Human Species May Split In Two 1000
gEvil (beta) writes "According to an article at the BBC, an evolutionary theorist in London suggests that humanity may split into two sub-species within the next 100,000 years. From the article: 'The descendants of the genetic upper class would be tall, slim, healthy, attractive, intelligent, and creative and a far cry from the "underclass" humans who would have evolved into dim-witted, ugly, squat goblin-like creatures.'" No missing link here, we already have the troll-like humans to prove it.
So to be clear... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:So to be clear... (Score:5, Funny)
Yes and the Brits will make revolting sausages out of the Swedes and eat them with bacon and eggs.
On a serious note, .... (Score:5, Insightful)
In the "modern" system in the USA, economics imposes a different sort of evolution. As people become richer, they have fewer children. As people become poorer, they have more children. Those with the wits to become rich essentially become extinct, leaving a nation of teaming poor people.
In short, the socio-economics of free markets kills of the smart people by voluntary extinction.
Re:On a serious note, .... (Score:4, Interesting)
Really, who is this guy?
Re:On a serious note, .... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Reproduction, selectivity, and long results. (Score:4, Interesting)
HMMmmmmmm.... That depends on whether I interpret your reference
to "short people", as meaning "people lacking in height/stature"
or "people lacking intelligence". The first one of those makes it a
TWO variable equation, with associated preferences, and the second one created a ONE variable equasion, with preferences to associate with people of similar status (resulting in divergance/polarazation and fewer "average" people in the middle over time). Well, As-Far-As-I-Know:
If the smart people stop reproducing with the short people,
Then you will just wind up with progressively fewer tall short people.
(providing that those are the ONLY parameters you define)
If on the other hand, the "smart" people DO reproduce, but only with
the "tall" people, then...
You should think harder about it (Score:4, Insightful)
Two, there is evolutionary pressure, caused by partner selection. This is the basis of TFA! Good looking people tend to find good looking partners and make good looking children, ditto for the not-good-looking. I would add to this the element of wealth, I think it's quite important: I grew up in a very rich suburb where my schoolmates were uncommonly pretty. I realized that the people rich enough to live in that neighborhood attracted uncommonly pretty partners. No mystery why, and no surprise that the children turned out pretty. Now when you consider how little class-mixing there is in the US, and how little social mobility there is (that's right, look it up [lse.ac.uk]!) This means that money, and the extra attractiveness it brings, stays in families. Families with money will typically marry pretty people - most likely from other rich/pretty families, but possibly someone from a lower class who happened to look good. This means the upper classes poach the best lookers from below, making themselves even prettier. Because in each generation, the best looking people marry out of their lower class, this leaves the people of lower class with a increasingly uglier partner pool (on average, of course).
As this trend advances, the increasingly pretty rich will find fewer eligible partners among the increasingly ugly lower classes. Now that you have two non-interbreeding groups, each with different selection pressures, it's not hard to imagine a further divergence. It's not a pleasant thing to picture, but it's not really so crazy!
Re:You should think harder about it (Score:5, Interesting)
"Families with money will typically marry pretty people - most likely from other rich/pretty families, but possibly someone from a lower class who happened to look good"
Not entirely accurate. You are leaving out a couple of factors.
First, if you observe more closely you will find that *Men* with money tend to marry beautiful *Women*.
This is becuase the mating preferences of men and women are obviously different. So wealthy men (whether they are ugly or handsome) will poach the best looking women from the not so wealthy classes, leading to them having (on average) better looking children.
However, the good looking man already in the lower class in very unlikely to be picked out of it by a wealthy woman. Infact, what is likely is that he will have more children, by more (lower class) women, than his upper class counter parts. Thereby, increasing the pool of poor but beautiful women to move upwards, and the pool of poor but beautiful men to move sideways.
Second, as much as social mobility may be low, if you think of it in terms of movement of genetic material between classes per generation it's huge.
For example, how many of the people on today's top 500 rich list had rich families just 5 generations ago, or even just 3?
And how many fifth generation decendants of say, the king of England (or any other royalty, or business mogul) are still considered very wealthy? And, on an evolutionary timescale, five generations is quite small.
Wealth tends to be cyclical. A rough approximation of it being - Rich Parent -> Lazy Child -> Poor Parent -> Desperate Child -> Rich Parent
TFA also ignores two other points:
1. The definition of beautiful changes every few decades. In some african countries as recently as ten years ago women used to go to fat camps, where the purpose was to put ON weight not take it off, becuase the rounded body was considered much more healthy/attractive (Not Hungry-looking = Healthy).
However, in the west now, where people are much more likely to die from over-feeding than under nutrition, stick thin is becoming the image of the perfect body (Not Morbidly Obese = Healthy).
2. With the amount of progress being made in the fields of complexion altering makeup and cheap plastic surgery, we will soon be reaching a point where the traits you are marrying into will no longer be genetically transferable. Perhaps that will even lead to a situation (when people can look like anything they want) where looks REALLY don't count and beauty begins to be judged by personality, capability or some other non-physical yardstick.
Basically , whenever anyone tries to predict the future based on the changing fads of today, they usually end up very wrong.
Re:You should think harder about it (Score:4, Insightful)
Look at our politicians.
Look at leaders of industry.
Dubya ain't pretty. And.. Ted Kennedy? Hello?
SOMEONE TELL ME BALLMER IS HOT -- I DARE YOU.
So how about royalty, they've had a few centuries of selective breeding right?
Re:On a serious note, .... (Score:5, Insightful)
Education is not a genetically-passed trait. So while this has interesting implications for societies, it will have little or no effect on species.
Re:On a serious note, .... (Score:5, Interesting)
The rich people are much more selective about the number of children that they have. They are willing and able to invest more into each child that they produce.
The poor have always had many children. For one thing, they don't have the access to birth control that allows the rich and middle classes to have unlimited sex (without barrier-style birth control methods like condoms, crevical caps, and diaphrams) without pregnancies. Two, historically about half of the children of the poor die before productive maturity in mid adult years. And, three, the poor have been indoctrinated by culture and religion to have as many babies as possible.
It has only been in the recent historical era, about the past hundred years, that most of the children that the poor have reach 'productive maturity'. By that I mean not only adulthood, but also get past the self-destructive cultural brainwashing like military 'service', reckless driving, and binge intoxications that kills so many young males.
This present era with so much population growth is directly dependent and resultant from massive amounts of cheap energy, primarily oil. As we pass through Peak Oil, when half of all the oil on Earth has been found, refined, and burned, we will find that it is increasingly difficult to keep the poor people alive and well, regardless of how much they breed. As the oil era passes and the price of oil climbs each year, more and more of the poor sections of the Earth will become like present-day Palestine. That is hopelessly overcrowded; with no resources or solid government; endlessly locked in a civil war that prevents the economic growth needed to sustain its population.
The rich are not engaged in an unforseen policy of extinction, they are enacting an understood but unspoken policy of population sustainablility at lower levels than at the present. It is the poor that are breeding themselves into unsustainable levels. Levels that will inevitably result in a massive 'die-off' in the not-too-distant future.
Re:On a serious note, .... (Score:5, Funny)
For one thing, they don't have the access to birth control that allows the rich and middle classes to have unlimited sex (without barrier-style birth control methods like condoms, crevical caps, and diaphrams) without pregnancies.
What's this unlimited sex you're talking about?
Re:Correction to Last Sentence (Score:5, Insightful)
But I would argue that the only impetus to become rich is poverty. When you have nothing, you have more drive to succede, and liberal capitalism allows that. If you are born rich, or already rich, what drive is there to create anything new? Some people obviously have it, and never are satisfied, but they are the very rare exception. The most innovative ideas come from the ranks of the "poor and stupid" as you call them. Think of the founders of Google, or Andrew Carnegie, or even Jim Carrey. At one point in his life, Jim Carrey lived in a station wagon with his family. Now he makes $20 million+ a movie. If Jim were rich, or even just upper middle class, would the drive been as strong?
I think history proves that the overall condition of society constantly improves, with a setback here and again. There may still be a huge gap between today's rich and poor when it comes to looks, money, talent, education, whatever. But compare today's poor with the poor of a hundred years ago, and things are marginally better (thinking in industrialized countries... Africa is another story). I think the socio-economics of free markets kill off the rich caste, because they become complacent. Is this a bad thing? I think not. Look at the Forbes 400... not a lot of inherited wealth there. When it comes to being rich, ideas and drive count more than beauty and status.
Re:Correction to Last Sentence (Score:4, Insightful)
Poor (Score:5, Informative)
Are you kidding me?
India has seen the end of a caste system and has moved into a knowledge-based economy. Their poor are becoming literate, and taking "our" IT jobs. The prospects for the average Indian are getting better as the days go on.
Ditto for China. The front page article of the Oct. 17 Investor's Business Daily is "Chinese Wage Growth Surging, But Hasn't Fueled Higher Prices." Although the focus of the article is on urban China (where unskilled/semiskilled workers have been seeing wage increases between 5 and 20 percent each year since 2000), it also mentions how efforts to "exploit" rural farmers for labor have also driven up their wages.
Although the "Cultural Revolution" was definitely a setback for the Chinese economy, things have been going wonderfully for them since. Consider that in the 80s, Proctor and Gamble researched expanding into the Chinese shampoo market - only to realize that there wasn't any. The average peasant could only afford a bottle the size you find complimentary with your hotel room; and even then, only once a year, for a special occaision. McDonalds and other fast food places ha da little more success, but mostly with the wealthy and tourists - as in Russia, peasants would make pilgrimages of sorts to a fast-food restaurant that they could only afford to eat at once a year.
Now, the standard of living in China is rising rapidly - people can not only feed themselves, but they have cars and consumer electronics! They have computers and internet - remember that big firewall China has? Their standard of living is rapidly approaching western standards - a far cry from when Mao Zedung encouraged peasants to smelt steel in their backyards.
Re:Poor (Score:5, Insightful)
Education is lifting Indians up, but not Indians in the lowest part of the caste. The middle class is emerging along with the upper class. It's the opposite of what's happening in the US, where the congregational focus of wealth is just becoming more and more concentrated into a very thin sliver of the populous, eroding the middle class and widening the gulf between all classes. However, the US also maintains a caste system but it's based more on personal wealth and education than bloodline. Americans at least have opportunities to get ahead, even if the glass ceiling is dropping lower by the hour for the middle class. Minimum wage hasn't budged in over a decade and congress is holding it down by the throat. In fact, the current US minimum wage, after being adjusted for inflation, is the worst it's been since 1955. $5.15 today is the equivalent of only $3.95 in 1995 -- lower than the $4.25 minimum wage level before the 1996-97 increase.
I know how easy it is to sit back and point fingers and say 'well this country has these problems, they must be doing something wrong', so I provided the bit about the US in contrast to admit that yes, we all have our economic and social issues to deal with. Hope I enlightened someone today.
Re:Poor (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Poor (Score:5, Informative)
It is a highly controversial topic. There is bias in all directions. Certainly, the western media (oddly, the liberals most of all) love to portray India exclusively as a country of beggars and untouchables. It certainly makes them feel secure in their hatred of Indians.
However, there is no doubt that the human development index of India has risen remarkably over the last few decades (certainly a lot more than other countries in the subcontinent, where the poverty situation is worse).
There is an ongoing controversy over poverty statistics and figures made during the nineties, with some economists, banks, sociologists siding with the figures that indicate reduced poverty and others siding with
the "India is a country of beggars and untouchables" polemic.
The world bank's assessment is below:
http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/COUNTRIES
The Indian debate has run parallel to, and is itself a large part of, the wider debate about globalization and poverty. The economic reforms of the early 1990s were followed by rates of economic growth that were high by Indian historical standards. The effects on poverty remain controversial, and the official numbers published by the Government of India,showing a reduction of poverty from 36 percent of the population in 1993 - 94 to 26 percent of the population in 1999 - 00, have been challenged both for allegedly showing too little and too much poverty reduction
Issues over "data and dogma" in a paper published by a Princeton Univ prof and a world bank guy:
http://poverty2.forumone.com/files/15168_deaton_ko zel_2004.pdf [forumone.com]
There has been a consensus on the fact that liberalization has led to a reduction of income poverty. The picture, however, is not so clear if one considers other factors (such as health, education, crime and access to infrastructure). Some have criticozed the stats as too one-dimensional.However, they only criticize, and do not offer any ways to objectively gauge all the criteria for poverty in India, suggesting that they are simply whining.
With the rapid economic growth that India is experiencing, it is likely that a significant fraction of the rural population will continue to migrate toward cities, making the issue of urban poverty more significant in the long run
http://www.csh-delhi.com/events/downloads/Backgrou ndNote67102006.pdf [csh-delhi.com]
Although there is no full consensus on what happened to Indian poverty in the 1990s, it is claimed that the official estimates of poverty reduction are too optimistic, particularly for rural India. This alleged overoptimism was amplified by statistical uncertainty that created space for commentators to argue that poverty had been virtually eliminated in India in the wake of the economic reforms.
On the other side, well-known economits Pravin Visaria have defended the validity of many of the statistics that demonstrated the reduction in overall poverty in India, as well as the declration made by India's Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha that poverty in India has reduced significantly.
He asserts that the state surveys were well designed and supervised and felt that just because they did not appear to fit preconceived notions about poverty in India,they should not be dismissed outright
http://www.india-today.com/itoday/20010319/jairam. shtml [india-today.com]
Also, Nicholas Stern, vi
Re:Poor (Score:5, Informative)
Caste is still alive and kicking in India.
Having said that there are major initiatives to help the suppressed castes to come up in life. Reservations for the most backward castes (classified as scheduled castes) and tribal populations (scheduled tribes) are in vogue for decades in all central and state government employment and higher education institutions.
Many states have gone further and implemented reservations for other categories of backward castes too. There is a raging debate about this issue. There are proposals to extend the reservation concept to the private sector too.
In short, yes, the caste system is still alive as thousands of years of practices are hard to kick in decades. But, there are definite efforts to get rid of the stigma attached to the so called lower castes and help everyone to have a decent life.
Those who live on the pavements are not necessarily of lower caste. They could be migrant farmers from the villages. The caste system operates with all its tragedies in villages, not in big cities.
Caste system ended ? Not so. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Poor (Score:5, Informative)
Maybe officially, but I know a whole lot of people would call bullshit on that.
and has moved into a knowledge-based economy.
Sort of. Aside from a very small minority of extremely intelligent and motivated people who are doing some damn impressive work, most indians don't work in a knowledge based economy. Unless you count reading from a script... And those are the lucky ones. There are still lots of farmers....
Their poor are becoming literate, and taking "our" IT jobs.
Their "poor" are in villages in very remote areas where not even the Army dares to enter because it is controlled by warlords and they get massacred every time they go in (look it up). These are the same places where you hear of village elders who sentence the offender's daughter to be gang raped, wives being burned alive, etc.
Yes, there are a good number of educated Indians, however keep in mind that India also has a lot of people. A whole lot of those people live in some pretty shitty places and don't even have power 24 hours a day.
The prospects for the average Indian are getting better as the days go on.
Maybe, but they still have a ways to go.
Re:Correction to Last Sentence (Score:5, Informative)
I grew up in a poor area, and my family made less than $25k take-home per year, with both my parents working full-time, living in a state with one of the highest COL's in the US. I made it to Harvard on a scholarship by studying so much in HS that I only slept around 4 hours each weekday (and most weekends) from the beginning of my sophomore year up until graduation. People with backgrounds like mine were the vast minority there, and they tended to be far less ambitious than kids born into power.
Given that I went to a high school where over 85% children came from families who were below the poverty level, you would expect them to be the most motivated people in the state. Instead, that school is among the worst in the state by all metrics (from graduation rates and standardized test scores to teen pregnancies).
While poverty can be a strong motivator for a vanishingly small minority, all measurable data indicates that the exact opposite is true for the majority. The poor are far less likely to pursue higher education, more likely to struggle economically throughout the entirety of their lives, and their children are more likely to maintain or drop below their parents' economic status.
When was the last time that you saw news coverage about a millionaire's son being accepted to Harvard? How about a homeless man getting drunk and saying stupid things? Rags-to-riches success stories (e.g., Liz Murray) and lurid pieces on the boorish behavior of the wealthy (e.g., Mel Gibson) are newsworthy because they're exceptional, unlike those two everyday scenarios. Unfortunately, because the exceptions to the norm get a disproportionate amount of media coverage—including in school textbooks—many people tend to get the two terribly confused.
Being poor is, statistically speaking, a massive demotivator, while starting rich has the opposite effect.
The assertion that capitalism must be eliminating the 'rich caste' because the standard of living has been improving assumes a false dichotomy. Even a casual analysis of the economic trends in, say, the US, will show a steadily increasing stratification of society between the rich and everyone else, even as the standard of living has been improving.
The change that capitalism brings is that intelligence becomes the strongest correlation to potential wealth. This actually increases the selection pressure towards divergence of the species along social lines because the social division correlates to a genetically heritable trait and reinforces the tendency for that trait's 'carriers' (for lack of a better term) to select other 'carriers' as mates. In other words, given that, in a western capitalist society:
- People tend to marry people within the same socioeconomic class.
- People tend to marry people with similar educational backgrounds and levels of intelligence.
- Wealthy people tend to be smart.
- Smart people tend to be educated.
- Educated people tend to be relatively wealthy.
You have a perfect recipe for the eventual divergence of a subspecies of smart rich humans.Re:Correction to Last Sentence (Score:4, Insightful)
I find it odd that you're arguing that people have all kinds of opportunities, but admit that "Africa is another story". You do realise that africans that are denied the opportunites that you have are people too, right?
You seem pretty quick to gloss over this, but its a major point. Most of the time speciation occurs when there is a geographic isolation. What you have to do to survive, reproduce, and care for your young is a hell of a lot different in Africa than it is in an affluent western city. Add in the geographic isolation and it will also be very rare for a person from the west to breed with a person in Africa.
We really are at a cross roads now. We can accept that with globalisation we are required to share wealth and encourage education around the world (a rising tide raises all boats). Or we can build higher walls so we can protect our hoarded wealth from people in other nations ("those mexicans are trying to take our jobs" or "those ragheads are terrorists"). It seems that right now the powers that be are working hard to build walls and restrict travel all without giving up the cheap labour available to them.
Re:On a serious note, .... (Score:5, Insightful)
Not wanting to contradict you there friend, but no, it isn't a shame that the World doesn't equal the USA. The US has it's plus points (for example, I love your steak and oversized portions) but it sure as hell ain't perfect.
It's a nice place to visit but I wouldn't want to live there.
Re:So to be clear... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:whoever wrote the article is gay. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:whoever wrote the article is gay. (Score:4, Funny)
Speak for yourself, shorty.
Re:So to be clear... (Score:5, Insightful)
Read Aldus Huxley's Brave New World
Re:So to be clear... (Score:5, Informative)
Time Machine by HG Wells, anyone?
I'm confused... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:So to be clear... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:So to be clear... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:So to be clear... (Score:5, Informative)
There's this book called The Bible (author; disputed, age; roughly 2500 years?) that tells the story of an ancient nomadic race of goat-herders called the Hebrews. One of their laws was to discourage marriage outside their own race. Only the Hebrews were the Creator's favored race, and the rest were damned.
Re:So to be clear... (Score:4, Insightful)
Wrong on all accounts. The Hebrews didn't exactly believe themselves to be favoured. They believed that they were God's tool to bring salvation to all of humanity. They also didn't believe that this made them any better than the rest of humanity (but it did bring a lot of punishment from God for not being). Sometimes it worked, Jonah, who wasn't exactly a role model, but perhaps more of a warning example, brought God's message to the citizens of Nineve, who turned away from their wicked ways and were saved. And so on.
And, as you probably know, marriage between prominent Hebrews and outsiders weren't exactly rare. Even moabite (supposedly the worst people Israel knew of) married into Israel. Jacob married Arameans, Josef an Egyptian. The wife of Moses is widely held to have been a black women (a cushite). And Boaz' wife Ruth is the role model of all women who marry into the Jewish people today. (The list is much longer, and I seem to remember that it didn't always work out well, but people were people even in biblic times.)
And finally, the Hebrews weren't a race of goat-herders. They did a lot of things (including herding goats, of course)!
Re:So to be clear... (Score:5, Funny)
I, for one, welcome our futuristic tall, slim, attractive, intelligent and creative sauna loving meatball munching copyright infringing swashbuckling pirate blonde overlords. May death come quickly to their enemies. Yaaaaar!
Sauna-loving Swedes? (Score:4, Informative)
I just HAD to clarify this, since I love sauna and I am Finnish. And I am not even sure swedes love their bastu.
Other than that, yaaar!
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
From the Oh-Snap! Dept.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Nah, the top half will be the Mac users. The other half will be.. you know.
Re:So to be clear... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:So to be clear... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:So to be clear... (Score:5, Funny)
after all...you are who you eat...
Re:So to be clear... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:So to be clear... (Score:4, Funny)
In the USA, 65% of the population have prominent breasts. The only problem is, only 50% of the population is female.
Solomon
Confounding factors (Score:5, Insightful)
In all seriousness though, there is nothing new here as this certainly plays off any number of sci-fi subjects going back to the late 1800s and early 1900s. People have been obsessed with this sort of thing for years and in fact, was the basis of racial profiling, discrimination, murder and genocide by the Nazis in the 1930s through eugenics.
The funny thing though is that even though many folks are obsessed with image and "beauty", people will choose mates for a variety of different reasons, that sometimes boggle the mind in their complexity or pathology and as long as you have people that are..... less than attractive with large amounts of financial reserves, you will always have confounds in the system. Other confounds are simply human relationships. For instance, my wife and I decided to date and then marry only after we had been good friends for some period of time. The fact that she is physically attractive [utah.edu] was only incidental which brings up a whole other category of people who meet and then fall in love over the Internet without ever having met in person.
Oh, and speaking of confounds, the increasing use of plastic surgery among those that 1) have real reason to use it (true disfigurement) and 2) are just vain enough to want it (lips, cheeks, chins, breasts) will have an effect on this as well, leading to a whole new aspect of relationships. What is false advertising when it comes to body modification? Breasts are pretty easy to detect, but what about that nose which might have been bobbed? Straightened? What about those cheekbones? Teeth? All of these mods and others will confound any selection pressure and likely will increase in their statistical impact the more important "beauty" becomes to societies.
But hey, you know..... The Clone Wars will take care of all of this sort of nonsense..... or will it be Skynet?
Re:Confounding factors (Score:5, Interesting)
Lest people think that Eugenics could only happened under the Nazis, various mental health places in America and other countries were practicing forms of it until the 1960-70s with practices like sterilizing the mentally handicapped:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics#Eugenics_an
"Despite the changed postwar attitude towards eugenics in the U.S. and some European countries, a few nations, notably, Canada and Sweden, maintained large-scale eugenics programs, including forced sterilization of mentally handicapped individuals, as well as other practices, until the 1970s. In the United States, sterilizations capped off in the 1960s, though the eugenics movement had largely lost most popular and political support by the end of the 1930s.[27]"
If you ever watched "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest", there seems to have been other practices (Lobotomy) that lived until recently as well that seem barbaric today....
Bush Family Trees (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Bush Family Trees (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Bush Family Trees (Score:5, Funny)
"I...am your father's...father's...law partner's...and home state's...and boss's...ad hominem."
"So what does that make us?"
"Absolutely nothing. Which is what your argument means!"
Re:Did you read the article you linked to? (Score:5, Interesting)
"The central charge against Prescott Bush has a basis in fact. In 1942, under the Trading With the Enemy Act, the U.S. government seized several companies in which he had an interest."
Bush funding Thyssen's 1920s Nazis wasn't an accident - not when the Nazis were working on the same fascist and racist program as Bush. After the US was at war with the Nazis, after the Nazis had taken over most of Europe and their Japanese allies the other half of the planet, there was no pleading ignorance of what their earlier clients had become.
There is no benefit of the doubt left for these people. They are thugs.
Stereotypical Predictions from Dr. Curry ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Men: "... bigger penises"
Women: "... pert breasts" (and presumably larger/fuller too)
I gotta wonder how valid this "research" truly is - sounds like something Dr. Frankenstein or Homer Simpson [komar.org] would have written - D'OH!
Well done ScuttleMonkey with the "Missing Link" addition.
Re:Stereotypical Predictions from Dr. Curry ... (Score:5, Funny)
Boy, he really hasn't studied human beings enough, has he? First he expects smart people to be beautiful (or the converse) and now he expects large boobs to be pert?
Re:Stereotypical Predictions from Dr. Curry ... (Score:5, Funny)
Hush up, you. They may have taken away our dreams of flying cars and houses on the Moon, but breasts that are both large and pert is a future worth fighting for!
Re:Stereotypical Predictions from Dr. Curry ... (Score:4, Interesting)
Now, if the tall slender people are more likely to mate, and keep the refuse out, then perhaps a subspecies will develop. OTOH, given that slenderness can be as much a function of surgery as genetics, it might seen a bit far fetched that a master race will develop.
In any case, it is unclear what the benefit of increasingly tall and frail frames might be. OTOH, it is clear that a tall frail frame has quite a few evolutionary drawbacks, often requiring much more care than a stocky frame.
As far as the timeline is concerned, the 100,000 year number can be found just be extrapolating the geologic record. About 400,000 years ago the first Homo Sapien appeared. About 200,000 years later, the Homo Sapien N appeared. About 100,000 years later, the Homo Sapein S, or us, appeared and apparently wiped out our cousins to become the dominant species. Hominid type have been around for maybe 5 million years, and have had varying degrees of success. Perhaps we have another 100,000 years and the Homo Sapian will be replaced with another Hominid. Certainly the the optomistic view is that another Homo Sapien subspecies will appear, wipe us out, and carry on the Sapien branch.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Sure, the Eloi are better looking (Score:4, Funny)
The problem with this is (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The problem with this is (Score:5, Insightful)
I think we are more likely to end up with intelligent goblins and beautiful brainless fairies, if there will only be two groups.
Re:The problem with this is (Score:5, Funny)
In order to dissuade you from this dellusion, I direct your attention to my dearest of college discoveries: Sexy art chicks.
Good timing... (Score:5, Funny)
Hey!! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Hey!! (Score:4, Funny)
There's no point being precious about it.
Stats? (Score:5, Funny)
wait, that sounds familiar.. (Score:5, Funny)
Fox (Score:5, Funny)
(You can't call it a troll if I don't say which one becomes the upper class
Re:Fox (Score:5, Funny)
Sure I can! I'm libertarian, you insensitive clod!
Morlocks and Eloi, anyone? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Morlocks and Eloi, anyone? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Morlocks and Eloi, anyone? (Score:4, Informative)
and the course work offered at the London School of Economics: here [lse.ac.uk]
He is apparently a researcher for the Evolutionary Moral Psychology Group [empg.org] at LSE. The group doesn't seem too keen on actual biology or evolutionary research, just extrapolating biological theory into philosophical concepts so his prediction should be taken with a rather large grain of salt.
Pets? Similar to gadgets? (Score:3, Insightful)
This ignores history (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This ignores history (Score:5, Insightful)
Hmmmm... soma (Score:3, Insightful)
The summary mentions Alphas and Epsilons, but glosses over the transitional Betas, Gammas and Deltas.
Umm... (Score:5, Funny)
Troll-like humans? (Score:3, Funny)
Come on... high five! Anybody?
Home Run Time (Score:3, Funny)
From the article: 'The descendants of the genetic upper class would be tall, slim, healthy, attractive, intelligent, and creative and a far cry from the "underclass" humans who would have evolved into dim-witted, ugly, squat goblin-like creatures.
Talk about a setup. I predict 90% of the comments on this article will be modded funny (regardless of whether they actually are).
if i recall my "time machine" properly (Score:5, Informative)
but why anyone would seek sustenance by eating a bag of antlers like lindsay lohan is beyond me. utter science fiction, on that point alone
100000 years?? humans?!? (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course, we all know that the cockroaches will rule by then..
I, for one, welcome them..
tag: dumb. (Score:4, Interesting)
Trollin' trollin' trollin' keep those Morlocks trollin'...
Rubbish (Score:5, Insightful)
It assumes that rich people will stop having sex with poor people. Anybody see any logic flaws here?
This is based on *what*? (Score:5, Insightful)
No one alive today knows what the next 100,000 years hold for humanity. No one. It's just too complex a subject and too long a time period to make any reasonable predictions about. Heck, no one even knows what the next 10 or 100 years hold, let alone 100,000.
This is just a typical sensationalistic "news" story designed to attract eyeballs. It's not based in science or reality. You can make up your own long-term predictions with just as much authority.
Contraception (Score:5, Funny)
Wait....
A Warning that Must be Heeded (Score:5, Funny)
Yet another dire consequence of too much time playing MMORPG's. As if the recent South Park wasn't warning enough.
eLoi Dreams (Score:5, Insightful)
Humans have been dependent on "technology" to reproduce for many thousands of generations. Tech is freeing us ever more from any selection criteria except infectious disease (just more unevenly). Current tech trends make genetics ever less important to using tech, which further decouples it from evolutionary mechanics.
Curry just wants smooth-skinned women with big eyes and "pert" breasts, who he thinks will prefer "graceful" nerds like him to the exclusion of the "robust" people who like tech less. So what? So he thinks HG Wells' The Time Machine [gutenberg.org] is a prediction of our future more than a social satire on Wells' Victorian classist society. He should stick to hack SF rehashes, and leave the genetics to people who are realistic enough to actually get laid.
He is 1/2 write (Score:4, Interesting)
Humans will evolve to live in the sea, and with the pressure and gravity difference of other worlds. We will adapt and evolve as our environments dictate, and if technology eventually permits we will actually rewrite our own genetic code to suit our whims.
Wasn't this... (Score:5, Funny)
And IIRC, some of them (her) wasn't ugly at all!
Besides, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Each new race might find themselves quite attractive.
(Slashdot Rule #17: Any post mentioning Star Trek the original series is to automatically be modded Insightful.)
I think there will be 10 sub-species (Score:5, Funny)
*ahem*
Anyway, aren't there already 2... males and females... might as well be completely different species sometimes
Or, to take the controversial line, perhaps the two will be natives and immigrants
BBC News is going to hell. (Score:4, Insightful)
But in the nearer future, humans will evolve in 1,000 years into giants between 6ft and 7ft tall, he predicts, while life-spans will have extended to 120 years, Dr Curry claims.
Well, first of all, in 1000 years, humans won't evolve to be a foot taller. Even if we were to evolve to those average heights, it'd take a lot longer than 1000 years. I would think anyone knowledgeable about evolution and genetic would know that. Second of all, 120 years? Shit, in the next 1000 years, if the past 100 have been any indication, we'll either have wiped ourselves out, or we'll have virtually unlimited lifespans because of medical advances. Natural lifespan will be completely irrelevant.
Finally, his entire theory hinges on an upper and lower class being maintained and still existing 1000 years from now. I'm not saying 1000 years from now there won't be classes, but look who was in power 1000 years ago. You think their descendents are still in power?
This guy's living in a fantasy world and for the BBC to publish this as anything but fiction is simply wreckless.
If Darwin is anything to shout about... (Score:4, Funny)
I like Chinese, yes I like Chinese.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:It's already happening (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:It's already happening (Score:5, Insightful)
That's not evolution - that's steroids.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It's already happening (Score:4, Insightful)
The problems in Africa aren't our fault. We send plenty of aid, but it ends up lining the pockets of Robert Mugabe and his ilk more than the people who need it. It's not a racial issue; it's a cultural issue.
Re:It's already happening (Score:4, Interesting)
So it's clear to me that not only am I willing to let Caucasians starve to death, I'm willing to let my figurative and perhaps indeed even literal ( I live in Manhattan ) *neighbors* starve to death, regardless of their color.
Re:It's already happening (Score:4, Interesting)
Let's look at the facts.
When does a species begin to diverge? The answer is when separate populations of that species exist in different enviornments for a long enough period, typically hundreds of thousands of years. One gets two seperate species at the point where individuals from the disparate populations are no longer able to mate to produce fertile offsping. Clearly, dispite over 50,000 years of separation between some human groups, this has not occurred.
To be sure, there are regional difference in human populations. Our species, like any other, will adapt over time to the enviornment in its locality. As long as human populations remain separated in different enviornments, yes, we can eventually expcet to see divergence into seperate species.
Now, lets consider how seperated human populations are today. I can buy an airline ticket to take me to the other side of the globe for less than a months wages. In prior times, a months wage would barely have gotten me into the next country. With improved communications, separate populations of humans have more incentive, more oppertunity, and more motive to communicate, and ultimately interbreed with one another. In fact, such are the benefits of this increased communication, that human communities who choose to isolate themselves are far more likely to become extinct than diverge.
Once one follows the basic tenants to evolutionary theory, the future of humanity is writ clear. We are all destined to intermingle into one diverse population, with no real "racial" or "ethic" groups. The gene pool will be larger, healthier and disease resistant than our current homogenous populations, which are based more on skin colour than anything else. Incidently, most people in the future will have more or less the same skin tone, whos tint will depend on how degredated the ozone layer becomes.
This is so obvious and inevitable, it's barely worth mentioning. However, it of course involves something quite a lot of rich white folks do not approve of, that is people marrying outside their race. Hence they moan on again and again about "purity" of blood, even when we know that people who's parents are from different races are on average healthier, smarter and more attractive.
So give the eugenists the finger and do your future offspring a favour. Marry someone outside your "race", if there is such a thing,
Re:It's already happening (Score:5, Interesting)
That is mostly due to better chemistry, primarily the use of steroids, not genetics. The benefits of steroids aren't propagated through reproduction. Better diet has also led to both taller, healthier, athletic people and overweight, unhealthy people. Abundant cheap, subsidized, high fructose corn syrup alone is creating millions of overweight diabetic Americans.
I doubt you will ever see dramatic genetic changes over the space of two generations especially when mating choices are fairly random in modern society. Slavery did produce dramatic physical improvement in the gene pool in American blacks but it was over the course of a number of generations, with brutal breeding constraints enforced by slave owners coupled with selectively in the harvesting of slaves from Africa by slavers.
An interesting paradox that will work against this proposed genetic "upper class" is the fact that there is a pronounced trend for highly educated, affluent, beautiful people to reproduce in relatively low numbers while the uneducated and poverty stricken are usually reproducing at a dramatically higher rate in this world. Now maybe the "upper class" can preserve well protected islands of affluence where they dominate and survive, but they could just as easily be swept under when someday the underclass figure out that the world order is concentrating the world's wealth and well being in the hands of a tiny often undeserving minority while the rest of the world lives in grinding misery. Maybe the "upper class" can hold power though economic, political, technological and military means but I wouldn't count on it.
To be honest I really don't expect the human race to survive in tact another thousand years, let alone a hundred thousand years. A few basic factors working against us:
- Our inability to control our population growth, religions in particular pour fuel on this fire by trying to maximize the growth of their flock by obstructing birth control
- Our dominant economic system, capitalism, simply isn't sustainable because its predicated on maximizing growth which is devastating our finite habitat and again its concentrating ever more wealth in ever fewer hands and that probably isn't sustainable, before there is revolt.
- Our technological advances are dramatically outstripping our wisdom in applying and controlling them. Biological manipulation and weapons alone are a grave threat to survival of our species, along with nuclear proliferation.
Another factor that works against the creation of a genetic upper class is that people raised in affluence and without adversity often end up being complete losers. People who succeed in the face of adversity and serious obstacles are much stronger people than those raised with a silver spoon in their mouths. You need to look no further than America's two biggest dynasties the Kennedy's and the Bush's to see the deficiencies that develop in generations raised on a silver spoon.
A thousand years out I imagine we will have rendered most species on the planet extinct including our own, through cataclysmic climate change and decimation of land and oceans alike in a vain attempt to feed billions more people. It took millions of years to sequester carbon dioxide in the ground and cool our climate, and we are going to unleash it all in the space of a couple hundred years and the results will be cataclysmic. It took hundreds of millions of years for earth to develop its diversity and abundance of life forms and again in hundreds of years we will have decimated all of them.
I wouldn't mind if the human race took itself out, but its unfortunate its going to take out the rest of the planet thanks to our rampant hubris and avarice.
Generally, yes. (Score:5, Interesting)
Also, athletic bodies are often damaged or disfigured with massive hormone imbalances and other severe (and occasionally fatal) problems. Gymnasts, for example, do not mature correctly and often suffer from muscle and bone disorders. Body builders, weight-lifters, etc, can disfigure their hearts - I would not expect life-expectency to be nearly so high. Rugby players - well, I can see them evolving into a whole new species that has less to do with class and more to do with causing sheer terror when barreling down the playing field. Soccer players can suffer damage to hearing or their pre-frontal lobes, from a mixture of heading and smashing into the ground at high speed. It's usually not lethal, but if you look at the various team managers for the England squad, it's clearly harmful to thought processes.
Re:It's already happening (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Why just two? (Score:5, Insightful)
Troll 1: Hey Biff, I just banged a Homo Tallenperty
Troll 2: Unga bunga
Seems like this would be repeated on both sides until we'd all be back to our mildly ghoulish yet mildly attractive selves of today.
Re:Attractiveness, lions and tigers, oh my! (Score:4, Insightful)
Bugger. I hit the submit button by mistake instead of preview.
Sigh. Humans are primarily K-selection strategy (fewer children, greater parental investment) based, not r-selection based (many offspring, little parental involvement).
To continue, a lot of the pseudo eugenics crowd [wikipedia.org] likes to glom on to the rich vs. poor and quantity of children concept, and play the race card in new and interesting ways. Yes, the poor do usually have more children. They also experience greater childhood mortality, lack of access to birth control and host of other reasons why they have more children than the wealthier classes. Go talk to a sociologist for greater insight into this problem. The rich generally maximize the K factor, in terms of investing in their offspring (this should come as no surprise). If we were to roll back the clock to before modern medicine, you would find the rich would try to have as many children as they could afford, just to counter childhood mortality and other factors which contribute to premature death.
If you must memorize one thing how genetics works, here it is: tendency towards the mean. The average IQ is 100. The average height is approximately 178 cm for males in the USA. The average level of physical attractiveness is probably staring back at you when you look in the mirror. Why? Because these are the best, default values that nature has selected for over millions of years. Pretty much everything genetic can be put on a bell curve. The interaction of genes does not guarantee that super-tall, super-intelligent, earthshatteringly-attractive couples will produce the same. Chances are, they will produce an child with average intelligence, average height and average looks more often than not. Until we have genetic engineering to custom fab our children, Mother Nature is the one driving the car.