Humans Stopped Evolving? According to David Attenborough

[mike Meehan]

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/david-attenborough-dont-large-families-060753792.html#QJmTSU7

 

 

Though I can see that advice of not having large families is good for the world in general since these would cause too much strain on available resources, I'm not altogether sure we have stopped evolving - records continue to be broken in sport and we continue to make advances in science and technology, although with a bigger majority of our offspring surviving birth and early childhood it does diminish the theory 'Survival of the Fittest' to an extent.

 

Comments please.

[Methuselah]

I'm not sure that natural selection really works to create faster, fitter sportspeople...I'd tend to put that down to modern methods of training, nutrition and steroids...That kind of selection is artificial, Mike...

[Methuselah]

And what would happen should a more superior type of human evolve? Would the current 'Elite' allow it to prosper? Or would they lock it up, suppress all the evidence and subject it to grotesque experimentation? And what on earth would become of all the world's (hardly superior by any objective assessment) royal families?

Edited September 10, 2013 by A Boy Named Sue

[laserguy]

Why should we continue to evolve? It's now at the point where we create the environment around us, rather than us having to evolve and adapt to change.

[Methuselah]

Not all evolution happens for a reason, barrie; genetic mutations usually occur at random...

[summer blizzard]

And what would happen should a more superior type of human evolve? Would the current 'Elite' allow it to prosper? Or would they lock it up, suppress all the evidence and subject it to grotesque experimentation? And what on earth would become of all the world's (hardly superior by any objective assessment) royal families?

 

The elite would welcome them, hence why genetic engineering is thriving.

 

..........

 

As for the thread title I suspect that we are still undergoing genetic evolution however it is no doubt being curtailed by the inferior specimens surviving and mating with the superior. Given the genetic predisposition towards intelligence or long life in some families I have no doubt that if a large enough group engaged in selective breeding that they would make up an elite in a few generations. Current society looks down on that scale of discrimination though.

 

It is worth noting our tampering as well. Previously humans had to eat meat to survive however in a world where we can import anything we can with a little research be entirely vegetarian.

Edited September 10, 2013 by summer blizzard

[Coast]

One of my neighbours definitely stopped evolving many years ago judging by the grunts and Anglo-Saxon mumblings that pass for polite conversation.....

[Methuselah]

The elite would welcome them, hence why genetic engineering is thriving.

 

 

Until they inevitably questioned the said elite's 'God-given' right to rule?? Why else are gifted lower-caste individuals keep down by the brain-dead numpties that pass through Eton's hallowed walls?

[EML Network]

We haven't stopped Evolving at all. 

 

You wait and see, in 100,000 years time we're all going to look like this >>

 

 

[Jax]

We haven't stopped Evolving at all. 

 

You wait and see, in 100,000 years time we're all going to look like this >>

 

Tesco value meal?

 

 

I thought is was a green thing?

Edited September 10, 2013 by Jax

[Methuselah]

We haven't stopped Evolving at all. 

 

You wait and see, in 100,000 years time we're all going to look like this >>

 

Member of the royal family?

[summer blizzard]

Until they inevitably questioned the said elite's 'God-given' right to rule?? Why else are gifted lower-caste individuals keep down by the brain-dead numpties that pass through Eton's hallowed walls?

 

As is often the case they ignore human nature. I imagine they see such creations as things to increase development and lower the tax bill (less healthcare costs ect..) and generally provide economic benefit. What they ignore is the proverb "Superior ability leads to superior ambition".

[Methuselah]

As is often the case they ignore human nature. I imagine they see such creations as things to increase development and lower the tax bill (less healthcare costs ect..) and generally provide economic benefit. What they ignore is the proverb "Superior ability leads to superior ambition".

Eh? I was thinking more of the endemic fear of that which is different...If folks really thought about healthcare and taxes (at the animalistic level) petty wars over ideologies, religions and class would have been long extinct?

 

The thing is: natural selection works only on the physical realities of existence; the sciences, the politics, economic theories and mathematical theorems are all irrelevant...it's only through man-made social constructs that such thing have meaning...

 

Why do I have a better degree than Prince Harry, despite not receiving the best education that tax-payers' money can provide? Because I (along with millions of my fellow 'oiks') am more intelligent than he is...

 

So, what has maintaining the present 'order' got to do with evolution?

[mushymanrob]

i dont think we have stopped evolving at all... in fact i think it would be rather worrying if we did. in nature nothing apears to stay the same, things are either growing, or dying. evolution doesnt pause/stop, we adapt all the time over years...