Human Evolution - Are we done??

--Kaiser-- · 15-12-2010 1:42pm

AntiMatter wrote: »

Are they both homosapiens?

Cro-magnon men were early Homo Sapiens Sapiens. Are you unable to use Google?

sensibleken · 15-12-2010 1:43pm

me@ucd wrote: »

lmao. if anything worse.

Argueably. Due to doctors prescribing anti-biotics in everything but even more dangerous is Triclosan. the active ingreedient in most anti septic sprays and soaps.

for god sake you dont need to pour that crap over every surface because the adds tell you you might as well flush your baby down a used toilet as quick as feed them off your plates

ScumLord · 15-12-2010 1:43pm

I think the human won't be doing any major evolving simply because our current design is so good. We don't evolve to our environment over time like other animals do we can adapt to it using what we have and within a generation we can excel in just about any environment the planet can throw at us. Our bodies ability to translate our brains thoughts into reality through our unique bodies is the skill we won't ever lose.

Dravokivich · 15-12-2010 1:43pm

opposable thumbs allow me to fap...

[/evolution]

af_thefragile · 15-12-2010 1:43pm

Humans are using less of their mental capacity than they ever did.
A few decades ago scientists estimated we only use about 10% of out mental capacities.
Now it has gone down to less than 1%.
Thanks to the numerous automated features of the modern world! All we need to do now is press a bunch of buttons to get anything done.

Also we're eating more and working (physical work) less. Atleast in the west anyway.
We are walking less.
We are worrying more.
We have more stress to deal with. We're becoming more type A people.
We are living longer and dying of chronic illnesses rather than dying early in a war or an accident or some acute illness.

From all this what we might become is a bunch of fat people with small heads and no legs in a couple of thousand years time!!
That will be when computers will be ruling the world and all humans will be doing is eating and pressing buttons!!

--Kaiser-- · 15-12-2010 1:47pm

af_thefragile wrote: »

Humans are using less of their mental capacity than they ever did.
A few decades ago scientists estimated we only use about 10% of out mental capacities.
Now it has gone down to less than 1%.

This is a myth. No scientific study has ever proved this statement.

Neuroscientist Barry Beyerstein sets out seven kinds of evidence refuting the ten percent myth:

* Studies of brain damage: If 90% of the brain is normally unused, then damage to these areas should not impair performance. Instead, there is almost no area of the brain that can be damaged without loss of abilities. Even slight damage to small areas of the brain can have profound effects.

* Evolution: The brain is enormously costly to the rest of the body, in terms of oxygen and nutrient consumption. If 90% of it were unnecessary, there would be a large survival advantage to humans with smaller, more efficient brains. If this were true, the process of natural selection would have eliminated the inefficient brains.

* Brain imaging: Technologies such as Positron Emission Tomography (PET) and Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) allow the activity of the living brain to be monitored. They reveal that even during sleep, all parts of the brain show some level of activity. Only in the case of serious damage does a brain have "silent" areas.

* Localization of function: Rather than acting as a single mass, the brain has distinct regions for different kinds of information processing. Decades of research has gone into mapping functions onto areas of the brain, and no function-less areas have been found.

* Microstructural analysis: In the single-unit recording technique, researchers insert a tiny electrode into the brain to monitor the activity of a single cell. If 90% of cells were unused, then this technique would have revealed that.

* Metabolic studies: Another scientific technique involves studying the take-up of radioactively labelled 2-deoxyglucose molecules by the brain. If 90 percent of the brain were inactive, then those inactive cells would be show up as blank areas in a radiograph of the brain. Again, there is no such result.

* Neural disease: Brain cells that are not used have a tendency to degenerate. Hence if 90% of the brain were inactive, autopsy of adult brains would reveal large-scale degeneration

ScumLord · 15-12-2010 1:48pm

Dravokivich wrote: »

opposable thumbs allow me to fap...

[/evolution]

Dogs have better evolution than you, your not done yet.

af_thefragile wrote: »

Humans are using less of their mental capacity than they ever did.
A few decades ago scientists estimated we only use about 10% of out mental capacities.
Now it has gone down to less than 1%.
Thanks to the numerous automated features of the modern world! All we need to do now is press a bunch of buttons to get anything done.

I don't know about that. We're doing fewer menial tasks really, not less big thinking. You have 200 times more information to sort through than they would have 100 years ago but your skill set has changed.

Wazdakka · 15-12-2010 1:48pm

anthonyk.is wrote: »

That actually touches on a conversation i had with a mate a few weeks back, the worst offenders are mothers with young children who are terrified of their kid even getting a little cold, the more times a child gets sick, the stronger the immune system will grow, if you hide you kid away from every day sicknesses then they will have no immune system to them, but thats a bit off topic though

I completely agree..
But I don't really think it's that off topic.

It's just instead of our evolutionary process being controlled by necessity or survival, it's being tampered with by emotions and a desire to protect.

All of these people with their hand sanitizers, and incessant disinfecting, germ paranoia, and pitching a fit if a child actually gets dirty..
They are weakening humankind as a species.

As Technology and society develop more and more, some people seem to want to distance themselves further and further from the natural dangers that are part of living on this planet.
If you do that enough then you just won't be able to deal with them when you inevitably do have to face them.

It's the War of the worlds theory.... Massive technological ability yet no natural defence against the simplest of infections.

When I have kids I'm going to let them play in the mud, get dirty, get colds, scrape knees, fight off infections..
Ya know.. Be kids.

Guill · 15-12-2010 1:51pm

we are not done but any chance of or cells slightly mutating is hampered by people sterilizing themselves to death.

NothingMan · 15-12-2010 1:56pm

anthonyk.is wrote: »

Whats wrong with thankin people that take the time to post on my thread?? Maybe I wont give you a thanks NothingMan lol

Drat, plan for easy thanks foiled once again.

Antomus Prime · 15-12-2010 1:58pm

Wazdakka wrote: »

I completely agree..
But I don't really think it's that off topic.

When I have kids I'm going to let them play in the mud, get dirty, get colds, scrape knees, fight off infections..
Ya know.. Be kids.

Exactly my thoughs on the subject!!

Sisko · 15-12-2010 1:59pm

We'll see changes in skin colour, people in Australia will have dark skin again for example. But evolution takes a long time, this is something like 20,000 years away.

So many other factors will come into play before then, technology , possible colonisation of other planets etc.

I think technology will overtake evolution pretty soon tbh.

Pyr0 · 15-12-2010 2:00pm

I think any human advancement in either physical or mental change/improvement will be done through technology and not naturally.

15-12-2010 2:01pm

seamus wrote: »

From a shark's point of view, they are the pinnacle of evolution as they know it.

Pff, they don't even have laser beams attached to their heads yet.

Whyner · 15-12-2010 2:02pm

anthonyk.is wrote: »

Whats wrong with thankin people that take the time to post on my thread?? Maybe I wont give you a thanks NothingMan lol

Cause it looks stupid

AntiMatter · 15-12-2010 2:04pm

--Kaiser-- wrote: »

Cro-magnon men were early Homo Sapiens Sapiens. Are you unable to use Google?

I can use google, yes.

It appears to tell me the evidence for Cro-magnons having larger brains came from a test on one skull.

PrincessLola · 15-12-2010 2:18pm

As far as I'm aware evolution only favours traits that allow the carriers to survive long enough to procreate, which ment in the times before modern medicine only the very strongest survived until adulthood to pass their genes on. Nowadays tho we might be getting weaker without natural selection.
Of course I'm not a biologist so I'm probably just bullsh*ting here :pac:

Saila · 15-12-2010 2:23pm

--Kaiser-- wrote: »

This is a myth. No scientific study has ever proved this statement.

Neuroscientist Barry Beyerstein sets out seven kinds of evidence refuting the ten percent myth:

* Studies of brain damage: If 90% of the brain is normally unused, then damage to these areas should not impair performance. Instead, there is almost no area of the brain that can be damaged without loss of abilities. Even slight damage to small areas of the brain can have profound effects.

* Evolution: The brain is enormously costly to the rest of the body, in terms of oxygen and nutrient consumption. If 90% of it were unnecessary, there would be a large survival advantage to humans with smaller, more efficient brains. If this were true, the process of natural selection would have eliminated the inefficient brains.

* Brain imaging: Technologies such as Positron Emission Tomography (PET) and Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) allow the activity of the living brain to be monitored. They reveal that even during sleep, all parts of the brain show some level of activity. Only in the case of serious damage does a brain have "silent" areas.

* Localization of function: Rather than acting as a single mass, the brain has distinct regions for different kinds of information processing. Decades of research has gone into mapping functions onto areas of the brain, and no function-less areas have been found.

* Microstructural analysis: In the single-unit recording technique, researchers insert a tiny electrode into the brain to monitor the activity of a single cell. If 90% of cells were unused, then this technique would have revealed that.

* Metabolic studies: Another scientific technique involves studying the take-up of radioactively labelled 2-deoxyglucose molecules by the brain. If 90 percent of the brain were inactive, then those inactive cells would be show up as blank areas in a radiograph of the brain. Again, there is no such result.

* Neural disease: Brain cells that are not used have a tendency to degenerate. Hence if 90% of the brain were inactive, autopsy of adult brains would reveal large-scale degeneration

understanding of original point fail

the 10% arguement/debate isnt about stating that 90% of the brain is redundant, its about saying at any one time, you are only using 10% or so
to function and perform tasks.

Think of it like this:

a road network, at anyone time you can only use one road at a time, but the rest are redundant according to your reasoning because you are not using them all at the same time, different roads go to different locations
and the barin is the same principle, only 10% or so of the network are being used at any one time.

Shenshen · 15-12-2010 2:26pm

anthonyk.is wrote: »

So I was watching an old episode of Friends lastnite, the one where pheobe chalanges ross' evolution beliefs and it got me thinking, Has the human race evolved as far as it's going to? Or people still going to continue to change over they centurys and could humans possibly even change appearance?

If so what do you think would be the next steps in evolution?
Or to make it a bit more fun, What would you WANT the next step to be???

For me I reckon scientifically the next steps will be greater immune systems to todays diseases (hopefully anyway, we loose too many people to the likes of cancer ect)

And the fun answer would be , for want of a better expression, Super Powers, as in enhanced strength, senses, agility.... so on and so forth..............

Nothing is ever "finished" in evolutionary terms. Unless you're talking about extinction of course. And even then we might be survived by an offspring species.

That said, I do not think that humans will develop any greater strength, improved senses or agility. We've made all of this redundant in evolutionary terms by using our brains to come up with technology to make up for our shortcomings in those departments.
It's very difficult to make a guess as to what way we're going to evolve. Immunity to some diseases is a good guess, we have done that in the past as well. I'd hope we'd develop our intelligence, but that might be a tad optimistic...

Antomus Prime · 15-12-2010 2:28pm

Shenshen wrote: »

That said, I do not think that humans will develop any greater strength, improved senses or agility. We've made all of this redundant in evolutionary terms by using our brains to come up with technology to make up for our shortcomings in those departments.

Very good point, it seems we rely on tech for the simplist of things nowadays.

Jagera · 15-12-2010 2:37pm

Life has constantly evolved and adapted since the birth of organic life some 3.5 billion years ago.

It officially stopped last Wednesday. There was a small get together in Rialto.

Wazdakka · 15-12-2010 2:47pm

bw wrote: »

It officially stopped last Wednesday. There was a small get together in Rialto.

I'm pretty sure evolution hasn't touched anything in Rialto in years.

Dravokivich · 15-12-2010 2:48pm

Wazdakka wrote: »

I'm pretty sure evolution hasn't touched anything in Rialto in years.

more likely to be devolution :pac:

af_thefragile · 15-12-2010 3:03pm

Saila wrote: »

understanding of original point fail
the 10% arguement/debate isnt about stating that 90% of the brain is redundant, its about saying at any one time, you are only using 10% or so
to function and perform tasks.

Think of it like this:

a road network, at anyone time you can only use one road at a time, but the rest are redundant according to your reasoning because you are not using them all at the same time, different roads go to different locations
and the barin is the same principle, only 10% or so of the network are being used at any one time.

Exactly.

I said "mental capacity" not brain matter.

Its like a person like Einstein worked at more than 60%* of his mental capacity when formulating his theory of relativity.

While Anto works at 0.1% of the human mental capacity when he swipes groceries at the till he works at in Tescos.

We (or the majority) of us humans are becoming a species that's becoming more and more used to doing what we're told without putting much thought process into it.

As George Carlin put it, roughly, we're becoming a species who are just intelligent enough to do the task we're employed to do while being dumb enough to keep doing that job without questioning the reducing pay and longer working hours.

Sure there are some people working highly engaging jobs such as doctors, physicists, economists etc. whose job requires a greater degree of mental input than most other jobs. But the same can't be said for most people.

Why do you think we don't have people like Plato, Shakespeare and Einstein anymore?

Maybe cuz people nowdays are too busy doing their menial day to day tasks and have no time to every sit back and think about the larger, more complex things in life... People back in the days had more time on their hands to think of such trivial and abstract things. You didn't really had to worry much about getting on time for you job and making sure you have enough money in your account to be able to pay all your bills and mortgage.

*that figure is totally made up as there is no way of proving how much mental capacity a person is utilizing accurately.

Antomus Prime · 15-12-2010 3:06pm

af_thefragile wrote: »

Exactly.

While Anto works at 0.1% of the human mental capacity when he swipes groceries at the till he works at in Tescos.

Dislike.............. lol

deereidy · 15-12-2010 3:07pm

Ever seen the film Idiocracy? It's stupid, but the idea behind it is good

ScumLord · 15-12-2010 3:07pm

PrincessLola wrote: »

As far as I'm aware evolution only favours traits that allow the carriers to survive long enough to procreate, which ment in the times before modern medicine only the very strongest survived until adulthood to pass their genes on. Nowadays tho we might be getting weaker without natural selection.
Of course I'm not a biologist so I'm probably just bullsh*ting here :pac:

But we get other benefits from not letting natural selection taking someone from us that's of us. Steven Hawkins being the perfect example. By preventing natural selection we've allowed Steven hawking to give us some of the greatest thoughts ever made.

af_thefragile wrote: »

Exactly.

I said "mental capacity" not brain matter.

Its like a person like Einstein worked at more than 60%* of his mental capacity when formulating his theory of relativity.

While Anto works at 0.1% of the human mental capacity when he swipes groceries at the till he works at in Tescos.

But I don't think it workds like that. The part of Einstiens brain that he used to come up with his theories may be tiny, his not using he's coordination to do maths.

Anto may well be using more of his brain to coordinate scanning items while holding a conversation.

--Kaiser-- · 15-12-2010 3:16pm

Saila wrote: »

understanding of original point fail
the 10% arguement/debate isnt about stating that 90% of the brain is redundant, its about saying at any one time, you are only using 10% or so
to function and perform tasks.

Understanding fail on your part. The statement has no basis in science whatsoever. It's one of those 'facts' that gets repeated ad nauseum without any basis in reality.

af_thefragile · 15-12-2010 3:17pm

ScumLord wrote: »

But we get other benefits from not letting natural selection taking someone from us that's of us. Steven Hawkins being the perfect example. By preventing natural selection we've allowed Steven hawking to give us some of the greatest thoughts ever made.

But I don't think it workds like that. The part of Einstiens brain that he used to come up with his theories may be tiny, his not using he's coordination to do maths.

Anto may well be using more of his brain to coordinate scanning items while holding a conversation.

Maybe I should define it further as mental thought capacity.
The ability of your brain to perform complex reasoning, critical thinking and problem solving. The frontal cortex bit of your brain where all your higher mental functions take place. Stuff unique to humans.

Physical coordination is different from that. Cats have better coordination than humans yet they don't have a larger mental capacity than us.

seamus · 15-12-2010 3:17pm

af_thefragile wrote: »

As George Carlin put it, roughly, we're becoming a species who are just intelligent enough to do the task we're employed to do while being dumb enough to keep doing that job without questioning the reducing pay and longer working hours.

Actually I think we're becoming entirely the opposite. 200 years ago, you were lucky to go to school, you got a job before you turned ten and worked at that job for the next fifty years before you dropped dead. Your brain was no more exercised than the effort it took to do your work, go home, look after your kids, wash, rinse, repeat for fifty years.

We have now engineered our own personal freedoms which gives us the ability to effectively do whatever the hell we want and avoid the routine of the day - our minds have never been more exercised and fed with information than they have been over the last fifty years.

Computers and automated technologies generally don't "dumb down" what we're doing - they remove the mundane and easily-understood parts so that all we're left with is the more complex logic which we can't yet model or perform autonomously.

But the same can't be said for most people.

And it never has been. The vast majority of people live their life in mundanity. But that trend has been slowly eroding - how many people do you know have changed jobs over the last ten years, or gone travelling, or done varying forms of training and education? How many people do you think realistically had any of those options 100 years ago?

Computers turn a 6-hour manual job into a 6-second automatic one. Sure, it means that many previous manual skills fall into decline - think knitting and wood-turning, but that doesn't mean that people are getting stupider or losing the ability to do these things. How many people could carve a good stone spear out of sticks and shale? Do you lament that we've lost the skill of making a quality loincloth from bear skins?

Why do you think we don't have people like Plato, Shakespeare and Einstein anymore?

We don't? So we're just paying universty professors and the ESA to sit around scratching their arses all day?

People back in the days had more time on their hands to think of such trivial and abstract things.

"Back in the day", you barely had time to take a ****, never mind mull on the trivialities of life. In fact, thinking about things was frowned upon - you accepted what you were told and STFU.

Human Evolution - Are we done??

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