Does evolution still exist?

Question

Evolution, I believe, is based on the survival of the fittest but with todays modern technology and medicine, does the evolution process still work? Bear in mind we live in an age where the sickest of people can be kept well/alive and people born with horrific genetic deformaties can be operated on to prolong life where they can reproduce carrying on the cycle? Sorry for the horrible, heartless sounding question.

Answer 1

It's true a lot of people live and reproduce now who would have died without reproducing under harsher conditions.

But evolution continues to operate: Evolution merely selects for current conditions, whatever they are, whether they are the product of a purely natural enviornement or an industrial society.  

So sure, evolution's still there.  And if the industrial infrastructure so many have come to depend upon should, at some point, prove impossible to sustain, at least in its present form, then the wonders of evolution will, naturally, be more explicitly demonstrated.

Answer 2

No!

Evolution was cancelled last Thursday

for non payment of Federal Tax,

You gots ta pay yur taxes.

Answer 3

absolutely, there is still a struggle for survival, as you notice even with all this technology, babies and children die.  We are altering evolution by helping the weak survive, but evolution is still going on

Answer 4

of course, it does...but in ways that are so subtle we're not really aware of them that much!

Answer 5

The December 2007 issue of Scientific American differs:

"More people means more opportunity for mutations to creep into the basic human genome and new research confirms that in the past 10,000 years a host of changes to everything from digestion to bones has been taking place.

"We found very many human genes undergoing selection," says anthropologist Gregory Cochran of the University of Utah, a member of the team that analyzed the 3.9 million DNA sequences* showing the most variation. "Most are very recent, so much so that the rate of human evolution over the past few thousand years is far greater than it has been over the past few million years."

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=cult...

There's a logic here as more people will have more variation. As science learns more about the human genome no doubt the human evolutionary process would further speed up  due to genetic manipulation.

Answer 6

Why of course it does.  Man will always continually adapt and evolve to their ever changing environment.

Answer 7

Yeah of course, evolution takes thooooousands of years so in the future we will be different and all the modern medicines and lifestyle will only speed up evolution. I read somewhere that in a few thousand years humans will have evolved into 2 groups; one a taller race with a stronger immune system and a shorter stocky race with a weaker immune system...i dont know what people think of this but its interesting to think the decisions we make now can change what happens in 2000 years!

Answer 8

Actually in our country, without health care for everyone, we have survival of the most economically fit.  This,setting racism aside for the moment, is the fittest; via intelligence, greed, and aggression, doing the best job of surviving the society we have created, i.e. capitalism.  In Europe, with national health care they are getting taller while we are getting shorter due to the great number of people who don't get adequate medical care.

Answer 9

This sounds odd, but I have no wisdom teeth. Do you think years of dentists pulling wisdom teeth and better oral hygiene eliminating the need for wisdom teeth has caused this? Evolution in progress.

Answer 10

Well Steven Hawkings is the best example I can think of for physical evolution.  There is also psycho/social evolution where we now see slavery and vivisection as vile.

Answer 11

yep and my aunt is a whale

Answer 12

Evolution and survival are not the same thing. Evolution is more like environment is trying to make us better capable of survival. Artificially prolonging life does not make evolution null. It definitely still exists and always will. Nature literally controls all. Evolution is meant to make us better survivors.

Answer 13

to be precise, evolution is survival of the most well adapted, so societies with good healthcare more likely to survive than those with poor healthcare

avian dinosaurs survived when land dinosaurs died out cos they were better adapted to the conditions of a huge meteor smashing into earth

Answer 14

Daft question!

Answer 15

Evolution still exists whereas as it has always

been too slow. What has changed is not Evolution but the concept of the survival of the fittest from the individual to the collective

basis.