Have we stopped evolving?

Question

With all the medicine and treatment around now has the human race stopped evolving??

Nomally the weak would die out and only leave the strong (ie Evolution)

Answer 1

you will never stop evolving until the time will come that a new species will be formed which will be very different from its parents!

Answer 2

Yes, we are still evolving. Given that all other life on this planet is continually evolving it follows that if we didn't keep up we'd die out, so yes, we are. Nothng other than some purposefully designed genetic drug or dramatic change in lifestyle (can't think what though) would stop it. Each time a new baby is born it has a unique mix of genes from it's parents which is, at it's simplest, evolution. Each generation brings it's own new benefts to the wider human race - even the things that outwardly seem terrible such as sicklecell protects us from Malaria = evolution. Evolution of the human race will never stop until we become extinct.

Answer 3

I've thought about this question a lot, for a couple years atleast, and it is very hard to come to a definite conclusion. At first, I thought we definitely had stopped or slowed the process of evolution by allowing people to live, or rather not letting people die, who have serious genetic defects or mutations. It is these genetic mutations that should not be allowed to survive in our population. This may sound cruel, but according to the laws of nature children with birth defects, for example, should not be alive. The human inability to see the big picture prevents us from becoming, on a large scale, an adapting species that slowly gains more evolutionary superiority than can be imagined.

However, the actual defintiion of evolution is the occurance of a mutation in DNA. That's it! If DNA is mutating, than evolution is occuring. The mutation rate of DNA is constant and well known, so looking at evolution from this point of view it is realized that we can never stop evolution, as we can never stop DNA from dividing and, thus, from mutating and changing. This is the essence of evolution.
I just want to add one more opinion....if the population is closely examined, it is seen, that for the most part, we naturally select for ourselves. We put ourselves into groups in which we fit by comparison. Healthy, strong, and intelligent individuals tend to stick together. Thus, promoting a gain down the evolutionary track. In a sense, we might have begun to create the "super human" breed already and don't know it. Okay, this is a great debatable question, I'll stop now, but this idea can be looked at by textbook or not by textbook. Who is right? Probably both.

Answer 4

2 answers technically. Yes with a but and no with and unless.

1. Yes we have stopped evolving because there is no pressure i.e. we can reproduce before we die even if we are not "fitter" than another human being.

2. No unless you count height, looks, brains etc. This isn't technically evolution, because there is no selection pressure on less tall, good looking stupid people not to reproduce but some evolutionary biologists consider this evolution because the human race has had an average increase in height over the years.

Personally I would go with the yes we have stopped evolving because there is absolutely no selection pressure any more.

Answer 5

Remember that natural selection acts on traits that allow organisms to survive to have offspring. Take two organisms, one of which has 30 offpring and dies and the other has 25 offprings and then lives 50 more years. If all the offspring live to reproduce, then the first organism is actually more evolutionarily successful. You are outside the evolutionary process once you pass the child-bearing age.


So, in answer to your question, yes, humans have basically stopped evolving. Natural selection requires several things to be true in order for evolution to take place. Variation is one, and that still meets the criteria for natural selection. The second is that the species produce many more offspring than can survive. The individuals that have a competitive advantage will outcompete the others and survive to have more offspring. The ones that are not as competitive will either die out before they reach adulthood or will have fewer offspring due to lack of resources.

This is no longer true of humans, particularly in the advanced countries around the world. In fact, in much of Western Europe especially the birth rate is actually less than what is needed to replace the current population.

In places where there is a high juvenile death rate, for example Africa, much of it is not caused by natural selection but by random violence and wiping out of total populations. While random events occur in populations where natural selection is active, they are minimal.

The only instances where true natural selection occurs in most of human populations is in the extereme negative ranges. In most cases where there is extreme disability or genetic disorder, the individuals do not live to adulthood or are incapable of having children.

Answer 6

I was literaly thinking the exact same a few days ago and then started to think that we are actually doing the opposite of evolving. Going by Darwins "survival of the fittest" theory to evolution, the unfit are surviving and reproducing. This means that evolution is actually going backwards in that more genetically inheritted diseases are becoming apparent and being expressed. As a result it is likely that more doctors will be needed and medical facilities to accomodate the rising genetic disorders but still... these people would survive, although "unfit" and reproduce.

Looking at this from a different angle, humans have no real predators that can harm them. This means that where "slow running" humans may have died out as they could not out run something like a lion, it does not matter anymore because there is nothing to out run.

Evolution takes place where people must adapt to their environment by changes through generations. Humans are well adapted to the environment and so there is no need to evolve.

Answer 7

First of all the definition of evolution:
The change of a certain character in a group (simplified)

So even if we dnt have survival of the fittest we are still evolving (blue eyes maybe or silicon **** :P)

Evolution takes place by:
* Mutations
* Random mating (we sleep with the first person that asks us right? :P it actually means the opposite we tend to choose)
* Chance events (a sad example would be the World Trade Center)
* Selection (no all of us live to reproduce right? Some people would die young or else never recreate :S) BTW THERE ARE EXPERIMENTS DONE IN LABS THAT SHOW SELECTION PRESSURES AFFECT POPULATIONS!!

I also read that people think that we r related to todays' monkeys....It is partly true....we have a COMMON ANCESTOR....its like we had the same great great great great great.......great grandparents!

A WORD TO THE CREATIONALIST, I READ THE ARTICLES QUOTED BY THE GUY WHO WROTE BEFORE ME AND I TELL HIM TO NOTE THE LACK OF EVIDENCE THAT THE ARTICLE IS BASED UPON. IT ONLY SEEMS TO INDICATE THAT SCIENTISTS ARE 'CHEATING' EVIDENCE AND ALSO BROUGHT RELIGION IN THE PICTURE WHICH SURELY DOESN'T HAVE TO DO WITH SCIENCE (RELIGION IS ABOUT FATE, SCIENCE IS ABOUT FACTS)

So my final answer is:

YES WE R STILL EVOLVING AND WILL NEVER EVER STOP!

fossils show direct evidence of this and even if evolution is slower than one thinks it still happens....I mean imagine you had 3.5 billion years on your hands you will surely do a lot of things but nature works slow :D

BTW as a footnote....this thing of no survival of the fittest could help us because it promotes diversity....if one day a letal virus comes around there could be a gd chance that for example it doesn't affect people sick with diabetes!! And the human race would live forever :S

Answer 8

Very sincerely, this is a nice question. It's very important to understand that evolution is a very slow & organized process--but only apparently so. There r 2 steps in evolution--random mutations (which r sudden, and what impart an element of chance to the whole process of evolution), and second, the selective SURVIVAL & PROPAGATION of the more favorable traits ("more favorable" is a relative term, meaning what is favorable today & here may not be so some other day & place if there r far-reaching environmental changes).
Ok, so to now answer ur question more straighforwardly--let's split ur question into two--have we stopped undergoing random mutations(?), and have the less favorable mutations stopped being eliminated out of the gene pool (r nowadays, ppl with less favorable traits able to survive?
Obviously, the answer to first qsuestion is: no, there r still mutations, in fact more frequent (exposure to radiations, cosmic rays because of depleting ozone layer, to the pesticides, anticancer drugs, etc).
The second question is more tricky--those ppl with congenital (present at birth) problems r able to survive--like ppl with thalassemias, sickle cell anemia, etc. So, these ppl will not get eliminated from the gene pool.
But, there can be other type of favorable mutations, like those with better immunity or those with specific immunity towards dreaded diseases like HIV/AIDS.
But, if u r asking about more sensational or visible signs of evolution like vanishing of the vestigial organs--pinna (the visible part of the ear), or the appendix--I think, it's unlikely--for simple reason that if u have pinnae or appendix doesnot put u to any kind of disadvantage (like early death or inability to reproduce).
What remains to be seen is if the deliberate genetic mutations because of improved gene-manipulation techniques will be regarded as "evolution".
Whew! That was a very long answer, but as I said, it's towards a gr8 question.
Hope this helps. Bye. TC.

Answer 9

In some respects yes, but most medicine helps people live longer, past any age that would affect the evolutionary process. So it is mostly irrelevant.
Antibiotics and surgery can help children survive to adulthood from illnesses which would have killed them 100 years ago, such as infections and appendicitis. But in this modern world of ours, most people do not have access to modern medicine, only the richer countries have that. In 75% of the world people still die from preventable or treatable diseases, so evolutionary pressures are still valid.
Evolution is still occurring, but not in the way you might expect. I would suggest that environmental pressures still exist that need to be overcome. As an example : perhaps anyone with a natural immunity to higher background radiation will have a higher chance of survival to adulthood, and more offspring, than someone genetically prone to radiation induced cancers; so this may become more prevalent.
Spoon bending and psychic abilities are just not in my sphere of credibility - sorry Fred L.

Answer 10

It is not correct to say that evolution is just about the weak dying and the strong surviving. It is actually about the best suited creature for the environment where it lives reproducing (and not dying before it get to sow its oats), and the lesser suited creature not reproducing (as much or not at all).

If you think about it most fatal human ailments hit humans after they have reproduced (cancer and heart problems) so those bad cancer and heart genes have already been passed on. Enabling a cancer victim to survive to 90 instead of 70 through improved medicine has little effect on the strength of the gene pool one way or the other.

If anything the human race will see a period of intense 'unnatural selection'. This will be when, for example, we start artificially altering cancer genes.

Answer 11

Evolution isn't survival of the strongest or the fittest it's survival of the species most adaptable to changes, and as we pollute our environment we will begin to see changes in ourselves related to the environment around us, I'm not saying in 15 or 20 generations there will be a race of toxic mutants, now the strong survive and the weak should perish is the ideals of the eugenics organizations and eugenics is the idea of controlled evolution, but whether or not we try and control our evolution or not it still happens on it's own without us knowing about it.