RE: Are humans still evolving? Yes we are!
Nicely written post but to answer your questions I first have too nit-pick a few things. First of all your source allaboutscience.org, has several inaccuracies that I won’t get into but the two that matter are quoted in the beginning of your article. These are misstatements of Darwin’s theory that can lead to misunderstanding. The title of Darwin’s book “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection” says it all. The key words here are “Natural Selection.”
What you are describing in your article is Un-Natural Selection because we are the ones deciding what traits should be selected. It’s more like breeding plants and animals for our purposes than a natural process. Therefore anything outside our genome like technology can only be considered an exogenous attribute not subject to natural selection. So no, artificial improvement of ourselves cannot be called evolution.
However we are most certainly still evolving simply by reproducing in an environment that has selection pressures, we just don’t notice it because the process is so slow.
Thanks for the article. Keep it up!
Thanks for your counter argument pal! I see you have a good point.
So, even if we are talking about artificial improvement you don’t consider them evolution? Those improvements are selected based on their utility to us.
What we select isn’t necessarily unnatural. I think if something, wether it is an organism or a software is improving then it is evolving and becoming something better.
I guess I’m making my distinction based on the definition of the process. Evolution is mindless, there is no intention behind what it does. We have minds with intentions, good or bad that determine our behavior. How do we really know what’s best for humanity and who chooses? Remember the hubris of eugenics as the Nazis tried to create a master race.
Nature doesn’t care because it has no moral compass as it does what it does. We do have morals that determine how we select for what we “think” is best. Are we really smart enough to know what’s best? Most of the evil in this world is done by people with good intentions.