are we still evolving?

Like I said, think big. Evolution happens within populations not in one family

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Ok, I think you should pick up a book about evolution.

 

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I second that notion.

 

People like you are funny!

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You did provide one example of some science that could be considered as “reverse engineering of the human brain” – cochlear implants are a well-established technology. But everything else you have cited is nothing but basic research at the laboratory and animal model level. These technologies have a long way to go before becoming routine human applications, if they ever make it that far. And your list of human body replacement parts has nothing to do with your fictitious “nanobots” and little (if anything) to do with real nanotechnology.

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Your grandiose opinions of what neuroscience can do, or will be capable of doing in the near future, are somewhat fanciful and are not reflected in reality. Reading New Scientist and popular science articles on the internet does not bestow expert knowledge.

“Evidence”, you say? No, you’ve been duped by “Google Science”.


But enough of this diversion; the thread is supposed to be about human evolution, isn't it?

 

Ugh, this forum is so full of ignorance.

 

And mean people.

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We only appear mean because you're so full of wrong ideas.

 

There is a bit of a confusion at this time about what evolution is. It is not what is popularly believed. Yet there is something called evolution. It is not a progression, it is simply a change.

 

Evolution is not just a chance..

 

mean sexist cartoon...

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I think this idea is very well reasoned and very nice but it'd be nice to see some further kind of evidence (what form this might take i have no idea)

 

I was reading in a National geographic a while back, while I was in Seattle, that had an article speaking of cell phones, texting, and their incresed use in everyday life, especially those......

You know what, here we go: [The actual article].

I found this really quite interesting.


All Thumbs

Thumbs are back. After years of being called "stubby" and doing grunt work on keyboards (the other fingers dance over the keys, the thumb goes clunk, clunk, clunk on the space bar), the thumb is suddenly flying all over the place on cell phones, computer games, and personal digital assistants.
Much publicity greeted a recent study, funded by Motorola, that showed that young people in Japan—heavy users of portable electronics—have developed unusual thumbing powers. They're even starting to ring doorbells with their thumbs and point with their thumbs. There are reports of people typing 40 words a minute with thumbs alone.

Does this mean that thumbs are evolving before our eyes? Might thumbs, for example, migrate farther up the side of the hand? Become more pointy? Pivot better?

Behavior precedes anatomy—that seems to be a general rule in evolution. So in theory, a behavioral change could lead to a different kind of thumb. But learned traits aren't passed on to future generations.

For the thumb to evolve as a result of cell phone use, people whose genetic codes give them unusually nimble thumbs would need to pass along more of their genes than folks with clumsy, plodding, brutish thumbs. For example, great thumbwork might be considered alluring to potential mates, though the opposite seems more likely. ("Excuse me, darling, I need to make a quick call.") Or maybe only those with lightning-quick mutant thumbs would be able to call 911 before all the lines got tied up. But again, it seems more likely they'll remove themselves from the gene pool by making cell phone calls while driving.

Research on thumb evolution looks not to the future but to the past—or at least to our closest living relatives. Although most other primates have opposable thumbs, their thumbs are shorter, farther down on the hand, and their fingers are longer and less straight. To pick up a grain of rice, a chimp may need to squeeze it between its thumb and the side of its index finger, the way a person might hold a key. The human thumb is fingerlike—it's a precision grasper.

Randy Susman, an anatomist at Stony Brook University, has identified muscles attached to our thumb that other primates lack. For example, there's the flexor pollicis longus. It runs the length of the forearm and helps control the thumb when you mash something. (Mash a thumbtack into a wall and you'll feel it tense up.)

The human hand, Susman says, got its current form around two million years ago. But tools came first, he notes—anatomy followed. The very first tools may never be found. "They were no doubt nondurable—sticks, grass stems for termite fishing, and broken nuts for cutting and slicing."

The cell phones back then, needless to say, were horribly bulky.

—Joel Achenbach
Washington Post Staff Writer

 

:bravo:

 

Wow. Obviously you have NO mind of your own.... much less something to say.

 

Just pointing out that I liked the cartoon...nothing wrong in that.

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Actually, I do have quite a bit to say. IMO evolution is still taking place--though probably (at least presently) at a far slower rate than in the past. As you mentioned in the OP, the situation for the human species has been altered in the evolutionary sense by the invention of culture and a settled civilisation for the last 10-12,000 years, ever since the end of the ice age. However, no civilisation lasts for ever (as endless examples demonstrate from history). Therefore we can expect this worldwide civilisation to collapse at some time--probably in the near future, ie within this century. If the world warms up and destroys the icecaps, all hell is going to cut loose, and it's going to be every man or woman for themselves. Then we'll see who survives...TBH, I'd say the world's population will drop precipitously, particularly in the western world. We're the ones who seem determined to preserve human life at all costs, even to the extent of saving people who in any other society would not have a chance of life.

Granted that there is an emotional imperative to preserve life at either end of the span, but there is the problem with that scenario. When those who would have naturally died in childhood start having children, don't they carry their delitarious genetic stock into the population? Whereas in wild nature, or a society that was less advanced medically than we are, they would have died, and their genes are deleted from society? When society collapses, as it always does, these people will be the first to die. Whereas in a less advanced society, where medical care is hit-or-miss, there are far fewer people who would be vulnerable to such extremes.

If you like, the evolutionary balance is restored by social collapse, because only the strong and the quick survive.

 

But for arguments sake we're assuming that we, people, will still be on the evolutionary scene for lets say.... the next near million years.

Then what?

 

Is not human evolution occurring in our ability to gain knowledge and build off past knowledge using our ability to communicate? Its an evolution of technology and Ideas.

 

And of anatomy*