Has civilization and technology eliminated survival of the fittest and stunted the process of human evolution?

Question

Technology seems to have significantly minimized many of the primal struggles for humans (i.e. food, security, sex, etc.) In theory, those who are more successful at these basic needs will have a greater chance to pass those beneficial genes to the next generation, strenghtening the occurance of those genes in the population and moving the species to an ever more adapted group. In humans, however, because civilization and technology has enabled almost anyone who desires sex to reproduce regardless of their level of "fitness", what then drives natural selection and to a greater extent human evolution? Have humans derailed our own evolution?

Answer 1

First, natural selection enables, but is not in itself, evolution.

We might argue that selective pressures from nature has diminished in importance as selective factors for human reproduction, particularly for those who live in the developed parts of the world. But that doesn't mean that there is no selective pressures - they are now imposed by other human beings, including those who determine whether one might mate and beget offsprings.

Selection has not been eliminated, but the traits that define fitness certainly have changed.

Answer 2

There are several reasons why this is not the case, and that natural selection is still in place.

- the period of time since these advances occurred is only a few generations. This is extremely short in evolutionary terms. Up until 100 years ago, medicine was still quite primitive compared to now, and disease control was poor.

- access to modern medicine and sanitation is still limited to a small percentage of the world's population. Probably less than 20%. The rest of the population, namely Africa and Asia, still die from treatable and preventable diseases. This is lamentable, but a fact. Tuberculosis kills 2 million people per year, Malaria about 1.5 million. So selective adaptations for these diseases are still relevant.

- modern technology has provided its own environmental pressures, such as pollution, background radiation etc, which may cause childhood diseases such as asthma, leukaemia etc. Anyone with a genetic susceptibility to these diseases is less likely to survive to adulthood. Anyone who has a genetic resistance to these illnesses will have a selective advantage, and so they will contribute more to the gene pool.

Answer 3

You misunderstand evolution and selection. Selection, whether "natural selection", "sexual selection", "directed selection" (think human breeding of plants and animals),or from whatever source, produces variation in number of kids produced. The kids who survive to pass on their collection (s) of genes are representatives of "the most successful" and whaetver collections of genes they have will gradually spread throughout the human population, either locally or world-wide. That's how evolution works - groups of people change over time in response to selective pressures. Those pressures can be risk of being eaten by large predators, changing tastes of women in what makes a sexy man, food availability, oxygen content of the air, etc., etc. There is no "ideal human"; no Nietschean "superman". Different people and organisms do better or worse in different habitats and under different conditions. And things change - what may have made a person "highly fit" 1,000 or 500 or 50 years ago may not be helpful now. Evolution keeps going - the only thing that might curtail evolution would be a completely static, unchanging environment in which humanity lived in an unvarying way, each of us "best-fit" to our particular place in the order of things. Sort of a Huxleyan dystopia, in my opinion.

Answer 4

Although current medical and other forms of technology have curtailed this sort of scenario, survival of the fittest is still the norm within humans. Honestly (and I know it sucks), women will only go with the strongest looking, best looking males. Even though they might not be the smartest. Human evolution is going as it should and the reason that we see no change is that we live so short in the long span of evolution.

Answer 5

How has technology enabled almost anyone who desires sex to reproduce regardless of fitness? Did we start mating randomly and no one told me? No, we mate assortively. The arena may have changed and maybe a case could be made for a amelioration in selective processes, but it is social science conceit to think that technology, which is only part of these processes environmentally, could derail natural selection, which needs so little variation (1%) to work with.

Answer 6

indeed we have. evolution, though not entirely gone, is severely stunted due to lack of selection pressures amongst the population. its very possible that we will see a rise in the number of people with genetic diseases that dont affect that persons ability to reproduce.
there is some evolution still at work. any genetic alterations that sterilize or kill a person before they have a chance to reproduce will still be considered part of the natural selection process. think of it as survival of the all. this doesnt mean we've doomed ourselves, though. since nearly everyone still breeds, the weak survive, but so do the strong.

Answer 7

No. One can make the case that technology and the availability of food has enhanced evolution. Genetic diversity is greater because of the number of people who might have died in the past can reproduce now.

Answer 8

This is a complex question but it appears that with the advent of civilization that the human body has remained sensibly constant and that natural selection has at least slowed down.If we look at our concept of the body beautiful it is remarkably similar to that of the Greeks. If there is natural selection in the future it may be in the negative sense in that mankind will have to adapt to an increasingly polluted world.

Answer 9

What drives evolution is who is having children. So, just who IS having children? I'll give you a hint. Women with educations and careers have fewer children than women who don't have educations and careers.

Yup, the next step in evolution is for women to be less interested in having educations and careers.

Women: before you give me a thumbs down on this, let me ask you, haven't you observed this trend?