The Men (and women) of the Future

[Faustus]

Found this article on BBC news about how Human beings might look like 1,000, 10,000 and 100,000 years from now according to research by Oliver Curry a Evolutionary Theorist.

 

Future Humans

 

Most of it is speculation and I personally can't see how he can predict how humans will look like in the distant future. What do you think will human beings look like in the future?

 

Holy eugenics, Batman! The Eloi and the Morlocks!

 

This man is pyschotic. The pictures this guy drew would need millions of years before humanity would split into two groups because there is only one mutation every 20,000 years and a 100,000 years is just not enough for any major evolutionary stage.

 

 

I drug this up from the past to give it some new life.

 

I do believe the depictions shown in the link are exaggerations or caricatures and do some harm to the economist's deductions on the future of humans, but we have molded and shaped the dog family in a relatively short span of time, and we see exhibited much greater differences between Chihuahua and a Staffordshire Terrier for instance. The changes with dogs were brought about with purposeful breeding, but if a person or persons (human beings) has limited breeding options, wouldn't the result be about the same over time?

 

And wouldn

[caldrail]

I always get a bit annoyed by these speculative ideas of how humans will turn out. Mostly it emphasises factors that may not be available in future generations, or that the enviroments we live in are within certain bounds. Take a closer look at how animals develop. Small creatures are the better survivors. They require less resources and can hide from danger more readily. In times of plenty, or where threats from predators are lessened, there is a tendency to grow larger. Indeed, size can be an evolutionary advantage. We see creatures in the jurassic period that are truly colossal.

 

In Argentina they've uncovered parts of a sauropod that suggests a size of up to 140ft long. Thats big. Very big. I can only guess how much a creature of that size weighs and lets face it - how the heck are you going to bring one of those down if you're hungry?

 

The remains of a pterosaur (flying reptiles) has been found with a wingspan of 70ft, around twice the previous biggest.

 

In England, the head and tail of a fish called Leedsicthys (I hope the spelling is correct) suggest a full grown size of up to 100ft long. Try catching that with a rod!

 

In later periods we see larger animals too. Flightless carnivore birds in the hothouse period immediately after the K/T event that would make short work of us. Megalodon, a shark that died out only four million years ago, with jaws large enough to allow a six foot man to walk in. Indratherium, a truly big mammal that dwarfed elephants, and until the ice ages there was a species of elephant in africa twice the size of those we see today, not forgetting Gigantipithecus, more or less a colossal gorilla. Not quite king kong, but way larger than we see these days.

 

Thats a few examples.

 

So why do I stress size? Well, due in part because of our relatively safe enviroment and protein rich diet, humans are doing well, and its noticeable that we're bigger than our ancestors. Assuming modern civilisation continues unabated, I would expect to see very large human beings becoming the norm, increasing in size over millenia. I regularly see predictions of dwarf descendants. Guess what? I think the opposite. The result of human evolution is dependent on all sorts of things, but then, in purely darwinian style, isn't the huge hunk of a football player more likely to get the girl than the super-intelligent nerd?

[Faustus]

I always get a bit annoyed by these speculative ideas of how humans will turn out.

 

So why do I stress size? Well, due in part because of our relatively safe enviroment and protein rich diet, humans are doing well, and its noticeable that we're bigger than our ancestors. Assuming modern civilisation continues unabated, I would expect to see very large human beings becoming the norm, increasing in size over millenia. I regularly see predictions of dwarf descendants. Guess what? I think the opposite. The result of human evolution is dependent on all sorts of things, but then, in purely darwinian style, isn't the huge hunk of a football player more likely to get the girl than the super-intelligent nerd?

 

All you say is true, but none of it challenges the possibility of mankind also changing over, say the next 10,00 years, into something different or even into two groups. I think the idea of two separate groups is the disturbing part of the researchers stated scenario. The two groups, if there were a split, would undoubtedly be of the same breedable species, unlike his projection of two species

 

It seems to me that he is attempting to point out some of the environmental/sociological conditions that would over time have a profound affect on the human population, and in affect seperate it into two groups which would not find each other very attractive as sexual, life, or breeding partners; this all taking place in a world in which people can make their own choices.

[Gaius Octavius]

The 'better' people have a tendency to inbreed and produce idiots (Dubya, for example). The polloi have a greater tendency to produce geniuses. So, it would be the other way around.

 

[Faustus]

The 'better' people have a tendency to inbreed and produce idiots (Dubya, for example). The polloi have a greater tendency to produce geniuses. So, it would be the other way around.

 

 

As an example of your comment, not too long ago I did some saturday work for a young well educated engineer working in the space sciences here locally. He was 'hot' from the San Francisco area: young, good looking, newly stamped, clean, and articulate, as some are wont to say.

 

I was in the middle of some repairs he didn't want to tackle himself, when we stopped for lunch. He had brought some sandwiches, and soft drinks, and we sat down together in the shade to eat, and chat. It didn't take me long for me to find a seque and bring up the subject I'm most interested in, Ancient Rome It was a tangent path from our limestone industry here in Southern Indiana, which we'd touched on.

 

Before too long, he perhaps thinking that I am more like he than some of the local people he'd run across, made the comment that "what amazed" him "was the relative lack of education of the local people he had found himself working with" in his job.

His job was design work in the guiding systems for missiles which fix on a few astronomical objects which become visible just above the cloud cover as the missile is lanched sub-orbitally.

 

My comment to him was to not be too taken in by what he perceives in these country folk as seemingly being uneducated; they play themselves down, to learn more about those they are dealing with, especially those who are from outside the local area; In that way they are able to get the strangers to reveal themselves. My question to him was: When you get into a situation of negotiation with these people, how does it turn out for you?

 

His answer: "Not how I expect it to, usually" he said a little chagrinned at the outcome of our conversation.

 

 

Valete, Faustus

 

(#220 ~~~ Eric Hoffer's P.S.M.)

To spell out the obvious, is to sometimes call it in question

 

(#157 & 158 ~~~ Eric Hoffer's P.S.M)

LACK of self awareness renders us transparent. A soul that knows itself is opaque;

like Adam after he ate from the tree of knowledge it uses words as fig leaves to cover

its nakedness and shame.

We can see through others only when we can see through ourselves.