How will the human body evolve in the future and what will we look like 500 years from now?

Question

Old buildings have low doorways since our ancestors were shorter, so we are definitely getting taller. But how will the human body evolve in the future? I think that humans in the future will have ENORMOUS thumbs (from all that phone texting), and very short legs since we won't walk anywhere. That's for a start ... what do you think we will evolve as?

Answer 1

maybe not 500 years, but 50000 years:

no hair
no pinky finger

Answer 2

WOW that's a big question....

here is a good resource to look back on how evolution has brought us to this point http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/index.html
Going forward though, natural selection takes hundreds of generations to form significant effects and we are looking like we'll be living longer and longer, so 500 years won't see much change on this front.
Our environment might affect our bodies (sitting at desks with computers or out doing physical vocations), but hopefully our technology will help us develop better physically in that time.
Because we are globally interbreeding we are creating homogenous diversity, which will increase the overall survival of the human race by reducing the reliance on specialisation.
Cloning, in my view, will have the most profound effect on what we look like in 500 years. How this develops both legally (morally?) and technologically will govern whether we can artificially influence our physiology and the limits of this are unknown........

watch this space!

Answer 3

It may seem a simple unimaginative answer, but I think the evidence suggests that our mandibles are getting shorter. So many people have inadequate room for their third molars. Perhaps over time we will have 28 teeth instead of 32 - the third molars will be phased out, and fewer oral surgeons will be needed. Hardly an earth shaking prediction, I realize. I somewhat doubt that our brains will improve greatly. Many people do not utilize their present cerebral capacity, and those people tend to have the most children. (Yes, I know - that is politically incorrect. Just an observation.)

Answer 4

I read in a Swedish report that we are likely to evolve into on of two different species.

The first one would look like a Gollum like creature. Years of years of computerized non physical work would lead to a small and hunchbacked person, rather ugly but functional. Short limbs, big stomach and big eyes. But very intelligent.

The other one is due to cloning or enhanced breeding and with a mixture of fixation of looks. Securer insemination techniques would lead to babies where the parents can decide which different abilities the child would have as well as the appearance. So expect tall, pale humans which has almost the same or very similar looks and abilities. A degenerated human being in my opinion. Like robots.

This is what to expect...

Answer 5

I agree that with all of the cultural and interacial mixing we will start to look similar but it would probably take longer than 500 years. Our skin will definately be darker because of the mixing and depletion in ozone layer(hence sun will totally fry us). We will have to build protective environments or find another planet because we are killing this one by depletion and over population. Only if something drastic happens to the population or we find a way to live on another planet will we see another 500 years or even 100 hundred if we are lucky.

Answer 6

Oh yea...donno scientifically, but yea, enormous thumbs...with all the phone texting, and typing we do over here...and an equally enormous butt from sitting here all day doing nothing except staring at this screen, with matching short legs....probably some sort of a tail to cushion us....lol ! Lets not worry too much, nothings going to happen...probably in a million years....

Answer 7

I was reading this article about how hundreds of years to come rich people will be big and powerful and rich men will have larger penises and rich women will be beautiful and poor people will be like little hobbits. And then thousands of years after that that because we eat too much processed foods in our diets we will have receeding chins and be very ill and sick looking from our diets. The article was a bit far fetched and twenty or so years ago they thought we would have flying cars etc in the 2000's!

Answer 8

Finally an interesting topic! I think they will have big heads to the point that every birth would be a Cesarean section because we use a lot of our brain all the time. I think they will have no hair since we are wearing clothing all the time and the purpose of hair is going away.

Answer 9

The rest of us that havent been whisked away to another planet by 3rd dimension aliens or vaporised by the biological warfare we have declared on OURSELVES will have luminous skin where we have had to hide in dark underground places to keep warm and free from toxic poisoning, large eyes to see in the dark and sharpened teeth to eat bugs with hard shells with as all plants and live stock will be rendered useless. Think Gollum from Lord of the Rings but bigger.

Answer 10

In 500 years from now, there will be very little difference. Evolution takes a lot longer than that. But, unless we've wiped ourselves out, in a million years we'll be taller, more intelligent, less hairy and live longer.

Answer 11

500 years is to short.
The difference between the sexes will be become less like it is in the Chinese now. Look how many Chinese men are feminine.
Skin colour will be brown due to interracial mixing
Genetic engineering may allow us to fly by making us smaller and with wings