If humans are a product of evolution, what would our next stage be?

Question

If we evolved oviously we can not stop in this stage as the process is continous.

Would be start growing wings, horns or a third leg to support of growing waistline.

Answer 1

Penguinhood, of course.

Answer 2

Well, firstly, it happens over hundreds of thousands of years to see any noticeable effect, but if you look at the progression from neaderthal to current man, you can see the changes are mostly to do with the transformation from being an assisted bipedal creature (like monkeys, who can walk on their hind legs, but use their arms for support and to assist) to an independant bipedal creature. Evolution is driven purely by environmental conditions.

The theory goes that we will experience little change from hereon. Once a body is aclimatised to it's environment, it has no reason to change, so it doesn't.

Look at crocodiles, the oldest known creature that has undergone almost zero change since it's early periods of life in prehistory. Why? because it perfectly suits it's purpose.

Same goes for sharks, they've been that way for longer than we've been walking properly. Again, their environment depicted that there was no change needed.

Now, you can argue that the environment is getting warmer, so our bodies may well develop a more efficient method of cooling, but it's going to take a millenia before you'll see a change.

Answer 3

All your suggestions are possible. If you read a book about evolution, you will find out how long it takes to grow wings.
If you want to know what direction evolution will take? Try to predict al the possible mutations within the genetic pool. Then you would have to predict all changes in the environment to which survival of the fittest will lead us (like pollution, warming, flooding, wars, earthquakes, impact of meteorites, rise of the population. I wish you success!

The way it looks now we will not need to support our growing waistline. There is about 2 billion people waiting out there who think they are also entitled to eat junk food.

I hope there will be more and better brains, so people do not have to make silly jokes by simplifications and then start thinking their joke is true. I also hope for lots of good weather, less paedophile priests and bigots.

And more and lots of good music!

Answer 4

Some of us have already evolved a 3rd leg, hehe!
I dont think there are definate stages. Every thing happens very slowly. Humans at the moment are generally taller than we were a couple hundred years ago. There is also evidence to suggest we are deleloping more dextrous opposable thumbs to cope with the new nature of the tools we are creating (computers and tiny gadgets and such like)

Answer 5

Bit of a crevolutionist me. I believe in evolution but have a hang up over the fact that science has no decent explanation of where the ingredients for the Big Bang came from.
I believe we have pretty much evolved to the max on physical features.
The change now will be happening on the inside I believe. The pace of life has increased so rapidly over a relative short period of time in the history of humans and i believe allergies and mental afflictions are a sign of things getting worse before they get better. From an alternative medicine viewpoint you could say the human race is experiencing a healing crisis.
If microwave and mobile masts radiation and the like are really bad for humans you could argue that we will evolve so as to be able to recognize the danger. Maybe we will develop extra senses.
We lost our tails and that did us no favour from an evolutionary view point really. Think of all the mammals that use their tail to express the basic emotions of fear and anger ... all humans can do is shout. We could evolve to become better at non-verbal communication. Words really are a waste of time. Without words religion and spirituality would be as it was in the beginning. Awe and wonder for the natural world.

Answer 6

Uh, probably not. There's no way of knowing how we'll evolve in the future as we don't know what's going to change. Right now, the world is pretty static. Sure, we're losing our wisdom teeth and our appendixes (appendices?), but there's no need for us to grow wings. And, besides, we couldn't. If the human species evolved to the point that it needed wings, it would be wholely unrecognizable to us as a human being. Evolution doesn't work quite like that.

Now, if we started to colonize other planets in this solar system and beyond, we'd see what would happen in human evolution on a little bit quicker scale. Still, after several hundred generations, each colony would become its own species.

Answer 7

I think the next stages in human development are more likely to be self imposed, greater integration with machines, new limbs and organs grown and improved artificially, more chemical enhancements. eventually the line between human and AI may blur to the extent that a version of the Turing test may be necessary to determine who's human or mostly human and who's AI, until the time comes when no one cares.

Answer 8

There is no next stage. This is it. Disease is rampant and it is getting worse. Mutations have not made us better. Science has already confirmed that. You might get some rogue scientist to say otherwise but the reputable scientists will not make a claim like that. So far, the answers are pretty funny and it's hard to believe that people actually believe this stuff. If we evolve so that we have to adapt to environment, and it takes hundreds of thousands of years and many generations to do this, how would we even survive rapid environment change? We wouldn't. We see species going extinct all over the place. Right now all we hear in the news is how fast global warming is occurring and how many species are going to die off. What do we do when we run out of oil for fuel? We go without. What about food shortages? We starve. What about lack of water? We go thirsty. We adapt our environment to our needs and wants, not the other way around.

Here's what we know. There are NO confirmed transitional forms. There are NO simple to complex species changes ever found. Talk about a lack of evidence. Your question about change is right on track. It's ridiculous.

Answer 9

Well we already have weaker jaws and muscles than our medieval counterparts - maybe with our sedentary lifestyles and reliance on cars etc we will end up a floppy blob that has to be transported round in a metal box - maybe our destiny is to turn into something like a dalek.

Answer 10

LOL. But seriously, some scientists and futurists believe that a symbiosis between man and AI, artificial intelligence, will happen. This being would then be able to endure space voyages and be the next step in the evolution of mankind. Gives us something to think about?

Answer 11

I do believe the first order of business is to evolve into a being that can adequately handle the coming changes from global warming.