Thursday, April 16, 2009

The next step

What do you think is our next stage in our evolutionary process? what evolutionary pressures do we or might we face that could select for certain traits?
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4 comments:

  1. David BrukApril 16, 2009 at 11:08 PM

    I think the most pressing change in our environment will be global warming. With temperatures increasing, all species will need to learn to adapt to the increased temperatures. These adaptations might be behavioral, like animals migrating to the poles in order to escape the heat near the equator, or evolutionary. For instance, humans might develop larger sweat glands to combat the excessive heat. Another adaptation might be the loss of hair, since hair acts to retain warmth.

    Another type of pressure that may become apparent is the increase in antibiotic resistant bacteria. Since humans flush antibiotics and do not take the antibiotics the full prescribed time, new strains of bacteria are found that are highly resistant to normal treatments. Due to this, any mutation in the near future that prevents such bacterial infections will make the human more likely to survive and reproduce, and thus, the mutation will be passed down to future generations. Some of these mutations might cause other less-harmful diseases like what we have seen in the past with Cystic Fibrosis preventing typhoid fever and sickle-cell anemia preventing malaria.

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  2. BenApril 16, 2009 at 11:21 PM

    I honestly believe that the human species is degenerating. First of all, from how we live right now, we can obviously see that we (at least us Americans) face little to no selective pressure. We don't need to fight for our food, so mutations that may inhibit a person's physical fitness won't affect his ability to survive. Chances are, he'll still be able to reproduce, too. From this, I'll go on to say that the way we are reproducing is totally against natural selection. Color-blindness has increased (which should not happen- there is NO selective advantage to being color blind) because we freely reproduce regardless of negative traits.

    And with this in mind, I'll respond to David's arguments. I doubt we'll be able to evolve to global warming. We can easily use technology to cool ourselves so we don't die from increasing temperatues. Thus, heat won't be exerting selective pressure on us. I also doubt that disease will eventually force us to adapt. Diseases like CF have been around before antibiotics, and they can easily mutate to work around whatever we have to fight against disease. And even then, we'll probably come up with some kind of cure anyways.

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  3. Becca AppelbaumApril 16, 2009 at 11:29 PM

    In the last century there has been an overwhelming increase in the amount of factories and usage of cars. Both factories and cars produce carbon emissions. This along with deforestation has caused an increase in CO2 levels. Meaning that humans and other organism are breathing in more carbon dioxide then they have in the past. If this trend continues, Humans and other animals may need to find a way to make more ATP with less oxygen. Another alternative would be to find a way to use carbon dioxide to make ATP or another type of energy all together.

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  4. VissaganApril 17, 2009 at 12:01 AM

    One key point that I wish to make clear is that human evolution takes a VERY, VERY LONG TIME. As a result, it cannot possible keep pace with something occurring now at an intensified rate, such as global warming.

    I believe that the human evolution will lead to the natural absence of the appendix. The appendix is a blind ended tube connected to the cecum near the junction of the small intestine with the large intestine. There is no known function of the appendix, and only causes pain to many individuals when it (the appendix) gets inflamed and infected. There is no known effect of artificial removal of the appendix, only emphasizing the uselessness of the appendix. Therefore, it would seem likely that this unnecessary pouch would be removed by human evolution.

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