Have humans hit their evolutionary peak or do you think we are going to change more in the future?

Question

Humans have not changed much over the last several thousand years. Although our longevity has been extended that has more to do with healthcare than evolution. What do you think will happen to humans in the next several thousand years?

Answer 1

Evolution doesn't "Peak". It only eliminates the organisms that can't survive too well in their environment, leaving those that are better adapted for that situation.

Sure we may seem much more developed and advanced than oh say a cockroach. But those things will survive the apocalypse in ways we never will.

Speaking of which, most large organisms get killed during large apocalyptic events (meteor hits, nuclear warfare, etc). If some of us DO survive something like that, there is little doubt the future landscape will be drastically changed, and humans will have to "evolve" again, possibly back into a more (what we now term) 'primitive' species where brute force reigns.

Answer 2

I don't think there is any evolutionary peak. It's just an ongoing process and we will continue to change. Some part of our genome changes and has a positive, neutral or negative effect, which may translate into a better or worse ability to adapt. Maybe humans have evolved this great "intelligence" that enables us to prolong life by using healthcare as a "tool". Our constant use of tools however, and manipulation of the world around us may prove to be detrimental at some point. When certain conditions change faster than an animal can adapt they go extinct. Are we going to continue to think we are not affecting the environment, and just believe we won't see mankind's demise so who cares? Yes, we will simply wait for the Earth to be so damaged then suddenly there will be some event, global warming or what not that we cannot (as a race, since individuals do not evolve, only populations do) adapt to. We will not see the beginning of the end, because the beginning is likely longer than our lifespan. We will only produce more offspring that we will likely overfeed and turn into zombies with Nintendo, text messages, i-pods and the internet (much like I am now). Actually thats probably quite natural since success is really only how many fertile offspring an organism has that survive to reproduce. I'm sure we'll go extinct, the only question is when.

Answer 3

No. Evolution is constantly changing changing us though probably more slowly than is noticeable. When the evironment changes, it forces changes in our genetic makeup over time. For example, diseases such as Ebola or flu are still moving through the populations and eliminating from the gene pool those humans which do not have sufficient immunity. Humans are not on top of the evolutionary pyramid, and in fact there is no such thing. Every animal is supremely evolved to survive in its niche or it will go extinct and extinction is an inescabable mechanism in evolution to weed out the less successful. It would be interesting to see what humans will become in a million or 10 million year assuming we do not become extinct.

Answer 4

There's a few things we have to consider. Cro-Magnon man from 30-10,000 years ago was genetically Homo Sapien. That means they were US. A Cro-Magnon child brought to modern times would have no trouble reproducing or even learning language, mathematics, etc. Since before then, our species has stayed Homo Sapien. The genetic diversity in the whole human population is almost nothing. Adapting to environmental effects (disease, pollution, extra sunlight, etc.) will help us, but not change the fundamental makeup of the race. Evolution would result in a new race that cannot reproduce and must compete with modern humans. If ANY new race of humans appeared, it would be snuffed out quickly through violence or biological pressure. I believe the race will stay the same until a group is separated for a prolonged period (colonization of space).

Answer 5

Sorry, but this is it.

Humans will of course get healthier as medical advancements improve, but evolutionary forces assume that one group of a species has a better or more advantageous chance to create progeny, and that this group supplants the rest.

In the modern world, there is nothing to stop almost anyone from reproducing. Plus there are numerous groups of people cross breeding to the point that even minor racial differences will continue to blur.

The human race is already incredibly homogenous.

There is more genetic diversity in a population of 200 chimps in Africa than in 6 billion humans!

Cultural evolution will affect humans far more profoundly as competing world views create either warfare or assimilation. Cooperative societies will be more likely to survive than overtly aggressive ones.

Even if widespread genetic tampering becomes fashionable and affordable, human parents will likely only create idealized versions of themselves in their children.

Taken to an extreme, if someone tried to create a population of "super" humans, say significantly smarter, healthier, long-lived, athletic, etc, then by defination, these new descendents would no longer be homo sapiens sapiens, but rather some kind of homo superior.

More likely our inheritors will be some kind of AI. (Artificial Intelligence)

In any event, this is it for our species' biology.
The rest is social Darwinism.

Answer 6

I don't think there's an end to evolving. Some parts on the human body have not been used for thousands of years and are slowly being gotten rid of: such as the appendix, little toe and finger and body hair. if we survive long enough our brains will be larger too. Evolvution takes time. I mean look how far we've come in 2 million years.

Answer 7

I believe that our technological advances will by far overshadow our natural evolution.
However let's say that humans, or any life, were to continue to evolve long into the future. Evolution as we know it does not 'peak'. But perhaps it just hasn't had enough time to do so.

Consider this: more than 90% of our genome is non-coding DNA. Nucleotide sequesnces that code fot no genes. Much of this 'junk' DNA is believed by some to originate from ancient viruses that inserted their DNA into our genome for the puropse of replicating. Over the five billion or so years of evolution of life on earth this virus DNA has accumulated in our genome and doesn't seem to be leaving. It has been observed that the percentage of junk DNA in a genome is less in older, more primitive species, and greater in more recently evolved species.

Each and everytime a cell in our body replicates itself, it must replicate it's DNA. This requires a great amount of energy. So our body is using huge amounts of energy to copy useless molecules of DNA.
Perhaps if life were to continue to evolve long enough, and this junk DNA were to continue to accumulate, it would eventually get to the point where our body simply couldn't provide enough energy to replicate cells.
Just an idea.

Answer 8

I think our evolving process might have VISIBLY slowed down, however, evolution is a non-stop process. I think that we're not going to grow extra body parts very soon, but we might evolve mentally, intellectually, etc. For example, developing the psyche, being able to see in the dark, adapting power, agility, and speed, gaining what now are known "supernatural powers" such as telekinesis.
The other alternative is that natural selection will kill us out and we will follow reverse evolution or degradation.

Answer 9

I don't think we're that close to a cusp in human evolution...but when it does happen your "homo sapiens" descendants had better be ready to take a back seat.

Just remember, H. sapiens (us humans) replaced Cro Mangon man....Just think about how the Cro Magnon man felt.

It's gonna be scary when it dawns on us that our species is on its way out.

Answer 10

We wont be here in several thousand years.