ANSWERS: 16
  • Man did not evolve from apes. Man was created by God, and then women were successfully extracted from a single rib. It's in the Bible, so it's true. Anyway, nothing in evolutionary theory says man evolved from apes. It says that man and ape shares a common ancestor, probably a toad or mushroom or something.
  • I have heard that the next step in evolution will likely be the growth of the thumb, due to how much we use it with handheld electronic devices. As for the next major change, I am not sure, and I doubt science would have any major predictions.
  • Evolution does not have very much effect on us humans anymore, because we have had the ability for the last 10,000 years or so to be able to manipulate our environment rather than letting the environment manipulate us. Because of this, we are able to make it so many people with negative mutations can survive where they would have not. For example, if it were not for 20th century medical technology, I would be dead. My disease-contracting genes are still in the gene pool, and if I reproduce, they are going to stay in the gene pool. This basically means that evolution moves so slowly on us that it might as well not even be doing anything. I don't think any scientist could make a real prediction on what humanity might evolve into next.
  • There's very little evolution going on in man today because we addapt our environment to ourselves and not the other way around.
  • With the way that things are going I'm afraid humans won't last that long to see another evolution.
  • I really don't think that man will evolve any more. Evolution is based on survival of the fitest. The individual with the best adaptations to its surroundings has a better chance of survival, and so has a better chance to mate and pass on its genes. But humans try to help eachother to survive, and, at least in developed countries, a person with a genetic disadvantage or any other sickness can get medicine or whatever to counter it.
  • Science makes no such predictions. My prediction is that the main development will be more tolerance of industrial chemicals and pollution, since these ar the things which tend to kill children before they reach reproductive age. So I don't expect much *visible* change in humans, but more internal and biological.
  • Who reproduces most successfully? I'm inclined predict a split in the species over the next hundred thousand years or so between dumb, aggressive xys mated to passive xxs, and highly intelligent ("gifted") xx/xy pairs. The Neanderthal reversion will then hopefully be killed off as its population reaches unsustainability and becomes a greater and greater threat to the gifted breed.
  • I heard that we will be taller, have lot less hair and bigger brains. I am glad I will not be around when that happens.
  • We are at a unique moment in history. Up until this point evolution has driven change in all life on the planet. This has been somewhat altered by our ability to control our environment but now there is something really different and that is our understanding of not only the process but also a great deal of the mechanism i.e. genes. Not only do we understand this, which would be enough to throw the whole thing into some confusion by itself anyway, we can manipulate the mechanism. This is even more profound that manipulating the environment. We can directly alter the 'blueprint' of what makes us well... us. Add to that other advances such as nanotechnology (still some way off but coming fast), other types of biotech and of course computing and we are in an unprecedented period of development. So to try and predict what evolution has in store might be the wrong question. As far as humans are concerned evolution as we have seen up until now might be over and done with. Engineered evolution may be the next stage. "Intelligent Design" may actually mean something very different soon: not the rejection of evolution but rather its successor. Of course it is still part of a natural process and there are many factors involved but personal opinion is that humans are going to take charge of matters such as these on a scale never before seen. So as for predictions of evolution well... maybe evolution as we know it is becoming irrelevant. Like the flow of a river, you can make some predictions as to where it may go in the future if left to 'naturally' evolve but once you start altering it directly with dams, diversions etc the question of what will happen according to the former process becomes irrelevant. EDIT Oh and we didn't evolve from modern apes - we share a common ancestor.
  • I predict a lot less idiots.
  • Homo Spacians. But not for awhile yet.
  • At the rate we're going, right back into apes
  • This...
  • If we evolved from apes why are apes still here
  • Evolution cannot be quantified! It is a gradual, constant shift, like watching cold molasses run downhill. First, we didn't evolve from apes, most of the primate family evolved from a common ancestor. Second, man has been constantly evolving, and is still doing so at this very moment. You're seeing the next stage right before your eyes every day! Some of us are getting taller and sexier, some of us are getting stronger and faster, some of us are getting more fragile but much, much smarter, and many are just getting slightly less hairy with each successful generation. To predict but a shard of what direction evolution will take tomorrow is to presume one can even comprehend what only the gods could know.

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