Ender

Are human beings still evolving? This question was posed to three eminent bigwigs in the current Wired Magazine:

Gregory Stock (Director, program on Medicine, Technology & Society; UCLA & author of Redesigning Humans)
"Not a chance. The very process of evolution itself is evolving. The infusion of technology into human reproduction through birth control, embryo screening, & soon genetic engineering isn't stopping our biological evolution, but slamming it to fast forward. Unraveling and learning to manipulate our genes will soon carry us to the very question of what it means to be human."

Brian Atkins (President, Singularity institute for Artificial Intelligence)
"No, but traditional evolution, along with self-directed genetic modification, is 99 percent irrelevant to the future. It's far too slow. Moore's law will not wait 4 or 5 generations of children to be born to make humans slightly smarter. The singularity is near & its root is rapid intelligence enhancement. This might come with nanotech devices in our brains or uploading into a computer but it is more likely to occur (and sooner) via someone building a real AI."

Daniel Dennet (Director, Center for cognitive studies, tufts; author of Darwin's Dangerous Idea)
"Of course not, & maybe, in another. In evolution everything is up for revision. If anything doesn't get revised, that's because stabilizing selection is re-endorsing it. In homo sapiens, the most large-scale trends are probably regarding disease-resistant rather than taller/shorter. Culture (medicine, technology, etcetera) blunts or eliminate many of the most dramatic selective forces. And remember that asking whether human evolution has stopped in the 21st century is scarcely more meaningful than asking whether human evolution has stopped in the last hour."

I'd like to hear your comments, even though this may sound like "preaching to the choir."

~WiGGiN~

Brad Messenger

By evolving, are we speaking in the microevolutionary sense or macroevolutionary? I don't think we are evolving on any macro level simply because there is no isolation between the species. We are so interconnected and gene flow is taking place so much now through interracial and intercultural marriages that I don't see how humans could be branching into different species in the future given our current state.

Since microevolution only requires a change in allele frequencies in a population, I think microevolution has certainly occurred recently For instance, I've heard that people are taller in general than they were a century ago. I don't know whether the things mentioned by those scientists will stop microevolution.

Vorkosigan

We're taller because of diet. However, one demonstrated microevolutionary trend is a trend toward lighter bones. i recall reading somewhere once that humans are 5% more gracile than we were at the end of the ice age.

In any case, the answer is "of course." Both our minds and bodies are undergoing evolution. Wish I could stick around long enough to see the results!

Vorkosigan

Ender

The correct question posed to the three intellectuals should have read this way: "Has the homo sapiens species stopped evolving?"

Apologies.

Peez

With respect to the people asked, what do they know about evolution? Perhaps one might ask an evolutionary biologist. I would answer: yes, without question. Allele frequencies are changing, it is that simple. The forces that drive evolution are changing, and we might not be changing very fast, or into a new species, but there seems to be no question that we are evolving.

Peez