Are humans and animals evolving into higher orders?

Question

What are the new orders? If they aren't how come?

Answer 1

Kingdom, Phylum, Order, Family, Genus, Species.

Humans are primates. This isn't going to change--we are not evolving into some different order. We may be evolving as a species. Some people think human evolution has stopped, but I think those people are short sighted. Just because we haven't changed all that much in twenty thousand years--what is that? Nothing. Not even a drop in the bucket. Come back in ten million years, and see if there are any differences.

Besides, some species do remain static for extended periods of time. Mosquitoes have changed very little over the course of a hundred million years. Same with horseshoe crabs. Trilobites are all extinct now, but they remained quite similar for many millions of years.

Horses and elephants are both very different now than they were 40 million years ago.

Will new mammalian orders develop? First there must be a niche for something to fill. In our world, not only are niches all full, we are exterminating them. After we have completed our major extinctions, there will be new, unoccupied niches for organisms to develop into. Whether or not entire new orders evolve to fill these niches depends. If we exterminate enough species, over a long period of time that might be possible.

Answer 2

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by orders. When it comes to evolution between man and animals man is evolving at a much slower rate than animals are because we have better technology, like it it weren't for glasses evolution would have wiped out anyone with problems seeing. We are still evolving but animals are evolving at a much faster rate.

Answer 3

We have no idea if evolution is affecting human beings or not. According to Gould and Eldridge's punctuated equilibrium theory, species spend most of their time experiencing little or no change, but in response to a change in evolutionary pressures, may undergo evolution very rapidly. Perhaps our time simply hasn't come. We are a fairly young species, after all.

Also, bear in mind that evolution isn't goal-oriented. There is no evolutionary striving "upward" to higher orders, there is only evolution to create a better fit between a species and its environment.

Answer 4

Evolution doesn't necessarily lead to "higher" forms, it just modifies creatures so that they are better adapted to their specific environments. In some cases, this could mean that a simpler or less complex creature might have a greater chance for survival when the environment changes.

Answer 5

The best proponent for this position is Man and Superman by Nietzsche.
The best answer is that we do not really know. A lot more work on genomes may tell us something in the near future. Watch for developments in this field; but be always wary of propaganda. It will be rampant.