If you could steer the course of Evolution?

GastroBoy

What new qualities would you like mankind to develop?

For me:
#Some sort of noise-cancelling ability. Given that we are exposed to more noise on a daily basis than our ancestors, some sort of flap of skin that possibly expanded when subjected to a noise level above our comfort zone would be pretty cool.

#A third arm. Probably not essential but a third arm would come in really handy (baddum tish!!)

#Smaller stomachs. More people have access to unlimited amounts of food, quite a bit more than, say, cavemen. We dont need the abilty to eat vast amounts of food anymore.

So AH, what new features would you like humans to evolve?

OpenYourEyes

That noise-cancelling ability seems like something that would be selected against pretty quickly....

But to try and answer your question, I think there's plenty of subsets of the population that aren't exactly towing the line in evolutionary terms, so I'd be more concerned with getting everyone up to speed before adding anything else...

FearDark

"A giant nail on our foreheads to protect our brain and testicles relocated in our earlobes to check for lumps easier" - Karl Pilkington

DazMarz

Night/infra-red/x-ray vision

Super hearing

Increased strength

Increased durability

Unbreakable bones

Better waste disposal systems than the current ones

Able to breathe under water

Able to survive longer without food/water

Able to survive longer without oxygen

and so on... basically, bigger, stronger, faster, fitter... BETTER.

newmug

An arseholery filter, whereby being an arsehole in any way completely rules you out for having sex, therefore reducing the population to only sound people. That and an anti-patriotic filter.

MadYaker

Humans are already steering the course of evolution...

_Redzer_

newmug wrote: »

An arseholery filter, whereby being an arsehole in any way completely rules you out for having sex, therefore reducing the population to only sound people. That and an anti-patriotic filter.

Interesting. I think I'll pick you first

Pushtrak

Three arms wouldn't work. I'd make it four. Six is too much, but four really seems like it'd help out a lot. Just think of the possibilities. And, no I'm not thinking primarily of fapping, though I'm not discounting the possibilities.

Muise...

earlids would be good alright, OP, but we do have mental blockers for noise, so I'd say it'd be more worthwhile killing all the burglar alarms in the world.

I would like to evolve fully functional wings and telepathy.

Overheal

You can steer the course of evolution already. Just repeatedly tab B whenever Charmander levels up and he won't evolve. The advantage to doing this is his stats will level better.

WoollyRedHat

Ability to jump really high.

Ability to climb buildings.

Great sense of smell.

Spin webs.

Pushtrak

WoollyRedHat wrote: »

Ability to jump really high.

Ability to climb buildings.

Great sense of smell.

Spin webs.

Mixed blessing.

WoollyRedHat

Pushtrak wrote: »

Mixed blessing.

Tell me about it, I have sinus problems... sometimes it's a damn nuisance, but other times, not so much.

Starscream25

For the anus area and bum cheeks to clean themselves after evacuating the bowls, it's such a load of **** having to wipe my ass

123 LC

The ability to fly

patty o chair 55

I reckon with a bit of genetic engineering/ re-engineering we could do a lot,
switch on the genes for gills, breathe underwater
splice in a bit of dog DNA, superhuman sense of smell
cat DNA, night vision
...

W123-80's

A self awareness sense.
i.e. not talking over people, listen to other people, don't talk about yourself all the time, obvious stuff really but alot of people seem to be lacking in it.

The Big Smoke

A common sense.

patty o chair 55

how about the power to kill a yak, from 200 yards, with MIND BULLETS!

Tom_Cruise

If i could evolve i would evolve into someone who isn't retarded and ugly.

Sleepy

I'd keep it to mental things really: higher intelligence, more reliable memory, stronger willpower and, if biology has anything to do with it, higher sense of personality responsibility / less need to assign responsibility for our actions to external things.

Wibbs

patty o chair 55 wrote: »

splice in a bit of dog DNA, superhuman sense of smell

Yea PoC but that would also require the big dog nose too, so not so much.

cat DNA, night vision

Which then sadly means crappy daylight vision. Less colour and more blurred.

I'd go for better knees and hips. Stronger liver function. Reduced attraction to sweet and fatty foods(especially sweet). Higher replacement of collagen throughout life. Ability for the spinal nerves(and others) to rejuvenate. Ability for tooth replacement throughout life*. Much higher resistance to cancer. There's a tiny population in south america that have a mutation that makes them very short and a bit odd looking, but they almost never get cancer.

Overall code for healthy longevity. You could probably currently build people who would see the century and in good condition. That's the important bit. No point being 150 and dribbling on yourself while your only convo is "blluuuuueeergh". Down the line near immortality as a possibility is very likely. After all it's an engineering problem at it's basic level and there's no scientific reason why you couldn't stay say "30" for a thousand years. There would be major philosophical and psychological hurdles though.


The ability to make dumb extinct would be very good. Then again that would be a complex one. You could select for high IQ and if you didn't get the mix just right you end up with a race of very bright emotional autistics. So Eq would also have to come along for the ride.









*it's one of natures ironies that teeth are among the first to decay while you're still alive, but about the last thing to decay after you're dead in the ground. We have examples of ancient ancestors going back million plus years and much of what we have is their teeth and the odd tooth shows decay and even a bloody sore abscess. Irony indeed.

stefan idiot jones

An oncoming period detector for men. So we should steer clear of the said psychotic, unhinged banshee for at least three days.

Wow, life would be calmer.

Muise...

stefan idiot jones wrote: »

An oncoming period detector for men. So we should steer clear of the said psychotic, unhinged banshee for at least three days.

Wow, life would be calmer.

Sure, let's not bother evolving more efficient reproductive systems & hormones, or even a basic understanding thereof.

stefan idiot jones

Muise... wrote: »

Sure, let's not bother evolving more efficient reproductive systems & hormones, or even a basic understanding thereof.

No, male self preservation.

MJ23

The ability to peel an orange in your pocket with a boxing glove on.

Muise...

stefan idiot jones wrote: »

No, male self preservation.

ah. For that I'd suggest two handy processes of evolution: adaptation and co-operation.

MetalDog

I recently watched a documentary on the current change of evolution happening in the United Kingdom.

Or as most people call it, the Jeremy Kyle Show.

the groutch

patty o chair 55 wrote: »

how about the power to kill a yak, from 200 yards, with MIND BULLETS!

Chuck Norris already has that power

An immunity to the common fallacies.