technological advances and human evolution

[waitasec]

i'm not sure where this thread belongs, so please feel free to move it...

what does anyone think about our technological advances as being a part of human evolution...any interesting studies being done?

 

[Skwim]

I can't think of any changes in us that were wrought by technology, and I seriously doubt there are any. The only field where I can see this happening at all is in medicine, where we would become immune or more susceptible to something because of the drugs (through vaccinations and such.) we may get. But even there I see nothing.

 

[Riverwolf]

I'm with Skwim. Medical technology would be the only field I can think of where there would be any lasting biological changes in us. Otherwise, we're just using the same mental skills we had when we first popped up.

 

[waitasec]

i wonder about the foods we eat and how this computer age is changing our lives..

we are facing an epidemic of type 2 diabetes and obesity. our children are going to have shorter lives than we will...
computer games and social networks introduce our children to a more isolated existence...which, i think, will affect us all in the future...

or is this just me...

 

[PolyHedral]

Technology is invisible on the timescale involved in evolution.

 

[Riverwolf]

i wonder about the foods we eat and how this computer age is changing our lives..

we are facing an epidemic of type 2 diabetes and obesity. our children are going to have shorter lives than we will...
computer games and social networks introduce our children to a more isolated existence...which, i think, will affect us all in the future...

or is this just me...

That's social, not biological. We're naturally social people, and social networks still allow us to be that, albeit in a more indirect way. (And even then, most people seem to prefer direct interaction to indirect.) Computer games have been around for at least 30 years, and I imagine the only ones who are so addicted to them that it negatively affects their social lives are people like myself who weren't all that social to begin with. (Though I am slowly getting my own addiction under control.) I've worked with kids in the past, not even a year ago, and they're social lives aren't any different than they were when I was that age, before the internet was as addicting and all-encompassing as it is now.

Point is, those won't affect our biological makeup or our social tendencies anytime soon.

 

[lunamoth]

Are We Still Evolving? NOVA | Are We Still Evolving?

 

[Noaidi]

Genetic engineering of humans, if on a large scale, will have consequences for our subsequent evolution.

 

[lunamoth]

Genetic engineering of humans, if on a large scale, will have consequences for our subsequent evolution.

I can't see any way, except for possible space colonization, that the human population could be split in a way leading to evolution into two new or different species. And a very long time would need to pass before we could say a future hominid evolving from our line is actually a new species from Homo sapiens (it's already been what, a million plus years?).

That our adaptability now relies so heavily on technology suggests to the pessimist in me that we do not have enough variability in our genes to adapt to a drastic/rapid change in environment.

 

[Noaidi]

I can't see any way, except for possible space colonization, that the human population could be split in a way leading to evolution into two new or different species. And a very long time would need to pass before we could say a future hominid evolving from our line is actually a new species from Homo sapiens (it's already been what, a million plus years?).

I see your point, but I wasn't necessarily referring to speciation within humans - just that the insertion of novel (or not even human) genes into our genome could change our evolution.

 

[lunamoth]

I see your point, but I wasn't necessarily referring to speciation within humans - just that the insertion of novel (or not even human) genes into our genome could change our evolution.

IMO the current obstacles are not technological, but our very limited understanding of how the products of all of our genes interact to create 'us.'

 

[Penumbra]

i'm not sure where this thread belongs, so please feel free to move it...

what does anyone think about our technological advances as being a part of human evolution...any interesting studies being done?

Technological advances change our surroundings and interactions, and these in turn can affect what qualities are best for breeding.

Our physical body, what attracts us, our social skills, and basically everything, is evolved for survival. If the game changes, we can change too.

Technology will have to be around for a long time, though..

 

[Noaidi]

Our physical body, what attracts us, our social skills, and basically everything, is evolved for survival. If the game changes, we can change too.

True. Technology has an influence on our behaviours, which are as evolved as our physical traits.

 

[Riverwolf]

Are We Still Evolving?http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/evolution/are-we-still-evolving.html

Oh, yes. But I don't think there have been many significant changes in our overall makeup since we first popped up.

 

[Riverwolf]

I can't see any way, except for possible space colonization, that the human population could be split in a way leading to evolution into two new or different species. And a very long time would need to pass before we could say a future hominid evolving from our line is actually a new species from Homo sapiens (it's already been what, a million plus years?).

Homo sapien sapiens have been around for about 40,000 years, actually.

 

[ellenjanuary]

I'm a believer! Ain't nothing happening that ain't evolution.

 

[waitasec]

i just found this on CNN
Are we taking evolution into our own hands? - CNN.com

thoughts?

 

[Noaidi]

The development of stone tools coupled with the later use of fire (can the use of fire be classed as a technology? I don’t know), would have made food easier to prepare. Eating and digesting raw food requires more metabolic energy than that for cooked food. The savings on energy through digesting cooked food could be utilised in other ways, such as fuelling an energy-guzzling brain (our brain uses approx 20% of our energy intake).

Softer, more digestible cooked food could have resulted in the continuation of the already-present hominid trend of reduction in both tooth size and the muscles involved in chewing - again freeing up energy for other biological needs. Consider the space devoted to masticatory muscle attachment on the skulls of other primates, such as the sagittal crest of gorillas, and compare that to the relatively small space devoted to similar muscles in modern humans. Could tool technology and cooking fires have been factors in our species’ brain expansion and evolution?

 

[Muffled]

Genetic engineering of humans, if on a large scale, will have consequences for our subsequent evolution.

Is that really evolution or intelligent design?

 

[Muffled]

Technological advances change our surroundings and interactions, and these in turn can affect what qualities are best for breeding.

Our physical body, what attracts us, our social skills, and basically everything, is evolved for survival. If the game changes, we can change too.

Technology will have to be around for a long time, though..

I remember a sperm bank devoted to gathering from men who were highly intelligent. The hope was that women availing themselves of that service would have extraordinary children. However I have never heard whether it was successful or not.