Evolution of Humans

[chrizwheatley]

I love this topic and when i get a chance i will bore you lot to bits with my sometimes wild theories.

But yes Robbo is totally correct we have not stopped evolving for example even in the last few hundred years our mouths are getting smaller and smaller plain and simply because we do not chew as much as we used to. Our ears are less sensitive then they were maybe a few thousand years ago, our muscles (well most peoples who are not chemically enhanced) have become not as a big. We are generally becoming less tolerant to adverse weather and conditions etc.

 

[Robbo]

I love this topic and when i get a chance i will bore you lot to bits with my sometimes wild theories.

But yes Robbo is totally correct we have not stopped evolving for example even in the last few hundred years our mouths are getting smaller and smaller plain and simply because we do not chew as much as we used to. Our ears are less sensitive then they were maybe a few thousand years ago, our muscles (well most peoples who are not chemically enhanced) have become not as a big. We are generally becoming less tolerant to adverse weather and conditions etc.

I gotta comment upon some of the changes you document that have happened in the past few hundred years ...tho I think I might contest that any genetic based changes have happened in a few hundred years, they may well be adaptions rather than genetic change ....Anyway..

1) Mouths getting smaller - Tell that to my wife !!

2) Ears less sensitive - I just told the above to my wife and she said, 'what' ???

3) Muscles becoming smaller - Wow, I might have to disagree with this one, isn't DNA a chemical Chriz??

4) Less tolerant to bad weather - I'm English for god's sake, we moan about the weather, it's in our genes ....

 

[chrizwheatley]

#4 i am a geordie so dont moan about weather lol
#3 I guess what i ment is for example the amount of some chemicals the body naturally produces has slowed a bit since we stood up and started walking on 2 feet
#2 Exactly many many years ago we could hear an ant fart several miles away (ok that was an little ott but you get my point)
#1 I am trying not to lower the tone but i could have came out with a few replies to that lol

It has been debated (never proved) that we are actually alien to this planet and at some point a asteroid or what ever hit the earth spawning tiny particles of living matter, there have been tests to prove such thing is possible, i watched a programme where a guy stuck bacteria into a rock then blew it up far more then it could possibly have happened in 'nature' if we were hit etc and the bacteria survived and grew (even in very harsh conditions).

I have to say Robbo i am loving your new section its all thought provoking stuff! I love to see other peoples points of view

 

[SimonGiles]

If evolution is true, why don't I have wings, eight eyes and lighning quick reflexes ?

 

[Rider]

evolution or "de-evolution" for humans though?

let's face it. the point of evolution is to remove the weak genes from the pool, and the best adapted survive.

in humans case we have screwed that natural process royally.

think about these facts:

* women with extremely narrow hips used to die in child birth (usually along with the infant) before caesareans. even after the c-section used to often result in the death of the mother and was a last ditch thing. now c-sections are common place, the gene for narrow-hipped women will continue to flourish.

* premature babies survive way earlier than what is necessarily good for the gene pool. i have a prem son myself and thanks-be to the good work of the hospital and that he wasn't so early as to cause him any real problems later on - other than i suspect that he will not be as physically or intellectually developed as many other lads. but some of these kids are suffering form some really severe problems, both physical and mental. my cousins lad was born at just over 6 months. he will have lasting repiratory problems, kidney function is impared and he has mild cerebral palsy - and that's what they know so far.

* genetically inherited diseases are now treated, prolonging life and allowing the genes to be passed on.

if we can reach a stage through which we realy have mastership of our destiny then we will be able to treat these "defective genes" through various gene therapy methods - retroviral agents, stem cells, etc.

but for the time being i don't think we are really allowing evolution to take place in necesarrily the right direction.

 

[Buddha 3]

Don't worry, evolution is still doing it's thing.

The reasons you outline as to why those "unworthy" of being in the genepool survive, only really apply in a relative small handful of countries.
In most of the world natural selection still does it's hard and cruel job.

 

[Robbo]

If evolution is true, why don't I have wings, eight eyes and lighning quick reflexes ?

But you do ...we evolved into beings that created XBox, in fact, I think you can have 10 eyes ....

 

[burnzy1989]

Why do we as a human race bring up different theories to how we were created and waste time in finding out? I do not believe in evolution because why do we still have monkeys still in an animal form and not evolving into human's now ?

 

[sumo89]

I thought it was generally accepted that we did not evolve from primates, but share a common ancestor with them.

 

[Robbo]

Why do we as a human race bring up different theories to how we were created and waste time in finding out? I do not believe in evolution because why do we still have monkeys still in an animal form and not evolving into human's now ?

......because speciation takes hundreds of thousands of years; I'm afraid you don't wake up one morning and some chimp you got stashed away in a cupboard somewhere starts bashing out the Times Crossword puzzle.

We bring up different theories because we endeavour to understand the bio-mechanics of evolution and hopefully learn from them so we can perhaps utilise these processes.