are humans still evolving? (power, Neanderthal, video, computer)
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there are days when I feel like the human race is DEVOLVING rather than evolving. increasing rates of obesity, cancer, allergies, and emotional disorders, always make me wonder if the next generation will become less healthy than the current. a lot of t has to do w/ environmental issues, but I think technology will be our downfall and keep us from truly evolving.
Also, humans are gradually losing their little toes...they are getting smaller and smaller and some babies are being born without them. This is because we are wearing more and more shoes!
Aww, that sucks. Baby toes are so darned cute!!!!! If we don't need them, can't we just have them fall off when they cease being cute?
or it could be the consequnce of alien intervention, altering our DNA.
I think you're right. Perhaps I'll ask the aliens about the baby toes on their next swing through our solar system.
Seriously, I'm sure we're still evolving. I imagine, along with the baby toes, wisdom teeth will also disappear. I never had them and have always pointed that out as positive proof that I'm a superior being. I've also had thoughts on occasion that we're devolving, too. That often depends on the kind of day I've had and the kind of people with whom I've interacted.
Yes, as long as humans keep breeding we will continue to evolve. And as long as crickets, gerbils, mice, rats, horse, geese, moose, sharks, pandas, frogs, lilies, daisies, cauliflower, broccoli, and any other living organism you can think of continues to breed it will continue to evolve. It is the point at which offspring typically fail to make it to a point in which breeding is possible do things start to go downhill and usually results in extinction. While there are such things called stasis in which creatures do not change that much over a long period of time - take the coalacenth for example - it doesn't mean that they are not evolving. Physical traits are only one application of evolution and do not take into account for all of the immunities and other applications the body develops that we otherwise fail to recognize as evolution in the colloquial sense. Simply because we don't see a blatant change in the structure of something over the course of time still fails to take into account the other types of evolution.
Oddly enough it's many of the good traits from our caveman years that are the bad traits today. The ability to eat so much in one sitting that our stomachs stretch was good at a time where we had no idea where the next meal was going to be but now it just makes us obese.
We are still evolving. Had not Insulin come along, the gene for the inherited tendency for diabeties would probably have died out in time. Women with diabeties often died with the first child, seldom lived through the second pregnancy. But now, they can have all the children they want and pass the defective gene along to their offspring, thanks to modern medicine.
Wisdon teeth are disappearing. The appendix is no longer needed and may be disappearing too. The increased height may be due to better food, not evolution.
Remember that things like evolving traits can take thousands of generation before they become "normal"
Some undesirable traits, like Sickle Cell Anemia, are also carried along the genetic line with the inherited protection against Malaria.
The Plaques of the Middle Ages wiped out the people that were sensitive to certain viriuses, while not bothering those that had an immunity. Was the immunity a genetic evolution that Mother Nature was developing? We'll never know for sure.
In an ideal world, Darwin's theory of natural selection would prevail, but we've gone more toward Machiavelli's idea of advancement over morality. The randomness of nature (order to chaos) has been reversed, but the strong don't necessarily survive. Thank God that Neanderthals didn't have cloning technology.
Also, humans are gradually losing their little toes...they are getting smaller and smaller and some babies are being born without them. This is because we are wearing more and more shoes!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Padgett2
Wisdon teeth are disappearing. The appendix is no longer needed and may be disappearing too. The increased height may be due to better food, not evolution.
Ummmm.... only problem with those urban myths is that isn't how evolution works! Because you wear shoes your babies don't somehow "anticipate" not needing a toe and don't grow it. Same for the wisdom teeth theory.
The way a trait becomes dominant is because it confers a survival or reproductive advantage. Those that have the trait either reproduce more or their children have more chance or surviving until breeding age.
I don't think anyone is chosing mates based on smaller pinky toes or that children with smaller pinky toes have greater survival than those with normal sized toes. Same as with wisdom teeth, we may not need them... but unless humans are selecting against mates with pinky toes and wisdom teeth or there is some inherent survival benefit of not having these traits there is no evolution acting agaisnt them.
That is like saying people go bald because evolution "senses" we have invented hats and roofs and no longer need hair to cover our heads. We also are "evolving" to be overweight because our genes "know" there are cars to take us places. If pinky toes and wisdom teeth are disappearing, its more likely that they are linked to some other trait that is being selected against... or again some environmental changes.
Some studies show that height, IQ and other changes are mostly environmental (diet especially) and not genetic. Evolution is slow, the rapid increase in height and IQ is really too fast on an evolutionary time scale to have occured because of the selection for these traits.
The case with the appendix is more likely that it did offer an advantage at one point. Once it became useless, there was no longer a selective pressure to keep it... perhaps there is even selection AGAINST an appendix because it can burst and kill the person. Although there are theories that the appendix IS useful. Studies have shown that it might contain bacteria for a reason, to "reboot" your system with the bacteria your gut needs if you have an infection or ingest something that kills them. Being outside the normal digestive tract it is not prone to the same conditions and can store them safely. Just look at all the new yogurts and drinks with "live cultures" to see the benefit of having some bacteria in you
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I've also had thoughts on occasion that we're devolving, too. That often depends on the kind of day I've had and the kind of people with whom I've interacted.
