2007-11-11 09:14:34 · 6 answers · asked by . 4 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Biology
I mean in humans.
2007-11-11 09:27:26 · update #1
Evolution is happening to humans now. It happens every second. You just can't see it happening. It's like the millions of bacteria that live in a shovel-full of dirt--just because you can't see them doesn't mean they aren't there.
In humans, though, you have something new going on that has never happened (to our knowledge) in history. Through our technology, we tend to adapt the environment to our needs instead of the environment dictating to us what is necessary to survive and what isn't. We have homes with air conditioning and heat that keep us comfortable in any climate, we have cars and trains and planes and boats that allows us to live in huge urban populations, we have medicine that kills some of the most dangerous parasites and correct some of our more menacing genetic defects, we have gunpowder that gives us (right or wrong) dominion over the rest of the animal world that would normally feed on us. We rely less and less on our genes to get us through our lives and more and more on our technology. The biological influence on evolution in humans is continuing to decrease as our technology grows.
2007-11-11 09:36:41 · answer #1 · answered by the_way_of_the_turtle 6 · 2⤊ 1⤋
Evolution simply means change... and evolution is an ongoing process that doesn't stop. The process of evolution started at the beginning of the universe with the 'evolution of matter' which included the evolution of the elements in the periodic table and finally the evolution of organisms... As long as you have matter that can change in a changing environment your going to have evolution. SO A DEFINITE YES!!!!!!
2007-11-11 09:24:49 · answer #2 · answered by Ort B 3 · 2⤊ 0⤋
it will and it does - all the time
when a bacterial infection becomes resistant to antibiotics, or a tumor to cancer chemotherapy drugs, this is a result of microevolution. in the first case, that of bacteria and in the second one, that of cancer cells whose predecessors have been 'normal' members of the patient's body.
even more so, our immune response is based on evolution! every clone of lymphocytes that is 'stored' in your body after you've had an infection (or a vaccination) is genetically different from each other and from all other cells in your body - if only for a very small and specific part of the genome.
but these are, of course, extreme examples where evolution happens really fast.
higher organisms as a whole however also do evolve, it's just that it happens much slower.
why? mainly, because they don't reproduce that fast. there are also other reasons, such as a higher functional redundancy (meaning that the impact of a single mutation is lower) and a higher genome stability (meaning that the mutation rate is lower, too).
but still, if humans reproduced as fast as bacteria, you'd probably still see quite a lot of evolution in 10 years :)
2007-11-11 09:22:37 · answer #3 · answered by msp_a11 2 · 1⤊ 1⤋
As long as there are changes in conditions and environments, there will always be evolution ... including right now.
2007-11-11 09:19:27 · answer #4 · answered by ecolink 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
yes hopefully
2007-11-11 09:26:02 · answer #5 · answered by Fresca 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
yes ...its a dynamic process...
2007-11-11 09:18:25 · answer #6 · answered by rudra d 3 · 1⤊ 0⤋