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by forsaken1111 on December 13th, 2006
Consider the current environment.
Evolution is very harsh, and only looks at one single factor to determine whether your genes were successful: Did you have offspring?
Someone who is good at making money is virtually guaranteed to have offspring, barring physical damage. So this trait will be selected for.
Someone with good looks will most likely have offspring, so this trait will be selected for.
Someone who is good at lying and cheating will likely have MANY offspring, as he gets several women pregnant. Sure we may think it's wrong, but evolution sees it as a big success.
So taking things like that into account, I believe that in the future the human race will be taller, better looking, and more healthy. We will have a good head for numbers and technology, and we will be naturally more socially adept. Due to the overuse of alcohol and other harmful products by people of this time, we may evolve a much higher tolerance for toxins in the body.
All of this is assuming the environment stays relatively close to what we have now. If space travel becomes a big thing we may have a subspecies adapted to that environment, with longer thinner bones and much better 3D Space acuity.
by IdeaSniper on December 13th, 2006
Well, using evolutionary theory one thing is for certain, if humans are still around 100,000 years from now the new traits they exhibit will definitely be a combination of the traits they have today and the the environment "acting" on random changes to those traits in the future. In other words, your question reveals that evo theory cannot make scientific predictions except the trivial "prediction" that organisms today are a result of what they were in the past as influenced by laws of nature; such a prediction is true for absolutley everything and is nothing more than a way of describing time.
So, I foresee nuke-proof people who no longer eat or sleep, who reproduce asexually, and are basically like machines that copy themseleves. Since "the purpose of life is to reproduce" obviously these new humans would be great at it.
by Twhupfold on January 10th, 2007
I think it is impossible to even guess with any degree of accuracy, because we can't see what situations we will face (Nuclear war? Aliens? World-wide Plague? etc), and any major situation like that could drastically alter humanities path... If there was nuclear war, we would either die, or adapt to the radiation somehow. If there was a world-wide plague, we would either die, or adapt somehow, etc... Any number of things could happen, with lots of possible outcomes...
Though 'personally', if I had to guess, I'd say we won't be around in 100'000 years, or we would have spread out across our galaxy so far, that we evolve down many different paths at once, and cease to really be a single species any more.
by Anonymous on December 13th, 2006
DEAD
by EL1 2 on November 21st, 2006
Honestly, I highly doubt that humans will still be around in that long. If some large space rock doesn't wipe out our population, some virus will. Also, with more and more countries gaining nuclear power, a nuclear war could do it. Apparently, all it would take is six or seven of our largest nuclear warheads to destroy most human life.
Kind of depressing, isn't it? I may be wrong though, but 100,000 years is a VERY long time. So much has happened in the past thousand years. I think there's no way to know exactly what's coming.
by jstranaut on January 28th, 2007
the power of the human mind is something that separates us from other animals and has played a major impact in our evolutionary history. given that trend in our heritage i see the development of the human brain as an obvious subject of evolution. can a thought, if collectively focused, be made into reality? can telepathy or even telekenesis be possible? is the communicative potential of the internet just a whisper of what the collective power of human minds can do (sans the technology)?
on the down side, if we rely too much on our technology an ironic and dystopic future isn't totally out of the question either. obese and short-lived humans-as-batteries a la the matrix?
by JustImagine on April 27th, 2010
Much taller, live longer have larger brain size.
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You're reading Given the evolutionary traits humans have acquired so far, how do you see the human species in, say, another 100,000 years or so?
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Comments
Great answer! Very thorough and thoughtful. Thanks!
by teknimage on December 13th, 2006
Interestng analysis. One point I would bring up though is that existing life has evolved already to survive in a highly toxic environment. After all, the largest mass extinction of all was caused by the horrible toxin known as Oxygen.
by science_geek on January 28th, 2007
True enough, and should a large-scale toxin be introduced into our environment I would expect similar mass extinctions. However the question was about human evolution relating to our perception of "unsightly" physical mutations, not environmental disasters.
by forsaken1111 on January 28th, 2007
Oops, I thought this was the other question I answered about evolution. Heh, disreguard that last comment.
by forsaken1111 on January 29th, 2007