Is technology facilitating a human de-evolution?

Question

Are our tools allowing those of the species, who would normally be weeded out, to continue to procreate and thus slowing, or possibly, reversing human evolution?

Answer 1

The problem with this question is that this process of "de-evolution" presumes that "unnatural selection" is a synonym with "natural selection" yet, in fact they are polar opposites. Evolution is driven by natural selection. The fact that we are continually adding additional sources of unnatural selection does not mean that we are controlling our evolution or de-evolving, it means that we are cheating the evolutionary process from expressing itself. In so doing we are controlling the way that we develop as a species, by increasingly negating the effects of environment and diluting the evolutionary process as it applies to our species. By creating this vacuum in our selective process we are allowing more genetic defects that would have otherwise have been selected against to become commonplace within our genetic code, and for these traits to be passed on through subsequent generations. We are increasingly becoming more invasive at controlling our genetic path, and in so doing we usually have to also become more creative in how to also adapt to all the negative side effects that we did not anticipate in our medling in the first place. Yes we are controlling our genetic path to a degree... and we are doing it poorly... but this is NOT evolution nor de-evolution. The question should be "is mankind eliminating many of the effects of evolution as they apply to us as a species and replacing 'survival of the fittest' as our developmental path with medical and environmental tinkering?"

Answer 2

I think so. After all if all the worse case scenarios or even one of them came true then all our technology would be a hinderance not a help. If you think about it, all the corn that is being put towards ethanol production means that there is less food for human construction. Since every year corn farmers are dumping more fertilizer on their fields there will be less farmable land.

Answer 3

our actions are responsible for evolution. evolution never happened in a straight line. and it's not fixed from the beging of the earth, so there's no question of reversing. however, evoulution may happen in a different way than it used to be before human being started to use technology.

Answer 4

No, in actuality it fosters more diversity in the gene pool,l thus giving natural selection more to work with. Why is this misunderstanding of evolutionary processes so prevalent in social science? Procreation is still driven by assortive mating, so your main premise is really too vapid to even be wrong. Take a biology, not a anthropology class, if you want " the real deal " on evolutionary theory.

Answer 5

There is no such thing as reversing evolution.  Evolution has to goal, Evolution is just change.

Answer 6

yes, check out the movie

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiocracy

Answer 7

it has been a part of human civilization from the time of the first civilizations, we have been evolving to fit our social organizations.

but lately modern medicine is starting to weed out human misfits, by identifying and preventing the birth of genetically ill infants.

I estimate that this medical practice will accelerate significantly, and will increase the pace of human evolution, but it will not be a natural evolution anymore.