Do you think we are evolving forward, backward or in a holding pattern?

Question

Look at an evolutionary chart as if it were a math equation and extend the human equation and project us into the future...where are we going?

The galaxy is moving forward. We don't know where.

1. We are standing straighter upright and getting taller.

2. Our evolutionary process added another layer of brain. A small animal brain is encased in a larger separate brain. What's that all about? I'd say it shows obvious cross pollination with a larger brained species.

2a) in the Bible and other old books there is mention of giant humans, Other Gods are mentioned by Elohim in Genisis. That doesn't mean we were or not -created at the whim of a particular God but the who what where when how and why is up in the air. Face it. We don't know. Move on.

3.Though still prevalent outright brutality is less accepted the more "civilized" or advanced human beings become. We dont watch fights to the death or hangings.

4. We seem to be evolving into more sentient beings albiet slowly.

Answer 1

If we don't learn to access other resources we may be going backwards.

Answer 2

I would say we are not moving at the moment.  There is much greater mixing than normal, but selection is not very significant because there is relatively little death.  Bad times will most likely eventually come and selection will depend on what the bad times are.  

We haven't likely crossed with a larger brained animal.  Evolution typically adds to what is there.  The primitive brain is still useful for desperate times and we still have the same basic biological requirements as "primitive" animals.

Answer 3

I agree with sparrow.  I wonder if our technology will soon control our evolutionary direction more than we have experienced in the past.  Humans are not the epitome of evolution.  We are simply a very well adapted primate to a particular niche.  We have become extremely successful based primarily on our language that has allowed us to develop technology IMO.

Answer 4

probably holding pattern, evolution comes of necessity, necessary changes to adapt to harsh conditions.  And people are living pretty comfortably these days in general..we don't have to hunt animals and everything anymore

Answer 5

"Sparrow" is correct. Evolution is not a path or a direction, it's an event that occurs because of certain stimuli that requires an organism to adapt or become extinct.



It appears to be a "holding pattern" only because the adaption takes an incrediblely long time to manifest in higher organisms, although we can see the process far more clearly in more simple ones.

  

To view Evolution in purely sociological terms -- such as:"brutish" versus "civilized" behavior --  is the traditional distortion of evolutionary theory applied self-servingly to racial or social perceptions.

Evolution has nothing to do with being "sentient" either, it is a process that acts without conciousness or conscience, without the need of  awareness, knowledge or inspiration.

It happens genetically, not intellectually.Thus the the concept of "evolving backward", much less forward or standing still, is  logically impossible.

It is a process, not a "path".

So the question, and the rationales given, are irrelevant as well as misleading.

Answer 6

At the moment, I'd say we're holding. We're evolving in technology rather than physical changes.

Answer 7

In my opinion (I am just completing my Master's degree in Anthropology) evolution is commonly misunderstood.

EVOLUTION DOES NOT HAVE A DIRECTION; it is a biological process by which a population changes over time, and that is all. Of course humans are changing as our environment and population genetics shift and change. For example, some people are born with a genetic immunity to specific diseases, some are born without wisdom teeth (largely a vestigial structure), and the list goes on. We have to remember that evolution is not unilineal, and this question of "where we are going" is really a moot one when working within this paradigm. It is deeply ingrained in us as humans to ask this question of "what is our future?," but we need to remember that evolution will never END in some future version of humans; we will evolve and change constantly, and most of it will be fragmented and minute over generations.

Evolution has no particular goal  and survival of the fittest really isn't a concrete concept; evolution is a process wherein the alleles available in a population change over time due to reproductive success of the carriers within said population (whether or not they express said allele phenotypically or not). Eventually, this can lead to speciation (the creation of new species), or population variations. If and when these differing populations come into contact with one another and mate (successful production of sexually fit and reproduction-capable offspring is one of the defining characteristics of being considered the same species), the alleles from each population can mix and "flow."

Following from this, I think the more pertinent question is how are we affecting our own evolution? Technology and culture have the potential to work in seesaw to change the alleles that are selected for and against, and given our globalized world, we are potentially becoming one global population less and less separated in mating opportunity by time and space.

For extreme (and ridiculously simple) example, if, in some global community, popular culture deems blondes as the most desirable mates (and we are not living in a sterile world in which all children are produced via natural intercourse and gestation of randomly selected and mutated genetic combinations, meaning no designer babies) and ALL of the children produced come from at least one blonde parent, then POTENTIALLY the entire population would eventually be blonde (given enough generations for all children to be born with two blonde alleles, making them carriers and expressors of the blonde allele, and leading to a 100% probability of producing blonde offspring).

However, technology can foil this "natural" process in several ways. For example, brunettes can become "bottle blondes" in order to increase their chances of successful reproduction. Though bleaching their hair would change their phenotype, it will NOT change the hair color alleles they carry, and thus pass on to their children, potentially preventing this all-blonde population fron occuring. Nature also has a great foil for this: mutation. Random (or causal) mutations in the blonde alleles of some children who then become parents can cause this "allele pool" of hair color to remain mixed and non-homogenous.

Now, remember that the vast VAST majority of phenotypic traits are NOT Mendelian (like my "blonde allele"), but involve interactions between proteins coded for by several genes, each of which there may have several alleles. This makes the process infinitely more complex, and this richness of diversity is the beauty of evolution. The point of the example was to (in an extreme way) illustrate the potential impact humans can have on the system with our culture and technology.

How might our technology affect our evolution? The possibilities are innumerable, and this is one of the many unknowns facing the genetic sciences today.

Please remember that not all human behavior (like your brutality and posture examples) is genetically-based. In the same way, not all human "biology" (like stature and brain size) is 100% genetic either. We often like to say that almost all of the "stuff" of humans is biocultural, meaning that it is Nature and Nurture working in concert (and sometimes in discord) to produce that thing we call humans.

Answer 8

Physically evolution posits change and physically we, and our societies, are evolving and changing; one assumes beneficial change in response to environmental demands, but it may not always be beneficial to all organisms.

Spiritually and emotionally I do not see any evolution; we are as unsophisticated and superstitious as our prehistoric ancestors.  In answer to one of your arguments I must respond that if fights to the death and hangings were available to watch and we were allowed to watch;  there would be many, many who would.

Answer 9

I think that our counsciousness as a species is slowly evoving (forward) and is on the verge a big leap.

Answer 10

people are getting fatter, must be an ice age coming