Is Humans and animals On Earth is still evolving?

Answer 1

Yes, Evolution is just a mechanism, it doesn't know how to stop.

Answer 2

As far as humans, the same processes that caused evolution are still at work. However, two things will make evolution slower. The major one is that there are a lot more people now, so that a change in one person has a lot less effect than when there were only a few people. Something would have to affect a significant number of people for evolution to occur. For instance, perhaps global warming, if it gets really hot, would cause people who tolerate warm weather better to survive better and be more likely to have children. I have been thinking about the effect of uncontrolled AIDs on evolution in underdeveloped countries. Some people do seem to tolerate the AIDs virus better than others. Maybe a few people who tolerate the virus will survive without medicine. (This shouldn't be an excuse to not treat people now though). However, unless there is a big catastrophe, I think that human evolution will be much slower now.

As far as animals go, they are still evolving. Their ability to evolve depends on the balance between selective pressures, numbers of organisms, ability to reproduce with groups outside their own, etc.

I am not an expert in this field. This is the type of question that makes for a good scientist. You could spend your entire life trying to figure this one out (and it would be fun).

Answer 3

When you understand what evolution is, you wouldn't ask this question.

Evolution or natural selection, modification with descent - whatever you want to call it can be reduced to two things.

Mutation and death. Human beings aren't really evolving as such right now because the selection pressures are drastically reduced - I am short sighted - but I've never been eaten by a sabre-toothed cat because of this genetic defect, I just wear eye glasses.

Mutation will always be there, what differs in a civilised culture is selection - I'm talking about human evolution of course.

Answer 4

I would have to disagree with TE's example. S/He says that the extension in human life expectancy is an example of evolution. It's not. At best one could say it's an example of evolving human medical science.

There are other examples of evolution in action in the modern world: for example, there was a butterfly that normally used to be white, and only a few butterflies of that species were dark. Following the industrial revolution, natural selection (the mechanism that drives evolution) favoured the dark butterflies, who then became the dominant form of the species.

(One could argue that human medicine, and human travel technology actually counter the natural processes involved in evolution, medicine by allowing the less-than-fit to survive & reproduce, travel by constantly mixing the genes, instead of allowing isolated populations to evolve, without mixing in genes from the general gene pool.)

Answer 5

I saw a year or so ago a TV documentary about some starlings taken to a remote island a century or more ago accidentally, and over that time have evolved into - would you believe - vampire starlings feeding off the blood of large sea birds. More recently, the introduced poisonous cane toad here in Australia killed off a lot of snakes, but those snakes have evolved with smaller heads and no longer eat toads, and survive. Yes, evolution is continuous. Now that climate change has hit us, even we will evolve to adapt to it. Life goes on . . . .

Answer 6

Yes. One thing is life spans. Just in the last 100 years, the life expectancy of humans has increased, I believe, by more than 20 years.

Spell Check, you are right. I didn't think of it like that.

Answer 7

yes always. although its not meaning as much becaus natural selection isnt occuring in humans because of medicines and such

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Answer 8

Of course . . . because human beings have become more or less aware of ourselves, our capabilities, brains . . . does not mean evolution has ceased . . . our lifespans are too short to observe evolution in "real time" so it appears as if it does not exist, particularly to those specially-biased individuals.

Answer 9

Yes. It would be pretty arrogant to think that we are so evolved that it stops there.

Answer 10

Yes. Natural selection and artificial selection are still in operation.