Next Step in Human Evolution

PrivateDonut writes "Where is evolution taking our species? MSNBC has up an article that examines where evolution could take the human race. The gist of it is that no further evolution will occur unless humans can be separated into isolated groups." From the article: "Such ideas may sound like little more than science-fiction plot lines. But trend-watchers point out that we're already wrestling with real-world aspects of future human development, ranging from stem-cell research to the implantation of biocompatible computer chips. The debates are likely to become increasingly divisive once all the scientific implications sink in." Class, please read Transmetropolitan for homework.

Comments

Complete rubbish

[Timesprout]

We all know that Human evolution is shorty to be off shored to Mars because martians are a dime a dozen and grow faster in the reduced gravity.

Human evolution

[Turn-X Alphonse]

Human evolution has reached the point where other then learning to breathe in a low oxygen area (like underwater) or being able to fly we've pretty much at the peak we can be at.

Over the years we've evolved to use tools and tools have kept us up with the latest evolutionary fad. We're pretty much a stable mutation of a monkey (with other obvious mutations still happening once in a while). Other then learning to fly or breathing water we can't adapt any more to our planet.

When humans move to another world with more problems we will probably start evolving again. Untill then why risk evolving and screwing ourselvs over if we take the wrong path?

Re:Human evolution

[bheer]

There could _lots_ of beneficial mutations even in our current environment... photographic memory, better regeneration... the problem is, our technology actually _breeds_ biological consistency: a mutant will sooner be carted off to hospital than be allowed to live out the rest of his life as he would normally (which may mean a brutish existence for many but _could_ allow a rare mutant to emerge).

Re:Human evolution

[Jeff DeMaagd]

I agree.

Another limitation is that humans in the industrialized nations have more or less driven out natural selection. For example, stupid people are protected, if anything, it is someone else's fault that a stupid person did something that could have killed them. Sometimes the brain dead are allowed to live for fifteen years.

The highly intellectual people become either smart enough to not reproduce (contraceptives), reproduce less by choice or don't reproduce often because of social factors. Stupid people reproduce like rabbits, some of them start before they leave highschool.

Re:Human evolution

[andreMA]

pretty much at the peak we can be at.

I'm reminded of the (perhaps apocryphal) story of the guy who quit the patent office in the 1890's because "everything had already been invented" Yes, I know your point was that we're not presently under evolutionary pressure, not that we're "perfect" as it is; your phrasing just struck me as humorous.

I can think of numerous potential beneficial evolutionary changes, some incremental and some more radical:

• Better detoxification in heavy metal poisoning: self chelation therapy
• Reduced need for sleep
• Continued adaptation to upright posture: stronger vein walls to prevent varicose veins/hemorrhoids.
• Further widening of the female pelvis to ease childbirth
• Additional articulation of fingers
• Auxillary sensory organs on hands (taste/smell/vision/vibration (hearing))
• Seperation of eating and breathing functions - no more choking to death on food
• Controlled background processing of thought (unlike the rather chaotic 'subconscious reasoning' we practice today)
• Ability to regrow missing/damaged limbs and organs (eg, axlotyl)

Re:Human evolution

[BooRolla]

This is dumb.

Evolution will continue to happen - and it won't be the sci-fi kind. Just plain old Darwinism.

Between air pollution, climate changes, the continual population shift from rural to urban, other environmental factors, and even random error.

Evolution won't stop because it is a journey not a place. All the variables that effect are lives are not tightly controlled enough to even come close to an end.

Anytime someone says how a scientific phenomenom is going to halt, I raise an eyebrow. Maybe you should too.

Re:Human evolution

[Dr. Evil]

Heightened sex drive and fertility... birth control makes it tougher to get pregnant, those who have sex more often should wind up with more children.... who, when older, might be predisposed to having sex more often.

From the article: "Others believe we could blend ourselves with machines in unprecedented ways -- turning natural-born humans into an endangered species."

Like... c-sections.

Oh and earlier sexual maturity... there's no longer a risk of killing the mother. With social safety nets, infant mortality and the ability to provide for the child is not an issue. Horrifying as it might seem.

Multiple births are also non-fatal these days, although fertility drugs make that tougher to determine if it is a factor.

It's all speculation of course.

Re:Human evolution

[Darkman, Walkin Dude]

Another limitation is that humans in the industrialized nations have more or less driven out natural selection.

You are confusing biological evolution with social systems. The removal of "natural" (what is that anyway, should we deny all medicines, housing, and civilisation to a few generations just to clear out the gene pool? And in this society, who do you think will triumph and propagate their genes, the brutes or the intellectuals?) selection does not harm humanity; if anything it broadens the gene pool and increases the chance of beneficial mutations which might lead to any one of a number of positive effects.

Also your sweeping characterisation of the stupid as being born that way smacks very much of a particularily nasty type of eugenics, as does your pinning of "highly intellectual" people. I am aware that there are more than a few people of low intelligence who are genetically built that way, but I would say these are in the vast minority. Much of this has to do with environment rather than their genes.

don't reproduce often because of social factors

And what is this? Did you ever stop to think that the same social factors might inversely apply to the less fortunate among us? It is well known that in times of war, plague, or other stressful times, the rate of population growth increases. By applying this on the micro- or individual scale, you can easily see why those who feel pressured or are in fact most pressured would "breed" first and faster.

Although it would make life very simple for a certain type of mindset to identify a "stupid" gene and assign lesser rights to these lesser beings, things just aren't that easy.

Re:Human evolution

[cduffy]

To play devil's advocate here...

The removal of "natural" (what is that anyway, should we deny all medicines, housing, and civilisation to a few generations just to clear out the gene pool?

Hmm? "Natural selection" is in this case quite clearly intended simply to reduce to "survival of the fittest". Fitness now will certainly mean a different thing than it did five hundred years ago, much less ten thousand -- but the point is that the natural order of things is for the fittest to have a higher likelihood of being able to survive and reproduce. Now that we have social safety nets and free health care to permit even those who aren't able to look after their own survival to live and reproduce... well, the effect should be obvious.

As for the argument that having a more diverse popultion means more room for mutations -- I'm not arguing against diversity, so long as some kind of reasonable fitness function -- such as that provided by making food/housing/etc available strictly via a market economy -- is being applied. If a fitness function is so limiting as to substantially reduce the number of variations which don't directly impact one's ability to tend to one's own survival, that fitness function is broken. To put it bluntly: A society of six-foot, blonde-haired, blue-eyed caucasians is the last thing I would want -- and if relying on a pure market economy in our present society would cause a trend towards that norm, our society needs to be fixed.

That said, it wouldn't be a Good Thing to apply this whole pure-market-economy worldwide. Just doing it in some significant (reasonably diverse) region should cause it to succeed (inasmuch as that region, over the course of a few generations, generates individuals more fit than the population median) or fail (obviously, the inverse) without eliminating gene lines surviving elsewhere in the world which might be falsely targeted by the fitness function in question. In short: I might be wrong, and I don't want to take over the world; a US state or two (allowing folks who don't like it to easily leave, and folks who do like the idea to emigrate in) would be more than enough.

I am aware that there are more than a few people of low intelligence who are genetically built that way, but I would say these are in the vast minority. Much of this has to do with environment rather than their genes.

If having good genes is less important than having good memes (and the nature/nurture debate is far from decided), how does that actually change anything once we consider that memes are typically passed on through one's family?

Your sweeping characterisation of the stupid as being born that way smacks very much of a particularily nasty type of eugenics

Yes, it does -- which isn't to say that it's wrong. (Devil's advocate aside, I honestly do think that voluntary, temporary sterilization as a precondition for accepting welfare funds makes quite a lot of sense. The moral argument against has always been presented as self-evident, which to me it isn't. Anything much beyond that [ie. anything that involves using force of government to compell actions which would not be taken voluntarily] I'm unlikely to support. As for my motivation for taking this view -- I grew up around far too many welfare mothers having more kids so they'd get a bigger check from the government each month. And just to go back to the race thing briefly -- said welfare mothers were almost execlusively caucasian).

Re:Human evolution

[droneboy]

Okay, let's give you a quick lesson in ethics and morality.

First, imagine that you will be reincarnated as a random individual in a society. You have no way of knowing what skill sets and ability you will wake up with. Now, what kind of social organisation would you want to apply given that there is a distinct risk that you will be 'reborn' without your current level of ability to take care of yourself? Do you really want an undiluted survival market to apply? Is your ability to survive in such a situation the only measure of the worth of your next life? If you were doomed from the start by the nature of that society, but that nature could be changed so as you would not be doomed, would you not want it changed?

Consider then whether humans have intrinsic worth or are just a means to some ends. Are you the means to someone else's ends, or do you make your own decisions? Are your decisions to be treated seriously as intrinsic to your being, or brushed aside as aberrations in the mass march to a predetermined or naturally selected ends?

It is an ethical imperative that humans be treated as ends in themselves, otherwise a mechanistic world view results, and all nature of opressions follow from this. What this means is that if we have the means to help each other survive, then we are compelled to make use of them, and cope with the consequences. If a man is born crippled, we give crutches, if he is stupid we teach him patiently, if he is diseased we search for a cure. That we have now begun to grasp genetics offers a way to ameliorate the consequences of a lack of natural selection, but even in its absence we are compelled to defy natural selection; the alternative being the death of humanity as a collection of sentient beings. Sentience is inefficient, you know.

Re:Human evolution

[Grishnakh]

I agree. The problem with the parent's idea is that 1) he believes every single life is worth preserving, at all costs, and 2) the cost of "helping out" the highly disadvantaged is not that great to the rest of society.

In other less-individualistic cultures, the society is the most important thing, not the individual. If the society is functioning optimally, then most people will be fairly happy. Now this certainly doesn't mean the society should eliminate all but the top 5%; however, if society expends too many resources trying to support a very small minority that can't pull its own weight, and is in fact a parasite, it can doom the entire society.

The problem we have with this welfare mothers scenario is that society has allowed itself to be taken advantage of by these people, and the society is doing little or nothing to protect itself from this abuse of its social systems. Somehow, we've badly merged the idea of helping the underpriveleged with protecting individual liberties, such that people are provided help from the government, but that help isn't allowed to have any strings attached because this is somehow oppressive to them. This really needs to change. If someone wants help, they should have to meet certain requirements and conditions, designed so that these people can become productive members of society again eventually. This means no more extra children for welfare mothers; if this means they have to be sterilized if they choose to accept government assistance, then so be it (many of these procedures are reversible now, so it's not like they'd never be allowed to have children again).

Space...

[zaydana]

"The gist of it is that no further evolution will occur unless humans can be separated into isolated groups." Well, if we are seperated into seperate environments that would probably have the same effect as being seperated into seperate groups. That probably means that we will evolve in space. It makes sense as well, we could still evolve to "work better" in microgravity... we could still evolve to run better on different air, maybe purer or less pure oxygen. And since we're in smaller gruops in space, according to this, we are going to have an even greater chance of evolution. So, is space travel going to bring on the next stage of human evolution?

Ooh I know! I know!

[Xpilot]

Adamantium claws. Telepathy. Electromagnetism. Weather control. Yeah you read it right, they'll discover that there is a gene that controls weather.

And they'll dress in spandex and fight each other for survival and/or world supremecy.

I for one, will be very entertained by our new mutant overlords.

Pass the popcorn.

Re:Ooh I know! I know!

[Chris Burke]

Yeah you read it right, they'll discover that there is a gene that controls weather.

They've already discovered that gene. Turns out it is present in puppies, but gets disabled in adult dogs. So next time rain ruins your picnic, remember this and kick a puppy. Make sure to tell everyone that the rain is the puppy's fault, so they don't think you're kicking puppies for no reason. That'd be mean.

WARNING WARNING NSFC

[jackcarter]

Why can't people EVER use the "Not Safe For Church" tag on these things?

Not exactly

[Liquidrage]

The gist of it is that no further evolution will occur unless humans can be separated into isolated groups

No, the gist is that we won't have two seperate species of humans without isolation. Evolution doesn't stop.

Not only is that a very basic and obvious concept, it says exactly that in TFA.
FTFA:
"Evolution is still at work. But instead of diverging, our gene pool has been converging for tens of thousands of years -- and Stuart Pimm, an expert on biodiversity at Duke University, says that trend may well be accelerating."

And at this point, not only do we have natural mutations that could be dominant, we also have the ability to alter evolution through our own means.

The politics of evolution have failed.

[Chess_the_cat]

There will be no further naturally occurring evolution of the human race. Since medical science can overcome just about any malady, disfigurement, or defect--allowing anyone to procreate--there is no opportunity for nature to weed out anything. For example, 5000 years ago a man who had a faulty liver would most likely die and his genetic line might die with him. Today, a man with a faulty liver spends a coule of days in a hospital and is able to continue his genetic line. So in essence, science has outsmarted evolution. Survival of the fittest doesn't apply when everyone survives.

Re:possible first split

[RootsLINUX]

That sounds exactly like the plot in the anime Gundam Seed, followed by the plot in the game Total Annihilation.

God I need to get a life >_

Re:Pinky toe

[xplenumx]

OK, that little useless thing on your foot commonly referred to as "the pinky toe" has to go. Other than ramming it into doors and such (causing great pain on colorful metaphors) I have found no practical use for it, so, according to Darwin. It has to go.

Does that pinky toe hinder your ability to breed? If not, then why should 'evolution care'?

Re:No evolutionary drive

[rokzy]

plugs and wires is the kind of crap you see in movies. we already have good wireless tech so why would we use horrible wires?

at the very most, the sign of an "enhanced" human would be an apple-shaped white LED just under the skin that pulsates when you're asleep.

We control our own development

[Zergwyn]

Evolution acts on population gene pools when some factor favors the survival of specific genes. However, modern humans depend on genetics to a far smaller extent then any other species; rather, we depend on our intelligence. We don't evolve thicker fur or blubber to live in colder environments, we alter our environment (shelter) or create artificial means to warm ourselves. Synthetic transportation replaces wings or faster legs. We use medicine to cure ourselves of disease and accidents. It therefore seems both likely and acceptable that in the future, humans will choose to alter themselves at a physical, internal level. This seems to be a logical progression from our current external prosthetics, like cars. I suspect this will take the form of one or more of the following:

1. Genetic engineering: Gene therapy is currently a very promising field of study, and research on vectors is finally yielding some extremely promising results, both for viral (see some of the fourth generation or higher lentiviral systems) and non-viral (liposomes etc). As gene therapy becomes common, the same techniques can be applied to not just fix genes, but add or alter existing ones to give desirable attributes (better vision, etc).
2. Brain-computer interfaces: Once again, most current research takes place with the aim to provide superior prosthetics to people who have suffered from accidents. This is my personal area of interest. In principle, all the input and output going into the brain should be able to be intercepted and controlled. By doing that, a person could be transplanted into any artificial body desired. I feel that at the current pace of development, this will be a relatively (there is always risk with surgery) safe and well understood procedure within 20-30 years, assuming research isn't outlawed or anything like that.
3. Medical nanotechnology: Very speculative, I don't think anyone knows for sure whether is can actually be done or not. I'm listing it because it would be a different way to augment the human body from the previous two.

All of these technologies may work together, of course. It may be that human genetic engineering would help a person be more compatible with synthetic augmentations, for example. I also believe these are all good things. The core of what makes us us is our minds, and it seems tragic that so many people are restricted by the box their brain must travel in. I hope to be able to help make it so that losing limbs and getting paralyzed are simply no longer problems that need to be worried about beyond some inconvenience. I think that transferring to artificial bodies, or at least advanced gene therapy, will be important for future efforts to colonize space. It appears that in many ways, the primary threat is luddites shutting the research down. Fortunately, so far most of this has passed under their radar, so I am hopeful that will continue to be the case until actual products are ready to go. At that point, it will be too late to stop it. It is an exciting time to be alive though, and I encourage everyone to go and do some research on the subject, especially if you have access to a college or corporate net that has subscriptions to primary research engines, like ScienceDirect or JStor. Also, everyone can look at becoming a member of the AAAS, which will get you online access to Science.

Some links:

University of California Neuroelectric Research Group. Some interesting information, with PDFs available, on BCI.

Gene Delivery Systems. A free quick intro (from a lecture/course) on some of the different vector systems being studied for gene therapy, and desirable characteristics.

Those of you with access to journals can go read a very interesting study published in the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 16(6):1022-1035. "Optimizing a Linear Algorithm for Real-Time Robotic Control using Chronic Cortical Ensemble Recordings in Monkeys," by Wessberg and Nicolelis.

Re:Evolution in the most unlikely places?

[technothrasher]

Actually, there are still a few isolated groups of humans living in the world today - the two that immediately come to mind are the bushmen and pygmies of Africa.

Ah yes, the wild bushmen, left alone to live out simple lives... oh, and fight court battles with the government. So much for isolation.

http://www.wpherald.com/Africa/storyview.php?Story ID=20050420-094002-6437r

Wrong on just about all counts

[localroger]

If you want to know where evolution is taking homo sapiens, get thee to a barnyard.

Evolution is driven by selection pressure. Selection occurs because some individuals die or otherwise fail to breed. Their heritable traits tend not to be found in the next generation.

So, ask yourself, what consistent selection pressures are acting on us now? Note that things that would have killed us in the past are now regularly taken care of by medical science. In just a couple of generations we have a significant subpopulation that can't breed at all without medical intervention. Some of these traits are heritable, such as difficulties in childbirth or needing IVF techniques to overcome fertility problems.

Other traits which seem to universally pop up in domestic animals are also showing up in humans. The modern urban environment is just as alien and stressful to us as modern farms are to the animals we keep there. So we are seeing hypersexuality, earlier and earlier puberty, obesity, and a lot of neurosis. THAT is the evolutionary future of the human race, and it's already well on its way.

The only way out of this situation is to start applying deliberate selective pressure. Given that this would essentially mean giving up the right of individuals to reproduce at will, I don't see it happening any time soon. Plus, I would imagine that a lot of effort would be thrown at hot-button traits like homosexuality or intelligence which probably aren't even heritable. (I know there are a lot of people who say otherwise; there are good reasons for doubting them, starting with their very eagerness.)

The world's population is already effectively split into two major groups, those who can afford radical medical intervention and those who can't. For another idea on how that might work out check out H.G. Wells' The Time Machine. Some things are so basic that they're easier to call before you're well into the trend.

Re:Wrong on just about all counts

[harvardian]

So we are seeing hypersexuality, earlier and earlier puberty, obesity, and a lot of neurosis.

I don't have anything better to do than argue with a eugenist on a Sunday morning, so here goes:

You are overstating the inevitability of very vague negative effects in order to support your beliefs. It sounds very Chicken Little-ish. For example, hypersexuality and neurosis? Do you have any real evidence that these are increasing? If you take an anthropology class you'll see plenty of people who don't "fit in" and get branded as a witch in tribal societies. It may be true that anxiety and depression levels are rising, but it could also very well not be true.

I also just read a very interesting article about Genghis Khan and how up to .5% of currently living men may be directly descended from him, due to his massive number of offspring. It's not like modern humans are the only ones to be into sex. Have you ever studied Bonobo apes? They're extremely sexual, even engaging in homosexual play. So I fail to see how this is new.

As for obesity and a lowering age of puberty, you are correct about these. FYI, the lowering age of puberty may be an effect of better nutrition (see here). Our bodies are not used to eating as much and as well as they do. More on that later, though.

The only way out of this situation is to start applying deliberate selective pressure. Given that this would essentially mean giving up the right of individuals to reproduce at will, I don't see it happening any time soon. Plus, I would imagine that a lot of effort would be thrown at hot-button traits like homosexuality or intelligence which probably aren't even heritable. (I know there are a lot of people who say otherwise; there are good reasons for doubting them, starting with their very eagerness.)

Here's the real meat of where you're on the wrong track.

Let's start easy. Is a person who weighs 1000 pounds going to procreate less than, at an equal rate to, or more than, a normal weight individual? The reasonable answer is "less than." This is selective pressure. It only needs to exert itself at the extremes to have a gradual effect. Remember that evolution is a long process.

The same argument can be said for neurosis, even though I've disputed whether or not this is a new problem. Are people who are very anxious and depressed going to procreate less than, at an equal rate to, or more than a normal person? I'd argue that they are less likely to procreate than a normal person. Hence, selective pressure.

As for homosexuality and intelligence, you're simply off-base. Read this Science article to see that heritability of intelligence is pegged somewhere "below 50%". They say it this way because previous studies have found very large heritabilities for IQ, and it is significant that they found heritability to be "so low" as to be under 50%. Here's from the full text:

Our results suggest far smaller heritabilities: broad-sense heritability, which measures the total effect of genes on IQ, is perhaps 48%; narrow-sense heritability, the relevant quantity for evolutionary arguments because it measures the additive effects of genes, is about 34%. Herrnstein and Murray's evolutionary conclusions are tenuous in light of these heritabilities.

Aside from this evidence, it's simple folly to think that genetics plays no role in intelligence. The number of NMDA receptors in your brain have recently been shown to play a role in memory, which has an obvious relation to intelligence. Does it not make sense that people with higher numbers of NMDA receptors would have better memories and be more intelligent? The number of NMDA receptors in your brain is definitely partially controlled by genetics. The degree to which it is malleable is the real question.

As for homosexuality,

Re:Pinky toe

[athakur999]

Yes.

Scenario 1 - Guy with pinky toe:
Hot woman: Hey there, wanna come over?
Guy: Hell yeah, let me walk ov... GOD DAMN IT I JUST STUBBED MY PINKY TOE... sweet mother of God this hurts. Make it go away!
Hot woman: Wuss.

Scenario 2 - Guy w/o pinky toe:
Hot woman: Hey there, wanna come over?
Guy: Hell yeah, let me walk over there.
Hot woman: WTF happened to your pinky toe?
Guy: I got rid of it. For you. It means more of my blood can now be used for a thicker, long lasting erection.
Hot woman: Nice.

Evolution? Rather the opposite...

[loony]

I'll probably get flamed for this but I have to say it anyway...

Why does anyone still expect evolution in our society? With the social system and the way our economy works there is no reason for evolution anymore. If you take a pack of lions... The top is the strongest animal, then the second tier is the ones that are almost as strong and so on. Now I look at where I work - the richest and most powerful guy has his job cause he started almost at the top and had the right backing... The next level down are all his friends - most of them completly incompetent idiots. Evolution? No thanks!

Now the other side - and that's the really scary one - since when do we weed out bad genes? Today most people die a natural death, no matter if they were stupid, disabled or had any other issues. In the past, those would have been the first to get killed by lack of food, deciese or wild animals. That kept the gene pool cleaner. Today, they have kids just like everyone else - and that has severe negative impact on the human race.

I'm not saying that there is any ethical way of changing that or that it even should be changed, but if the topic of evolution comes up, most people just silently ignore these two facts most of the time...

Peter.

One word - Disease

[xplenumx]

Like it or not, pathogens are constantly evolving and will continue to keep selective pressure on us.

The most polymorphic genes in our (actually most any) genome are the MHC genes - genes that are central to the adaptive immune response. These genes are under extreme selective pressure, to the point that we can track how peoples migrated by monitoring how haplotype ratios changed or new ones emerged over time.

New diseases are emerging all the time - as a prime example, HIV is a brand new disease that made the species jump to humans less than 100 years ago. As an immunologist, I fully expect another 'Black Plague' to emerge and wipe out 25% of the world's population within my lifetime.

Evolution by disease clearly isn't as flashy as evolving wings or gills, but it's evolution none the less.

Re:One word - Disease

[Alsee]

I fully expect another 'Black Plague' to emerge and wipe out 25% of the world's population within my lifetime.

Well at least the geeks will survive. Even airborn contagions generally require at least a passing social proximity.

-

Re:Pinky toe

[Spacejock]

Yeah, or scenario 3 - Guy with pinky toe:
Guy: How was it for you, babe?
Girl: What did you use, your pinky toe?
Guy: Mumbles with embarrassment.

Scenario 4 - Guy with pinky toe:
Guy: How was it for you?
Girl: What did you use, your pinky toe?
Guy (Confidently): No way, babe!

Wrong Wrong Wrong

[joshv]

Isolation is required for speciation (the creation of a new species distinct from the original species) it is not required for evolution to change an existing species.

Evolution is driven by the environment and selective pressures. If the environment changes, the species must adapt or die out.

In the abstract, each species inhabits a 'fitness landscape', think of it as a mountainous landscape - those poorly adapted inhabit the low lands, those well adapted inhabit the summits.

A particular species is ever changing, exploring other peaks, and sometimes getting lost in the valleys. The landscape can change as well, thrusting up the lowlands and making previously ill-adapted specimins quite well adapted (think of the tiny little rodents that did so well after the climate change that killed off the dynosaurs).

So, to the people who claim that human evolution has ended because of our technology's ability to compensate for suboptimal genetic mutations and variation - you couldn't be more wrong. Techonology has merely become integrated into our fitness landscape, like fire and tools have been for millenia.

There are many examples of where technology has massively altered the fitness landscape. The valley of near-sightedness is no longer so deep, and the summit of intelligence has lost a couple thousand feet. This dramatically changing fitness itself will drive evolution. The nature of the changes doesn't matter. Evolution isn't 'trying' to make us smarter. It isn't trying to make us stronger, faster, or more attractive.

Think about it this way. Yes, technology allows women who have narrow hips or large babies to give birth, when in the past they would have died in child birth. The result, there is less selective pressure on the width of hips in women and the size of babies. We can expect to see more variation in hip with, more narrow hips, and larger babies. In the future it might be exceedingly rare for women to give brth without a C-section.

Is this good or bad? Who knows, it allows our genome to explore previously unexplored territory - women with smaller hips, or who have larger babies in utero. What will be the result? Who knows. Perhaps there is some hidden adaptive benefit in these traits. Perhaps not. Maybe the genes that cause mutations or disease that used to kill before reproductive age have hidden benefits that are revealed when techology allows these people to survive and reproduce. Or perhaps they just open the path to a different peak in the fitness landscape.

As for those who point to the developed world's most successful reproducers, the poor, as evidence of our devolution - I ask you why you assume these people to be inferior? Sure, many are not self-supporting, but many are - raising large families on their own incomes. Seems these people are quite successful at making and raising babies. Their genes will have proportionally higher representation in the coming generations than will those of us who choose to have one or two children.

Don't fall into the trap of assuming that just because these people are poor they are somehow less intelligent or in some way inferior. Less educated certainly. But less intelligent? Remember that current human intelligence evolved in pre-literate societies.

Even the worst of the trailer trash functions at a relatively high level compared to our neolithic progenitors. Jim Bob knows how to operate a complex machine called a pick-up truck, even at high speeds. He can read, has a vocabulary well north of 5,000 words, can do basic math, and is mostly likely required to have highly developed hand-eye coordination in whatever work he does (if it is manual labor). These tax human intelligence far beyond the selective pressures that lead to the evolution of our current level of intelligence. Even the poorest among us need all our vaunted human intelligence just to survive.

Re:Really looking at the situation

[SamSim]

Call me a crackpot, but I'd conjecture that over the next few centuries, the average IQ of the human race will remain at precisely 100.