Has our achievements stumped our evolution?

Something I have wondered, we are to believe we evolve constantly, adapting to the world ensuring survival but here is a though, has our modern day achievements hampered our progress long term?

Air planes take us around the world in hours, if we didn't learn to build planes perhaps we would have grown wings many years in the future?

The internet lets us talk in milliseconds to people on continents away, if it wasn't invented maybe we could have developed a physic way to communicate.

Do we not need to evolve anymore, have we peaked and let our technology to ensure survival?

I think we still have a long way to go.

Phanerothyme is absolutely correct but not because of how I think she means it.

Our achievements probably haven't stunted our development as a species but it isn't because of anything that we do as a species as we don't have that kind of control in the space of a few years. You need to think about the huge amounts of time that pass for evolution to do its work and then you need to be one of the lucky 0.0001% of species that don't become extinct or trapped in an evolutionary dead end.

This Richard Dawkins lecture is a really good introduction to how evolution works.

Jukes x

Its worth remembering that for billions of people round the world life is still a battle. Changing climate conditions and emerging diseases mean that humans will have to evolve over time. In rich countries humans are still programmed to seek out the strongest and most viable mates through sexual selection.

Our ingenuity and technical progress can't trump nature. Nature will always win.

Evolution doesn't have a goal in mind, species evolve to adapt for the pressures that affect them, we've changed our own environment, which changes the pressures, but evolution will continue as a reaction to the "new" pressures that are being applied.

Changing climate conditions and emerging diseases mean that humans will have to evolve over time. In rich countries humans are still programmed to seek out the strongest and most viable mates through sexual selection.

Not necessarily I1L2T3, Homo Sapiens could be an evolutionary dead end because evolution is most definitely not a certainty and we know that 99.999% of species have become extinct. Cyclone just made the common mistake of thinking that Evolution is something that happens to the species as if Evolution is aware of the environment and therefore adapts to suit, where what actually happens is that Natural Selection allows the genetic examples that find some kind of success in some particular way to survive more successfully over the millennia. Poorer examples (less adapted if you will) fall by the wayside (because nature is cruel) and don't pass their genes on in as great a number, so that genetic trait eventually dies out (eg Neanderthal, although an understandable macro example for the purposes of this post makes an extremely poor micro example) or becomes redundant (eg your appendix). The 'Adaptation' is a function of the trait being successful and genetically powerful, not of the species adapting to the environment.

The evolutionary science will change over time in exactly the same way as we acquire more useful knowledge and dispose of the less useful knowledge. But in the same way as Evolution works, we don't change the science to suit the environment because we can't and that's what ignorant creationists do.

Jukes x

We should be worried more about whether other species can adapt to the changing environment brought about by human activity.

Something I have wondered, we are to believe we evolve constantly, adapting to the world ensuring survival but here is a though, has our modern day achievements hampered our progress long term?

 

Air planes take us around the world in hours, if we didn't learn to build planes perhaps we would have grown wings many years in the future?

 

The internet lets us talk in milliseconds to people on continents away, if it wasn't invented maybe we could have developed a physic way to communicate.

 

Do we not need to evolve anymore, have we peaked and let our technology to ensure survival?

We have certainly out-evolved natural selection. It is no longer the strongest and fittest that rule the world and have the most power.

Whether that is down to technology, intelligence or other factors you will probably need to decide for yourself.

Not necessarily I1L2T3, Homo Sapiens could be an evolutionary dead end because evolution is most definitely not a certainty and we know that 99.999% of species have become extinct. Cyclone just made the common mistake of thinking that Evolution is something that happens to the species as if Evolution is aware of the environment and therefore adapts to suit, where what actually happens is that Natural Selection allows the genetic examples that find some kind of success in some particular way to survive more successfully over the millennia. Poorer examples (less adapted if you will) fall by the wayside (because nature is cruel) and don't pass their genes on in as great a number, so that genetic trait eventually dies out (eg Neanderthal, although an understandable macro example for the purposes of this post makes an extremely poor micro example) or becomes redundant (eg your appendix). The 'Adaptation' is a function of the trait being successful and genetically powerful, not of the species adapting to the environment.

 

The evolutionary science will change over time in exactly the same way as we acquire more useful knowledge and dispose of the less useful knowledge. But in the same way as Evolution works, we don't change the science to suit the environment because we can't and that's what ignorant creationists do.

 

Jukes x

No, what I said was correct, the species evolves. It was simply a higher level view of the process, you've provided a more detailed explanation of HOW a species evolves, ie the proliferation of traits that give an advantage and allow for more successful (or some) procreation.

I certainly didn't suggest that evolution was aware of anything, I said specifically the opposite. Perhaps in your desire to correct me you failed to actually read what I'd written.

Evolution describes the process by which advantageous traits (advantageous within the environment they find themselves, and the specific advantage being greater reproductive success) proliferate.

Extinction occurs when the environment changes and no member of the species has any sufficient advantage to reproduce (in sufficient numbers). Evolution is a slow process, and environmental change can be rapid.

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We have certainly out-evolved natural selection. It is no longer the strongest and fittest that rule the world and have the most power.

For that to be true you have to define things that humans do as not natural.

And you also have to make assumptions that "strongest and fittest" is automatically a good thing and thus selected for by evolutionary pressure. That would only be true if strongest and fittest translated into reproductive success.

At the moment though, it could be argued that the poor in India are out performing the liberal western elite, in evolutionary terms, since there are more of them and their genes are thus spread more widely.

Interesting side note - look up how many men share some genetic marker from Ghengis Khan. That is one example where his power DID translate into evolutionary success for his genes. The same won't be the case for Barrack Obama or Bill Gates (both of whom have only 2 children I believe).

For that to be true you have to define things that humans do as not natural.

And you also have to make assumptions that "strongest and fittest" is automatically a good thing and thus selected for by evolutionary pressure. That would only be true if strongest and fittest translated into reproductive success.

Indeed you would. Many would argue that building a rocket and flying to the moon isn't natural. Or keeping one of the smartest men who ever lived alive following a degenerative illness. Doesn't mean it's wrong of course. Just that it wouldn't happen ion any other species. Or would have happened only a century or so ago. Hence we have evolved out of that. Like I said.

It can be argued that, following this happening, we are now evolving faster that at any point over documented human history. Just in different ways that aren't immediately physically obvious. That is probably set to accelerate even further with gene therapy, 3D printed replacement organs and augmented body parts.

Humans are animals, animal behaviour, even complex behaviour, is natural, thus anything we do is "natural". At least by one argument.

Wouldn't happen in any other species is definitely NOT an argument for something being unnatural.

Ultimately we don't display any behaviours that are unique to our species, tool use is relatively common, we've just taken it further than other animals. Arguably complex language might be unique, I'm not sure on the state of the research there.

I doubt that we are evolving any faster or slower than we ever did. However since we are applying pressures to ourselves, the direction of our evolution might have changed.

Now once we start wide scale genetic manipulation, then there might be a good argument that we are removing ourselves from the realms of evolution, and into intelligent design (albeit of our own intelligence).

Your definition of the word 'natural' is clearly not one shared by many. Whilst I would agree with things like language and tool use being natural, the fact that we have, by our own hand, created things which far exceed our own abilities, is not 'natural'.

I'm sure you will recall that in the early days of the motor car and the train and the aeroplane their were worries that the human body could not take such speeds, or heights, or acceleration. Let alone the journeys into space. Some scientists then claimed it 'unnatural' and many still agree today.

However, if you insist on claiming that these things are 'natural' then the very fact our advances are much more thick and fast over the last century than they have ever been before, and still growing exponentially, surely means we are evolving faster? At least in terms of brain function and understanding.

Which brings us back to the question the OP asked - have we developed to the point where we now can create things to do tasks we may have evolved 'naturally' to do? Such as fly (though that was never likely given our skeletal structure) then perhaps. But I would argue that the fact we have developed this way at all is a form of evolution.