Human evolution

[kylegg4]

On my walk home this afternoon I was wondering if humans will evolve dramatically or even further than we have already, not acknowleding the evolution knowledge and technological of course. I was just thinking on the premise of natural selection. Have our emotions evolved too much for our physiology to evolve or change any more dramatically away from its current state, what factors could affect this evolution? I'm not sure if this will make sense so please say if it doesn't.

[Keenidiot]

I don't know that natural selection plays a large role in our evolution any longer. Instead it seems more on sexual selection at this point.

[kylegg4]

Natural selection includes sexual selection, atleast this is what i thought anyway. For example the idea that elephants evolution resulted in smaller tusks because the larger tusks elephants were hunted therefore only smaller tusks males remained leaving only smaller tusked males to pass on their genes resulting in more smaller tusks elephants.

[Keenidiot]

Natural selection includes sexual selection, atleast this is what i thought anyway. For example the idea that elephants evolution resulted in smaller tusks because the larger tusks elephants were hunted therefore only smaller tusks males remained leaving only smaller tusked males to pass on their genes resulting in more smaller tusks elephants.

 

No, sexual selection is where one a female or male representative of a species chooses a mate based off of chracteristic that doesn't necassarily benefit the survival of a species, like the male peacock's plumage.

 

That said, yeah it is still natural selection.

[rajakrsna]

No, sexual selection is where one a female or male representative of a species chooses a mate based off of chracteristic that doesn't necassarily benefit the survival of a species, like the male peacock's plumage.

 

That said, yeah it is still natural selection.

 

 

Is cultural differences a part of evolution? For example. A Hindu girl wants to marry a Catholic. We know for a fact that in Hindu culture if the Hindu girl has no capacity to secure & support say a Catholic American the Hindu girl`s parents wont allow it. Whereas if a Hindu girl converts to Catholicism because of love for the Catholic American boy the Hindu girl`s parents will either disown their daughter or allow her to marry the Catholic American boy in Church. My point here is culture and religion a natural selection in evolution?

 

 

 

[Keenidiot]

I would suppose that culture would lead to being a factor in selection, the Jewish people would be be a good example of how a strict culture/religion can produce a people with unique genetic traits.

I'm just spit balling here, though.

[rajakrsna]

I would suppose that culture would lead to being a factor in selection, the Jewish people would be be a good example of how a strict culture/religion can produce a people with unique genetic traits.

I'm just spit balling here, though.

 

 

Is your knowledge limited only to Jewish people? What can you say about us, Filipino people?

Edited March 10, 2012 by rajakrsna

[Keenidiot]

Are your knowledge limited only to Jewish people? What can you say about us, Filipino people?

 

I'm familiar enough with the Jewish people to be sure, though if I remember correctly the Romani people also provide an example of genetic traits.

I'm not as familiar with the Filipino cultures, my knowledge of the Jewish people comes from my archaeological interests in Egypt. I would guess that the isolation of being an island nation gives them a unique genetic identity and probably a variety of culture. I'm sure those cultures would have pushed their own restrictions.

 

 

[questionposter]

On my walk home this afternoon I was wondering if humans will evolve dramatically or even further than we have already, not acknowleding the evolution knowledge and technological of course. I was just thinking on the premise of natural selection. Have our emotions evolved too much for our physiology to evolve or change any more dramatically away from its current state, what factors could affect this evolution? I'm not sure if this will make sense so please say if it doesn't.

 

Well if you heard on the news recently, some scientists predicted that the human's brain will likely not evolve to be much greater, but not because of emotions leading to natural selection necessarily, but because there are physical limitations such as how many connections per cubic millimeter the likely hood of all the best traits always being passed down. It's still completely possible there can be a few random changes that help, maybe even new emotions. Our emotions are probably part of what allows us to survive in the first place, because without the variety we have we likely wouldn't be able to form a society together.

It kind of seems like your suggesting that because of things like love that the best traits aren't surviving or forming, when really you wouldn't be able to tell if someone has every improved trait without love anyway.

[Andrew blue]

1331336841[/url]' post='664033']

On my walk home this afternoon I was wondering if humans will evolve dramatically or even further than we have already, not acknowleding the evolution knowledge and technological of course. I was just thinking on the premise of natural selection. Have our emotions evolved too much for our physiology to evolve or change any more dramatically away from its current state, what factors could affect this evolution? I'm not sure if this will make sense so please say if it doesn't.

If we were to expand throughout the univers we might have human sub-species, ones that could handle greater heat, radiation, gravity ect. Makes sense just not on earth.

 

1331349033[/url]' post='664071']

Well if you heard on the news recently, some scientists predicted that the human's brain will likely not evolve to be much greater, but not because of emotions leading to natural selection necessarily, but because there are physical limitations such as how many connections per cubic millimeter the likely hood of all the best traits always being passed down. It's still completely possible there can be a few random changes that help, maybe even new emotions. Our emotions are probably part of what allows us to survive in the first place, because without the variety we have we likely wouldn't be able to form a society together.

It kind of seems like your suggesting that because of things like love that the best traits aren't surviving or forming, when really you wouldn't be able to tell if someone has every improved trait without love anyway.

I can just simply say that I agree.

[DNA]

I think that the only way that humans physiology would evolve more than it already has is that there would be significant changes in the environment in a way that only with evolution humans would be able to survive and keep on living and this has nothing to do with our emotions.

[questionposter]

I think that the only way that humans physiology would evolve more than it already has is that there would be significant changes in the environment in a way that only with evolution humans would be able to survive and keep on living and this has nothing to do with our emotions.

 

Well environmental instability is really the only way evolution proceeds, otherwise its all living things would just be completely random masses of DNA. There probably would be some animals too, but there would be an almost approaching infinite amount of diversity because any amount of any DNA could potentially be passed on without environmental restriction.

Edited March 20, 2012 by questionposter

[CharonY]

A very stable environment still could have selective pressures. Plus stochastic events and sexual selection among others still shape evolution. Again Hardy-Weinberg would be the situation where the gene pool would remain constant.

[questionposter]

A very stable environment still could have selective pressures. Plus stochastic events and sexual selection among others still shape evolution. Again Hardy-Weinberg would be the situation where the gene pool would remain constant.

 

I suppose if the capacity to normally pass down genes wasn't successful, it wouldn't be passed down, but then again because of the lack of environmental pressure there could have been a life form that absorbs the genes of others and reproduces, or perhaps found another way to reproduce which is currently unknown to us.

Without much environmental pressure, it seems like really any possible combination of DNA could form and survive for some amount of time.

Edited March 20, 2012 by questionposter

[CharonY]

The first part does not make sense. And again, selective pressure are not the only elements that can eliminate alleles. Stochastic events are biologically relevant, especially in small populations as well as non-random mating. Also certain alleles may by themselves reduce fitness of their carriers without an external selective pressure.

 

Also, technically all alleles can survive some time unless they are lethal, result in sterility etc.. Selective sweeps are not absolute.

Edited March 20, 2012 by CharonY

[questionposter]

The first part does not make sense. And again, selective pressure are not the only elements that can eliminate alleles. Stochastic events are biologically relevant, especially in small populations as well as non-random mating. Also certain alleles may by themselves reduce fitness of their carriers without an external selective pressure.

 

Also, technically all alleles can survive some time unless they are lethal, result in sterility etc.. Selective sweeps are not absolute.

 

So if we went back to when life was first created and said there was no environmental pressure anywhere, what would we see after all this time?

[CharonY]

This is an unanswerable question. Even with selective pressure you would have no predictive knowledge how things are going to evolve, especially considering the stochasticity of the mechanisms involved.

But they are led off by a major misunderstanding (or simply lack of knowledge) of what mechanisms pertain to changes in a given gene pool. Really, read up on Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium (even on Wiki). This is essentially the baseline (or null, if you want).

[questionposter]

This is an unanswerable question. Even with selective pressure you would have no predictive knowledge how things are going to evolve, especially considering the stochasticity of the mechanisms involved.

But they are led off by a major misunderstanding (or simply lack of knowledge) of what mechanisms pertain to changes in a given gene pool. Really, read up on Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium (even on Wiki). This is essentially the baseline (or null, if you want).

 

I suppose there are some further limitations, but couldn't the reason my question is unanswerable be because things would diversify so much?

[Delta1212]

I suppose there are some further limitations, but couldn't the reason my question is unanswerable be because things would diversify so much?

For the result you are proposing, you would need an environment with literally unlimited resources and no barriers to resource acquisition in addition to a complete absence of barriers to reproduction. Even then, random chance would eventually result in some form of life that would be lethal to other forms and that intently creates an environmental selection pressure.

[questionposter]

This is an unanswerable question. Even with selective pressure you would have no predictive knowledge how things are going to evolve, especially considering the stochasticity of the mechanisms involved.

But they are led off by a major misunderstanding (or simply lack of knowledge) of what mechanisms pertain to changes in a given gene pool. Really, read up on Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium (even on Wiki). This is essentially the baseline (or null, if you want).

 

Actually now that I think about more, there are specific environmental limitations, and therefore we can predict with some accuracy how evolution will play out, whereas if there were less environmental restrictions there would be more possibilities and our predictions would be less accurate. If we think about right now, the global climate is warming. In the past, when the climate as warmed, reptiles have thrived much more, so we can predict with some accuracy that if the global climate keeps warming, reptiles will thrive more and will likely have the capacity to grow larger due to the fact that they can get more energy from the environment. There may even be another dinosaur era.

So perhaps there may not be as much diversity as I was originally implying without environmental restrictions, but there would be more than what your implying.

 

So basically, the more limited environments are, the more accurately we can predict what will thrive, probably because the more limited an environment is, the more specific adaptations need to be in order to survive.

Edited March 26, 2012 by questionposter

[questionposter]

This is an unanswerable question. Even with selective pressure you would have no predictive knowledge how things are going to evolve, especially considering the stochasticity of the mechanisms involved.

But they are led off by a major misunderstanding (or simply lack of knowledge) of what mechanisms pertain to changes in a given gene pool. Really, read up on Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium (even on Wiki). This is essentially the baseline (or null, if you want).

 

Actually now that I think about more, there are specific environmental limitations, and therefore we can predict with some accuracy how evolution will play out, whereas if there were less environmental restrictions there would be more possibilities and our predictions would be less accurate. If we think about right now, the global climate is warming. In the past, when the climate as warmed, reptiles have thrived much more, so we can predict with some accuracy that if the global climate keeps warming, reptiles will thrive more and will likely have the capacity to grow larger due to the fact that they can get more energy from the environment. There may even be another dinosaur era.

So perhaps there may not be as much diversity as I was originally implying without environmental restrictions, but there would be more than what your implying.

[questionposter]

This is an unanswerable question. Even with selective pressure you would have no predictive knowledge how things are going to evolve, especially considering the stochasticity of the mechanisms involved.

But they are led off by a major misunderstanding (or simply lack of knowledge) of what mechanisms pertain to changes in a given gene pool. Really, read up on Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium (even on Wiki). This is essentially the baseline (or null, if you want).

 

Actually now that I think about more, there are specific environmental limitations, and therefore we can predict with some accuracy how evolution will play out, whereas if there were less environmental restrictions there would be more possibilities and our predictions would be less accurate. If we think about right now, the global climate is warming. In the past, when the climate as warmed, reptiles have thrived much more, so we can predict with some accuracy that if the global climate keeps warming, reptiles will thrive more and will likely have the capacity to grow larger due to the fact that they can get more energy from the environment. There may even be another dinosaur era.

So perhaps there may not be as much diversity as I was originally implying without environmental restrictions, but there would be more than what your implying.