They will evolve into a billion different forms and spread into the intersteller gulfs.

And they will one day miss us after we are gone.

Answer 3

More-so than any other animal to date (that we know of), we are effecting
our own evolution.

For instance, it used to be that if you were near-sighted, you would
be eaten by the local predator that you didn't see.

Now, we have vision correction, so we're not constantly removing
near-sited-ness from the gene pool.

Think of all of the things that have genetic foundations that we can
now correct for that therefore don't get removed from the gene pool.

One of the effects of intelligence is that we have stopped much
of natural selection from working as we expect - and that's the key.
We don't know what to expect.

For instance, you can imagine genotypes that would have been
fatal but now are beneficial if kept under control - for instance, the
susceptability to problems with childbirth due to poorly shaped
hip bones might actually be an advantage in old age in the war
against osteoporosis.

We just don't know.

I am guessing, however, that you are not so much concerned about
the evolutionary process as what may happen to humanity as we
gain more and more information about our genes, improve
nano-technology, etc.

You can imagine tinkering with the genes to allow someone to
breath under water, or to control weight or any number of things
that we just can't predict.

So ... I'm no help. Sorry!

Answer 4

We will have less hair, a larger head for the brain size. The brain will enlarge faster than the skull can catch during the evolution process.
Finally we will no longer have wisdom teeth. Our fingers will be longer due to more dexterity, yet we will still have finger nails. Out toenails will be smaller and useless.
Our skin will be paler. The muscle mass may be somewhat less dense, due to more automated life-styles.
We will have better immunities, but new diseases will still counter balance that, so we won't see an improvement there.
Blacks will evolve into white people.
The digestive system will still be the same, but healthier, due to the many years of abuse in fatty foods.
We will lose our instinct to "hunt".
etc.... etc...

Answer 5

Technology has pretty much put a halt on Human evolution. When a problem arises, as opposed to humanity adapting itself to the situation, we just find some new technological advance to do it for us.

Answer 6

Actually the human race is devolving as medicine is letting people with genetic weaknesses live to reproduce. If you don't believe me just look at the increase in Republicans and religious fanatics.

Answer 7

According to those boom and bust population charts, I'd say we shall go through some sort of population-demolishing phase, as in a plague or epidemic.

Answer 8

I'm pretty sure we'll manage to kill ourselves off before we can evolve into anything else. It's a shame, but look how over crowded our planet already is. We won't last I tell you!!

Answer 9

Androids of super-humans, think X-Men.

Answer 10

They have arrived! Read about the Indigo Children. www.indigochild.com