How comes where still not evolving?

Question

Yeah we can make bigger and better machines now but what about our bodies they haven't changed at all and will they?

Answer 1

Who says we're not evolving?

A recent study indicates that many human traits, including lactose tolerance, may have evolved rapidly in the past 10,000 years.  In evolutionary terms, that's the blink of an eye.  There's no reason to suspect that changes aren't still occurring.  Remember, there is MORE than one way to cause evolution; it doesn't just have to occur as a result of differential survival and/or reproduction (although that helps).

Consider this:  when a small group of settlers left Europe to establish Amish communities in the United States, they had with them one person who was polydactyl (meaning he or she had more than five fingers on each hand or more than five toes on each foot).  In modern times, the frequency of polydactyly among the Amish is much higher than it is in the population at large.  Now some may argue that a higher incidence of polydactyly in a reproductively isolated community does not represent an example of human evolution.  I would refer them to the very definition of evolution: a change in allele frequencies within a population over time.  That pretty much clenches it, unless that person is just trying to redefine evolution in terms that make it look like it never happens.

If you want to know why we haven't seen extreme physiological changes to humans within the span of recorded history - well, extreme evolutionary changes take lots of time.  We wouldn't EXPECT to see drastic changes in the 5,000 or so years that we've been writing stuff down.  The fossil record prior to the invention of writing shows the changes you're looking for.

I hope that helps.  Good luck!

Answer 2

Because you have only been alive less than 100 years, same with your parents and grandparents.  It takes hundreds of thousands or even millions of years for it to be noticeable.  We are slowly evolving with every generation.

Answer 3

We are not evolving because of the machines. If we didn't have them we would evolve into animals more capable of doing what we can do now. Evolution take 1000's of years. I think you may be misinformed about what evolution is. When you take 10th grade biology you will be quite surprised at what it really is. We are also not evolving because the less intelligent are the ones mating and passing genes so really we're devolving.

Answer 4

Evolution doesn't happen over night, it takes millions of years to change, and that change is gradually. So it's not likely that we will change soon, but change we will.

Answer 5

Actually we are still evolving. In the last three hundred years, the average human is taller by three inches. Evolution is a slow process, often taking thousands of years for major changes to become the norm.

Take the environment that space does to the human body.. the body reacts to this environment and realises that we do not, in that environment need a skeleton; so the body reabsorbs the calcium, and the skeleton, over time, disapears. The reason that astronaughts do not fully lose their bones, is that they do not spend enough time in space to allow this to happen.

The human gene often throws a wobbly and produces a renigade mutant offspring. On the odd occassion, this mutant gene (physical or otherwise) will be extremely benificial, and the gene will reproduce, becomng (eventually) dominant; thus human fingers and toes etc,. will be the norm for humans to overcome and adpt to their environment to their benifit; thus we can now run upright and we now no longer need to swing through trees, as our feet and hands have, through gene mutation, forwarded this benificial gene to our offspring.

Kind regards

Dr Antony

Answer 6

Sure we are! It doesn't take 3 generations for a significant change, it take hundreds! Look around, you'll see people with birth defects, if the defect would 'help' the person, he'd live to have kids and his kids will have the same advantage. That's how natural selection works.

Nowadays, survival is all about having money... So an amputee will be able to survive just as well as you can.

Answer 7

Look, when you were 8, what did you play with? And, what about your parents or grandparents? Does your Grandmother knows how to use Yahoo Ask&Answer? Isn't that your evolution over your ancestors? :)