Is humanity still evolving?

[Kramodlog]

I was reading on bacterias who were isolated from the world for 25 years and still managed to get better are reproduction.

It made me wonder if humanity is evolving too. In a liberal economy we certainly compete with each other, and there certainly is competition for women, but there is also modern medicine that muddle the cards.

In which aspect do you think we are evolvng, if you think we are.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Yeah.

Athletic records- most illuminatingly, those in individual sports without much special equipment- continue to fall.

Immunity rates to diseases continue to vary...plus and minus. We're also starting to see a statistically significant uptick in rare genetic diseases showing up outside of their typical populations.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Double post.

 

[Morrus]

Here's my take on it.

If you consider tool use as part of our evolution, then I'd have to say yes. The nature of the specifics of the evolution is altering, but it's still evolution. And as our technology becomes more and more integrated with us (right now we carry it in the form of phones and sit in it in the form of vehicles; soon we'll be wearing it), the evolution will become more apparent.

Evolution just means change. It doesn't mean "gets stronger, faster, brighter"; it could mean "gets smaller, more short-lived", depending on the needs of the environment. That's why that "medicine stops evolution" argument is flawed; that is the change. Maybe we evolve from a [comparatively] hardy species to a less-hardy, but more more technologically enhanced species as we develop technology to cope with our environment.

So no, we haven't stopped evolving. We're just no longer evolving in the same way many animals do.

It could be that this is the standard evolution path of all intelligent species. They evolve to develop tools, and they evolve those tools to change themselves and to develop the ability to alter their environment. The path of evolution becomes more controlled, self-determined.

 

[Kramodlog]

Yeah.

Athletic records- most illuminatingly, those in individual sports without much special equipment- continue to fall.

But that could be due to better training techniques and better doping.

 

[Nellisir]

More or less what Morrus said. Technically, every child born is another throw of the evolutionary dice, so we'll stop evolving when we all die (that's a different thread, though). More recently - and I mean tens of thousands of years, not decades or centuries, which is piddly-squid to creatures of our lifespan - our evolutionary path has leaned towards social interaction and tool use. Those ARE our evolutionary gifts, or advantages. Things are muddled right now because science has overcome many of the factors that previously killed people, but we're still evolving/changing. Evolution does not stand still.

 

[Kramodlog]

Here's my take on it.

If you consider tool use as part of our evolution, then I'd have to say yes. The nature of the specifics of the evolution is altering, but it's still evolution. And as our technology becomes more and more integrated with us (right now we carry it in the form of phones and sit in it in the form of vehicles; soon we'll be wearing it), the evolution will become more apparent.

Evolution just means change. It doesn't mean "gets stronger, faster, brighter"; it could mean "gets smaller, more short-lived", depending on the needs of the environment. That's why that "medicine stops evolution" argument is flawed; that is the change. Maybe we evolve from a [comparatively] hardy species to a less-hardy, but more more technologically enhanced species as we develop technology to cope with our environment.

So no, we haven't stopped evolving. We're just no longer evolving in the same way many animals do.

It could be that this is the standard evolution path of all intelligent species. They evolve to develop tools, and they evolve those tools to change themselves and to develop the ability to alter their environment. The path of evolution becomes more controlled, self-determined.

But does that mean that we stop evolving biologically? How does human biology react to our technology? Our cancer rates seem to be related to our industrial mode of production, can a cancer resistant individual immerge from it?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

But that could be due to better training techniques and better doping.

Some, yes, but not all.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

2(post)

 

[Kramodlog]

Some, yes, but not all.

You're like a maigc 8-ball.