Grinding to a halt !

[Griffin NoName]

Humans will not evolve further, says geneticist

Thank goodness; I'm sure we took a wrong turning away back. 

[Scriblerus the Philosophe]

Mmm, I dunno about that. There's still going to be mutations that happen, and whose to say that tomorrow we won't have a near-extinction event where one of them is useful?

But if this is the vaunted utopia, I think I might shoot myself.

[beagle]

According to Dr. Who, Utopia left something to be desired anyway.
Wasn't very More-ish.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

I'm not so sure about the basic premise. He claims that males rarely have children after 35 and while that statistically may be so (I'm not convinced) women are having children later in life more frequently nowadays. I wouldn't be surprised if children are born of older parents (40+) in a few generations, changing the parameter not only for mutation but for selection. Also if we manage to go to space, isolation can become a driver for speciation.

[Griffin NoName]

Also if we manage to go to space, isolation can become a driver for speciation.

Hmmm. Driver updates. A market opportunity for Scumsoft!!

[ivor]

Nature has a way of breaking down these barriers.  I read Jurassic Park, I know. 

[Aggie]

I'm not so sure about the basic premise. He claims that males rarely have children after 35 and while that statistically may be so (I'm not convinced) women are having children later in life more frequently nowadays. I wouldn't be surprised if children are born of older parents (40+) in a few generations, changing the parameter not only for mutation but for selection. Also if we manage to go to space, isolation can become a driver for speciation.

Ayuh, while the average maximum age of fatherhood has decreased, the average minimum age of fatherhood has increased I suspect. From the child's perspective I'd wager that the average age of father at time of birth is up overall.

I'd also argue that the majority of human evolution since we've been Homo sapiens has been cultural anyways, and that gross genetic evolution stopped quite some time ago, with the exception of subtler changes like resistance to particular diseases.  Also, one could argue that the sheer population size increases the absolute number of mutations, so even though the relative effect of a mutation is smaller, there's more popping up, and sitting virtually dormant until a selective pressure is encountered. Quite a presumption to assume that developed societies will always remain so for the remainder of humanity's history.

[Griffin NoName]

Cultural evolution?  Then it has not been very successful. IMO.

I may have misead the guy's article, but I thought he was saying the gene pool was decreasing with growing populations.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

Not that the gene pool decreases per se  but that with so many individuals each signal (mutation) gets easily drowned in the noise (or at least that's how I read it). 

[Griffin NoName]

Yes. That's how I read it - I just put it through The Daily Mail* science for the masses editorial translation service before posting.

* if you have never heard of The Daily Mail, now you have, and probably know all you need to know about it.

[The Meromorph]

I suspect that modalities of mental organization have been subjected to an evolutionary drive that is both genetic and cultural.
A huge contributor to  both phenotypical effects, and evolutionary drivers has been education. The comparatively recent advent of 'universal' education has been a huge and recent contributor and is by no means fully worked out in the gene pool of humanity, yet.
The active attack on education in the US, and elswhere, by religious fundamentalists, is, IMO, a direct, real,  and very dangerous attack on our civilisation.
I find considerable consolation in thinking this negative driver only means our civilisation will be replaced by other human civilisations which actually value education.

[Scriblerus the Philosophe]

That's presuming we don't destroy the planet (in one way or another) before those cultures have a chance to arise.

[goat starer]

It is an interesting question human evolution... I suspect that technology massively slows down evolutionary trends.... if you can make something to do it there is no genetic benefit in being adapted to do it.

But stop evolving? that sounds dangerously close to the 'putting mankind on a pedestal' problems of religions.

I slightly suspect that we might evolve along the lines of the daleks..... end up as blobs sitting in boxes that do everything for and feed us a neverending stream of Blob Idol.  I would contend that some people seem to be well on the way to this and yet still seem to have no problemn breeding more rapidly than their more active compatriots.

Put simply technology may make whole refts of our current adaptations redundant.. who needs opposable thumbs when you have a robot!!! Of course we would not evolve away from thumbs unless having them was a disadvantage. But anybody who has read Strewel Peter will know that thumbs are a curse.

[anthrobabe]

I was fortunate enought to meet Richard Leakey last week-- he is only doing 10 stops worldwide this entire year then back home to Kenya (did I say I was way fortunate to meet him*)
anyway he was asked the question of further human evolution and his thoughts were along the following line-- very interesting 

(pahraphrased and all that good stuff)
There are over 6 billion of 'us' currently on the planet- and because evolution occurs in isolated populations(the mutation has an effect if you will) who are isolated for a long period of time (unless of course one is a fruit fly) there will most likely be no further Homo sapiens evolution. Oh sure we will change and adapt-but actually evolution to a new species--nope.

(*as cool as he is gotta remember that is was in fact Kamoya Kimeu who discovered "turkana boy".)

[Griffin NoName]

I slightly suspect that we might evolve along the lines of the daleks..... end up as blobs sitting in boxes that do everything for and feed us a neverending stream of Blob Idol.  I would contend that some people seem to be well on the way to this and yet still seem to have no problemn breeding more rapidly than their more active compatriots.

Right on the nail. I am an isolated blobby thing that merely consumes food and fixates on the TV and I can do NOTHING to stop my sons breeding !!!