harder, better, faster, stronger?
Contrary to popular sentiment and science fiction clichés, human evolution hasn’t stopped. If anything, we’re actually evolving faster than ever according to research published in 2007. Moving into new environments and an explosion in our populations drastically increased the rate at which our genomes are changing and being selected. Compared to our prehistoric ancestors, we have new responses to disease, climate and diet. Time hasn’t stopped after modern humans appeared and the evolutionary process is still running its course just as it will with any creature for as long as our planet can support living things. Nature isn’t done with us yet.
Of course we’re not going to develop superpowers like the mutants in X-Men since we’re all mutants already and telekinesis, as well as powers over elemental forces of nature, are nowhere within grasp. Instead, we got something much more useful from the process of natural selection. Species that can live almost anywhere on the planet and who’s diets span much of whatever local food chain they encounter, tend to be survivors. When climate change or disaster that would ordinarily mean extinction for more specialized organisms strike, we’re more likely to be flexible and technologically savvy enough to stay alive and keep on propagating. And yes, our ability to create advanced technology is another byproduct of evolution.
These findings also throw a wrench into the canard that humans are a deliberate end result of evolution that was planned and steered by a deity. If we’re really the culmination of a nearly 4 billion year process, why isn’t evolutionary change stopping but actually picking up pace? Are we an experiment out of control? And isn’t it a little odd that a school of thought that says it teaches humans the proper humility before forces greater than ourselves aggrandizes the human form as the pinnacle of eons of work? Who’s more arrogant? The person who says that humans are just animals which got a rare opportunity to do something with their existence, or one who excoriates him or her for lacking the humility and good sense to realize that we’re a divinely inspired and inexplicably amazing project of a supernatural entity that created the entire universe?
See: Hawks, J. et al. (2007). Recent acceleration of human adaptive evolution Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 104 (52), 20753-20758 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0707650104
I doubt most humans live in an environment were their chances of living long enough to reproduce depend strongly on speed or strength.
Since transport has made global spread of disease possible. I would not be surprised if this has measurably affected immune system evolution.
With wide availability of high-calorie foods, I wonder if we will adapt to absorb less energy from food, or choose to eat less. It is possible that the number of people who are too obese to reproduce by the time they are at an age were society finds reproduction acceptable has increased enough to make a difference.
We, and all other organisms on our planet, live in and will have to adjust to a new and unprecedented environment.
For the last ~two centuries, a steady spray of unique synthetic chemicals has been released into the atmosphere and the hydrosphere. Many of these substances are carcinogenic, mutagenic, teratogenic, &/or just plain toxic. Not even a boy in a bubble can escape them all. Those whose cellular processes can resist or even somehow profit by ingredients in this intricate chemical soup will do better than those who succumb, regardless of what other types of selection are encountered.
On a more macro scale, and possibly a less discouraging one, I would love to come back after a few thousand generations of reliable contraception and see what would become of the human race once women chose whose seed got to pass into the future.
I agree with Pierce; chemicals as a result of industrialization are undoubtedly contributing to human evolution. Some people are allergic, or unable to digest, preservatives found in fast foods today. Perhaps those people are more likely to reproduce than the most obese people (who typically are perfectly capable of overdosing on fast food, and are physically less likely to be able to reproduce). Or, in the future, perhaps so many foods will be preserved with synthetic chemicals that those people who can only digest organic foods will be marginalized nutritionally to the point that they will practically die out.
“These findings also throw a wrench into the canard that humans are a deliberate end result of evolution that was planned and steered by a deity.”
What if humans aren’t the end result? What if the deity is continuing to have humans (and other animals) evolve? In that case, the existence of a deity would be still possible.
…chemicals as a result of industrialization are contributing to human evolution.
That’s certainly possible, although you probably need a large, well designed study to confirm this hypothesis and figure out to what extent. I really don’t like to speculate on things like that without having the hard data in hand.
What if humans aren’t the end result? What if the deity is continuing to have humans (and other animals) evolve?
But that’s not the very specific canard we’re addressing. The claim of whether there’s a deity has nothing to do with evolution because the fundamentalist canard and your suggestion both assume that there already is a deity and are just finding a job for it. I don’t think you can “disprove” a deity without defining what it is in the first place.
While on the subject, “What if humans aren’t the end result? What if the deity is continuing to have humans (and other animals) evolve?”
Consider this, what if this deity,or just evolution on a far galaxy planet, (a type of human roots possibly) has evolved according to the circumstances of their planets? There are life forms here on earth that can metabolize elemental sulfur to survive.
Would we look the same if we evolved a couple more million years ahead on a planet that we adapted to with Slightly different living conditions than here on earth, which in turn would advance technology to “alien like technology” after all that time, like molecular fission or control cold fusion…
There’s infinite planets in space, with infinite possibilities.