» The Future of Man - Long Views: The Long Now Blog

The Future of Man

December 23rd, 02008 by Alexander Rose - Twitter: @zander

Scientific American has a nice piece on how humans may still be evolving over the next millennium. Since we can now adapt our environment to ourselves, we often assume that evolution has basically ended. However the article points out:

“But DNA techniques, which probe genomes both present and past, have unleashed a revolution in studying evolution; they tell a different story. Not only has Homo sapiens been doing some major genetic reshuffling since our species formed, but the rate of human evolution may, if anything, have increased. In common with other organisms, we underwent the most dramatic changes to our body shape when our species first appeared, but we continue to show genetically induced changes to our physiology and perhaps to our behavior as well. “

We just have to keep breeding ourselves smarter and hopefully we will be able to solve the challenges in the next 1000 years… Happy holidays all.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 23rd, 02008 at 8:45 am and is filed under Long Term Thinking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Yewtree

I agree with K Garrity Fox: eugenics is not the answer; improving living conditions, life chances, and education for everyone IS.

Of the seven children born to Johann Beethoven, only second-born Ludwig and two younger brothers survived infancy. On this basis, one might advise the mother not to have any children. Yet Ludwig van Beethoven was a genius.
Steven Earl Salmony

Keep going, Alexander. Very best wishes for 2009.

Thanks for all you are doing to protect the environs from wanton, irreversible degradation and global biodiversity from massive extirpation; to preserve Earth's resources from relentless dissipation and the future of our children from reckless endangerment; to save "the pale blue dot" from the ravages of unbridled global overproduction, overconsumption and overpopulation activities of the human species in these early years of Century XXI.