Has Human Evolution Stopped?

[Colmc54]

In fact, having reached our pinnacle of scientific discovery are we now on a regressive path leading to our eventual extinction as a species ?

[Colmc54]

This idea that we can use gene editing to conquer evolution and take over from it is fantasy. If there was a million of us maybe, but we number billions.
However the possibility of a hyperintelligent overlord subspecies exploiting such tech is more than likely.

[Zacs-Master]

Well, if you say it's fantasy I guess you should know!

[Colmc54]

Science fiction/fantasy has already got a name for them, 'Post-humans'.

[woofgang]

Oh ok, I hadn’t realised, we are in the pseudo science corner.....

[anthro-nerd]

I can assure you that we are still evolving - it's no coincidence that some people have wisdom teeth, and some people don't. Or why the Western world struggles with their teeth overcrowding, and other parts of the world don't. Why we're taller now than we were a couple of hundred years ago, or why our little toes are getting smaller... just a few examples that tend to get overlooked.

The process of natural selection never stops, we are constantly exposed to different selective pressures - the teeth example is just one - we don't 'grind' like our ancestors used to, hence not needing wisdom teeth. And don't have the same demands on our teeth with our current diets, hence dental overcrowding. You don't find these dental features in areas of the world that still maintain a more 'primitive' diet. Google me if you don't believe me. Or I can link some scholarly articles.

So, the pressures that our species is exposed to (diet, climate etc) may be different to hundreds of thousands of years ago, but that doesn't mean we aren't evolving. 'Modern' man has only been recognised as a species for a few hundred thousands of years, that isn't enough time to see big differences.

Hopefully that answers your question... but in a nutshell 'evolution doesn't simply stop', it can't.

[anthro-nerd]

As for your point of using technology, and not needing to read a book etc... our brains have adapted to this. We can better locate where to find the answers, even if this doesn't mean knowing the answers ourselves, (again Google me). If this isn't another example of evolution, then I don't know what you're looking for - evolution is adaptation to change after all.

My degree is in Biological Anthropology... so finding this discussion rather interesting!! Fire more questions my way if you wish :-P

[Old_Geezer]

Evolution has little if anything to do with intellectual decisions to achieve something in a new way. It is to do with the coding that defines individuals and the gradual drift of the species as a whole to a more fitting set of instructions.

[scowie]

Whether you absorb the information in a book by reading it or listening to it is irrelevant. And memorising information unnecessarily is a waste of time and energy. We are not worse off for not doing these things. We automatically memorize something if we are interested in it anyway. In the future people will still take an interest in how our technology and the universe at large works and will learn about these things, not because they need to to earn a living or anything, but simply because they have a thirst for knowledge — this is not gonna deminish because of technology. I can see the human race getting generally more intelligent in the future as there will be less mind-numbing jobs for people to do and we will spend more time both entertaining ourselves and enriching our minds.

So enough of the doom and gloom already! :)

[Mosaic]

Are we still evolving? Yes. So are all the other species that surround us.
We can't perceive the timescales of significant evolution or contextualise them in terms of our present social development, as the former are too enormous and the latter is too brief.
I just lerv the idea of a hyperintelligent overlord subspecies. Tell more what this could involve.

[anthro-nerd]

Old_Geezer
"Evolution has little if anything to do with intellectual decisions to achieve something in a new way."

Social learning is a huge step in our evolutionary path, the ability to teach and learn through others, and problem solving, is something we have evolved to be able to do. You see this behaviour in other great apes, but less so in other species for example. Our brains have evolved to be able to accommodate how we think, hence why will have higher cranial vaults than our great ape cousins - and this is for higher functioning thought processes.

The 'back' of our brain is for functions such as breathing, homeostasis etc... and you move further up and forward, you get social learning, memory, emotion etc etc. This is most definitely part of our evolutionary journey.

:-)

[Mosaic]

Arthro - mmm, yeah and no.
Big debate about relationship of skull capacity, shape and intelligence.
Increasing awareness of different but valid intelligences in primates and higher mammals eg whales, dolphins.
There's no simple answer, don't fall for one.

[Old_Geezer]

Gaining the ability to think is one thing. Trying to include considered decisions as evolution is quite another.

[woofgang]

extelligence
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extelligence

[Colmc54]

Evolution for a species can stand still if there is no longer any evolutionary pressure on it to evolve e.g. the Coelacanth. As it can accelerate it can also slow down and stand still for millions of years. For an individual species it obviously only stops altogether when the species becomes extinct.

I accept the criticism of my question and it's title.

I don't accept the criticism concerning bringing SF into my comments. Many scientists write science fiction and during my years of subscription to the science journal Nature there was a short SF story every week. Scientists often write SF to explore the future possibilities raised by our discoveries. They are intended to entertain but also sometimes to send a warning. Long may it continue to do so e.g. the film Elysium for instance.

Finally I believe from the above journal that the observed increase in average human height is more likely to be due to a lessening of en utero epigenetic modifications as living standards have increased.