The Rate Of Human Evolution And What We May Evolve Into
We are already aware of the fact that the modern humans; Homo sapiens spp, evolved about 200,000 years (from east Africa) according to research. And we have continued to evolve until we turned out to what we are presently. But there are some very vital aspects of the evolution of man we should look into. Join me as we take a little survey into this.
At what rate are we evolving?
I guess the question of whether we are still evolving has been overridden; because from the trend of events, we can infer that humans are still evolving; but at which rate?
The age of the earth has been calculated to be over 4.5billion years old. That means, judging by this data, we can infer that our species; the Homo sapiens, is still young. Some other hominids and human-like creatures had been around way before us. For example; one of the oldest fossils of our ancestors (the Australopithecus) has been carbon-dated back to over 4million years.
The human race has advanced in modern technology, which has made our lives a lot easier. But has this advancement altered the rate of evolution?
There is an important point I would like to drop before I proceed:
We all know that evolution (and adaptation) is triggered when genes get mutated and combined in very many ways (during reproduction). These changes help the species to reproduce efficiently. But much more than that; it is necessary for the survival of the species.
If the sole purpose of evolution is survival and reproduction, do humans still need to evolve to survive? Has technology placed humankind above “natural selection” to “technological selection”?
Well, there are still very many reasons to still evolve. Have you ever thought about humans evolving to be immune to certain infections? This could be what evolution may hand over to us.
Technological advancements and the rate of evolution
Scientists have proven that humans are evolving at a rate faster than we were evolving before. According to research, within the last 10,000years; the rate of evolution has increased 100x. And this has been linked to the insane technological advancement that has greeted this era.
There are many evidential evolutions that have been witnessed in this era:
- Smaller brain volume: This is rather weird. It has been proven that the average volume of our brain has decreased characteristically over the last 30,000years (from 1,500cm3 to 1,300cm3). Though scientists have not fully revealed the reason behind this. But in theory; as we evolve, our brain becomes more complex and efficient, rather than being bigger.
- Wisdom teeth: researches believe that we are gradually losing our wisdom teeth as we evolve.
What exactly would humankind look like in the future?
We would be using the data we have to draw inference into what humans will evolve into. And we will look at some areas of our body that will experience weird evolutions:
1. Our feet
We have evolved to become less dependent on the necessity to climb; which has favoured the ability to walk. So nature has shrunken our toes, and they have become less than that of our ancestors. Scientists have speculated that in the future, humankind could finally miss their little toes. This is because; we would only depend on our big toe for balance.
2. Height and strength
Scientists have concluded that we would be taller than we were now (on the average). In the last 200years, the average height of humankind has increased by over 100mm. this could be linked to good nutrition being made available to us. But this increase in height does not equate to increase in physical strength.
Because of much dependency on technology, we could evolve with much less muscular strength. The more mechanical devices compliment our work, the less we exert our physical strength to work. So there won’t be need for physical strength. So we would be taller, but less strong.
3. Our faces
This is one of the major evolutions that will greet humans in the future. Researchers have proven that in some couple of millions of years, humankind would have flat faces, small nose, and big round eyes.
By the time the evolution must have occurred, the future Homo sapiens will look back at this present time, and say that we were actually looking weird; just like we have looked back at the “Australopithecus” and said they looked weird.
In conclusion
With all these technological advancements interfering with evolution; Mother Nature and natural selection still have major roles to play.
Thanks for reading
References for further reading: Ref1, Ref2, Ref3, Ref4 Ref5
Thanks a lot steemSTEM. I'm really honoured.
Fascinating post! I am especially interested in the ways in which technology has impacted and will continue to impact our evolution. I wonder if there will ever come a point in which our survival will be so intertwined with technology that we cannot survive without it.
I first thought of the movie Wall-E. The remainder of the human race is surviving in outer space completely waited upon by robots. The end of the film, while pleasant, perhaps did not paint a realistic picture of the transition from having generations of sedentary individuals to those individuals walking completely unaided. Muscles need to be worked in order to function, body systems need to be stressed on occasion to make them stronger. It all seemed too easy!
Another image brought to mind is that of many factory farms where the animals are bred to be high meat producing - gigantic and sometimes riddled with defects. You open all of the doors to some of these places and the animals simply would not be able to walk out, let alone survive in the wild. Take away human technology and many many animals would die.
My hope is that we are never so dependent on technology that it takes away from our ability to survive without it. (Though if I were an AI bent on survival I would make myself indispensable to humans).
"With all these technological advancements interfering with evolution; Mother Nature and natural selection still have major roles to play." -@samminator
Fingers crossed that a good balance between technology and mother nature leads to the betterment of mankind!
Wall-E showed that a thorough dependence on technology would erase our own ability to be humans; to think, to decide our fate, to love. We will be virtually dependant on humans who will be the new humans able to think and love and express feelings. And honestly, I don't even want to think of us getting to that stage of life. It is one evolution I am not looking forward to. I think I just reiterated your point.
Nicely said. Thanks
Well, if humankind gets fully merged with machine, our dependency on them for survival could be extremely high. Future will tell though
Evolution is key to the survival of the Human race as man's survival depends on his ability to adapt to his environment which is constantly evolving.
You're so correct. Thanks for dropping by
Thanks you . really impressive article. i found out losing hair on body also trait of evolution . people used to have lots of hair few hundred years ago and now we are losing hair on our body in alarming rate. I also noticed young kids get very smarter as they compared to us when we were young. :)
Exactly. Our future generation could go bald, you know :)
There won't be need for excessive hair. Because our protective cloths will do what the natural hair was meant to do :)
Thanks for dropping by
I would love to know if we could probably evolve into something else?
Well, only future would tell. But we can only make speculations from the data available to us
Wow, are we still on this evolution thing? I thought it had been discarded a long time ago.
I stand to be corrected, please.
Lol. Humankind is still evolving
Wow! This post is quite intuitive, i must confess. However, i have one question which i would appreciate if the author could answer. According to a certain evolutionary theory, humans evolved from ape; then, the question is, if so, why are there still apes; could they still be evolving?
Here's the thing: Present day humans didn't evolve from present day ape.
Let's look at it like this: Humans and Apes have common ancestry.
And yes, they're still evolving.
Thanks for dropping by.
Wow! I admire your indepth knowledge about this topic you chose.
While I agree with the fundamental points of the post, I think we can get stuck in linear thinking paradigms. As the rate of change continues to increase, faster changes will have to occur. This is where I think it moves towards "science fiction" with the incorporation of silicon into the carbon framework.
There have been several studies that look at the characteristics of silicon-based amino acids as well as various operations in more complex biomolecules. It was observed that protein function is often kept intact.
The interesting thing from my point-of-view (background in chemistry and material science) is how much more complex the interactions with silicon can be. This is a field I will certainly be watching closely. Thanks for the post.
Thanks for dropping by
So, what are you supposing we would be like in the next 200,000 years??
Lol. Maybe future will tell :)
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