Has evolution stopped with humans?

[otseng]

Evolutionists believe that humans are the pinnacle of evolution. But, will there ever be something else that humans will evolve into? Or has evolution stopped with humans?

[Corvus]

We're relatively comfortable and have no need to adapt to a drastic alteration of the environment.

Isn't everything relatively comfortable? Ecosystems are self-sustaining and life can go on happily unless some drastic happens (like human intervention).

Yes, but there's the theory of punctuated equilibrium. Bascially it means that whenever environmental conditions change enough, animals react drastically to adapt to the change. When they've adapted to the change, the rate of evolution decreases. The theory also states that widespread creatures usually change very little, for obvious reasons. Currently, most creatures are relatively comfortable. A polar bear still probably can't survive in the African desert, though. But there have still been some examples of the rapid adaptation of species to their environments. The most striking examples are:

Evidence that a species of fireweed formed by doubling of the chromosome count, from the original stock.

Rapid speciation of the Faeroe Island house mouse, which occurred in less than 250 years after man brought the creature to the island.

[fried beef sandwich]

I would like to see an example where humans physically evolve so that it would cause them to "adapt better". X-men type evolution would be a good example, though it doesn't have to be that dramatic.

Hi guys, I'm new here. But I've got a modern-day example.

Wisdom teeth, jaw size, tooth size. These days, many people are coming in to get their wisdom teeth removed only to find out that they're missing one, two, three, and sometimes all of them. Why? First off, our mandibles (and jaws overall) are getting smaller. Compare the mandible size of the homo sapien 40,000 years ago, and you'll see that they were indeed larger before. This is occuring mainly because of our diet and our technology now; the processing of foods that used to rely on our teeth and jaws is now in the hands of flour mills and knife-wielding butchers. Hence, there is less of a need to have strong jaws (like the great apes and especially the Neandertals) because we're not (usually) breaking apart bones with our teeth to suck out the marrow, or crunching up nuts and things like that. We don't have to hold a piece of leather between our teeth and scrape it to get that last bit of fat; we've got knives for that now.

Our mouths are shrinking, but our teeth have yet to catch up with them. These days, wisdom teeth need to be taken out because our modern-day human jaws cannot accomodate those extra teeth; instead, the wisdom teeth come in sideways, compressing the roots of the other teeth, causing pain and, if left untreated, bone loss, abscessing, and many pain-filled nights.

Now, is this (not having a full set of four wisdom teeth) considered a better adaptation? I think so. If all the dentists in the world died tomorrow, then the lucky few who didn't have a full complement of wisdom teeth to begin with would be the only ones without festering abscesses, constantly in pain, blah blah blah.

Hm. better stop myself. Anyway, that's more than you'd ever want to know about the evolution of teeth and jaws and such.

[Yahweh]

Evolutionists believe that humans are the pinnacle of evolution.

Close, but not quite.

Humans (now, this may take you by surprise!) are human-centric (who needs complicated vocabulary?). Naturally, the vast majority of humans value themselves above most other animals. It is something humans have done for quite a long time, in fact that belief is something which is played upon by religion quite frequently.

There isnt really need to get longwinded on this point except to say evolutionists do not recognize things such as "pinnacle of evolution" or "more evolved". Instead, they prefer to think in terms of "better adapted to one's environment".

But, will there ever be something else that humans will evolve into? Or has evolution stopped with humans?

Not at all.

Over time, humans have evolved to the creature we are now. About 3.5 million years ago is when Homo Sapiens appeared on the planet, and it wasnt until about 100,000 years ago that the first anatomically modern humans (Homo Sapiens Sapiens) appeared, and about 11,000 years ago humans developed agriculture.

In that time, humans have lost a great deal of body hair, their jaws are much smaller and narrow, they have lost the function of going into heat before mating, the fingers are much more narrow, the nose is decreased in size, the parts of the throat which create speech have been modified for rapid vocalization and air consumption (as a consequence, we have difficulty drinking and breathing simultaneously, and we have very limited ability to produce sound in our nasal cavity), the padding on the feet has decreased substantially, gripping ability in the toes are all but gone, and brain size has decreased (which has not affected our intelligence, but has done wonders for oxygen conservation).


In the future, I see humans evolving more functional wisdom teeth.

We have 5 toes, but notice the "little toe". It doesnt really do much, it doesnt have a function. It doesnt aid us in walking at all, therefore I think it may be likely the "little toe" will evolve out of existence. (The "big toe" on the other hand is quite essential for balance and aid in walking.)

Humans have a very very weak sense of smell, and without much demand from that particular sense it may be that it continues to grow weaker.

Very likely, I think male and female brains will evolve much more similar functionality.

There is probably some change to be expected in the skull and skin color.

Perhaps there can be some improvement on the human eyes. I wear glasses for the same reason many others where glasses: I am very near-sighted. I'm not sure where eye-evolution will lead; there is much room for improvement, at the same time there is little pressure to improve with the application of technology to fix problems.

I think there is plenty of evolutionary change ahead in store for humans.

[ST88]

But, will there ever be something else that humans will evolve into? Or has evolution stopped with humans?

Not at all.

The crucial ingredient for evolution is reproduction. The great leap made with humans in terms of evolutionary behavior is the selection of reproductive partners. Unlike what we may call "animals", humans select partners based on many different variables other than appearances. Although appearance may play a role, other traits, such as degree of intelligence, charisma, charm, etc. also have their place, in many cases a larger place. And these traits are largely independent of appearance. Because of this, we can infer that early humans valued these characteristics in the same way that, say, the bowerbird favors partners who use blue objects in their nests.

There is very little support for a complete disappearance of the little toe, for example, simply because it confers no advantage in a reproductive sense. We are not going to reproductively segregate ourselves into the four-toed's and the five-toed's -- there will be (and has been) constant mixing of these two races. Human evolution, therefore, will likely not be of a physical nature of this type.

Physical traits like this do not "disappear" in an evolutionary sense simply because the resulting organism no longer needs them. They disappear because they confer a disadvantage to those individuals who have them.

[RealLifeProduct]

I believe evolution is happening faster then ever before and tomorrow faster then today.

Some have said it has slowed because of no different environmental pressures, combined with isolation. I don't believe this i think we are changing are environment and, isolating groups from are reproductive
choices. Let take obesity ie. we have changed are diet just with in the last 50 years and some of us are not takeing to it so well and it maybe do to genetics. Maybe the speed of this is increasing because large people reproduce more often with larger people then mixing with the rest of the gene pool.

The reason I say faster tomorrow then today is I believe in the future we will be able to create designer genes.

[ST88]

Maybe the speed of this is increasing because large people reproduce more often with larger people then mixing with the rest of the gene pool.

The reason for the increasing size of humans within the last hundred years has to do with our newfound knowledge of nutrition. Our ancestors had dramatically poorer diets than we do now and did not know about the fetal effects of alcohol, tobacco, parsley oil, and the like. A number of interesting effects have come about because of diet changes in this time, such as the types of diseases and conditions we are more susceptible to and the recent advent of some others, like peanut allergies.

The reason I say faster tomorrow then today is I believe in the future we will be able to create designer genes.

This is a very interesting field of evolutionary study. It offers us the chance to see selective evolution in action. But, leaving aside the moral and ethical aspects of designer genes, it would be interesting to see if the deliberate mutations of one generation make it into the next generation and the next. I don't exactly know how it would work, but the process of meiosis might make it possible for these genes to be passed on in such individuals.

[Emerson]

fried beef sandwich, I don't understand how anyone can claim wisdom teeth are some sort of remnant of our evolution, just like "Vestigial" organs. That's loss of information, not gain, which is the opposite of evolution. I just had all 4 of my impacted wisdom teeth removed (in case you were wondering ).

Wisdom teeth just show that our jaws used to be bigger, which fits perfectly with what the Creation model teaches. Darwinian evolution says we are getting bigger and smarter and stronger, but this shows we're getting smaller.

[bernee51]

Darwinian evolution says we are getting bigger and smarter and stronger, but this shows we're getting smaller.

I'd be real interested to see a source for this particular piece of information.

[Emerson]

You don't need a source. Look at how we have "evolved" so far. From non-living matter to single celled organisms, and then we got bigger and smarter and stronger. Common sense sometimes works just as well as science.

[bernee51]

You don't need a source. Look at how we have "evolved" so far. From non-living matter to single celled organisms, and then we got bigger and smarter and stronger. Common sense sometimes works just as well as science.

In the post to which I was responding you were referring to humans not, as you now claim, "from non-living matter to single celled organisms..."

bigger and stonger does not necessarily equate with more evolved...ever watched World Championship Wrestling?

Can you provide support of your claim that "Darwinian evolution says we are getting bigger and smarter and stronger...".

If you are interested to see how mistaken you are have a look here