Human species "may split in two"

[Ironworker]

Science fiction. Or more accurately evolutionary fairy tales. I look all around me and people are still banging each other for every reason under the sun. I've seen no trend that people are getting pickier about mates. Hell if anything people are being far more careless and making worse choices in mates than ever before considering the high levels of divorce. The only way this senerio could play out even in 300,000 years is through genetic manipulation. If the upper class gets to design super babies with not negative traits then it's possible we may be able to engineer a super species but the rest of us will still be regular old homo sapien sapiens and not homo sapien goblinoid like this article suggest. About the only thing close to truth in this article is that race may very well disappear but that's not such a bad thing.

[CuCulain42]

I invite any of you who have lived at sea level most of your lives to come visit Denver. I guarantee you that you'll have trouble breathing for the first few days at least, until you become aclimated. That experience alone should convince most skeptics that climate does make a difference.

 

We' got the better end of that deal, go down to sea level and drink, you can hold more...

[Cadaver]

Ok well when worded that way I can agree, yes it is more likely than FTL but I do not see it being realistic.

Depending on how far we get with nano technology, it could be a breeze.

[Ishil]

Given the stunning rate of progress of biological science, not to mention people's taste for novelty, I reckon in the not-so-distant future humanity will be near-unrecognisable. Some will seek a stereotyped ideal of perfection, but they will have the ability to be whatever they want, in varying degrees of 'humanness'. If we go to other planets we won't change them to suit ourselves, it'll be easier to change ourselves to fit the planet.

 

Ishil

[kristof65]

I invite any of you who have lived at sea level most of your lives to come visit Denver. I guarantee you that you'll have trouble breathing for the first few days at least, until you become aclimated. That experience alone should convince most skeptics that climate does make a difference.

We' got the better end of that deal, go down to sea level and drink, you can hold more...

I did most of my drinking at sea level, thanks to the USN.

 

 

I was thinking about the article and this whole topic a bit more, and one of the things Rodnik said about living on different planets and eventually not being able to tolerate other environments. How long would that actually take? Millions of years? Even in the tens of thousands of years that the human species divided up into the various races and cultures, we can still interbreed. I would think an evolutionary shift in genetics that would diverge us enough to make us incapable of surviving in each other's environments would have to effect our ability to interbreed? That would have to take quite a bit of time too, if it were to occur without genetic manipulation. Then again, maybe not - I'm definately no more than an interested layman on this subject.

[kristof65]

Given the stunning rate of progress of biological science, not to mention people's taste for novelty, I reckon in the not-so-distant future humanity will be near-unrecognisable. Some will seek a stereotyped ideal of perfection, but they will have the ability to be whatever they want, in varying degrees of 'humanness'. If we go to other planets we won't change them to suit ourselves, it'll be easier to change ourselves to fit the planet.

Given the human fascination with 'body modification' and particularly the more social acceptance of it these days, I expect you're right. At some point we'll probably see color-shifting and possibly even shape-shifting tattoos, how much further can fur and claw grafts be behind that? Then will come all sorts of gene manipulation, and the cat will really be out of the bag.

[CuCulain42]

I was thinking about the article and this whole topic a bit more, and one of the things Rodnik said about living on different planets and eventually not being able to tolerate other environments. How long would that actually take? Millions of years? Even in the tens of thousands of years that the human species divided up into the various races and cultures, we can still interbreed. I would think an evolutionary shift in genetics that would diverge us enough to make us incapable of surviving in each other's environments would have to effect our ability to interbreed? That would have to take quite a bit of time too, if it were to occur without genetic manipulation. Then again, maybe not - I'm definately no more than an interested layman on this subject.

 

With genetic engineering speciation within a give genus gould happen quickly. I would imagine that if the changes were not to extensive then interbreeding would be probable. The offsping may or may not be sterile, like mules(yes mules can be fertile it's like 1 in 10000 but still has been recorded) or the offspring may not be able to survive either parent's environment. If we diverge too much I would imagine that we not only would be different species but also different genera as well.

[vejlin]

I was thinking about the article and this whole topic a bit more, and one of the things Rodnik said about living on different planets and eventually not being able to tolerate other environments. How long would that actually take? Millions of years?

 

Well in the extreme we're talking much shorter than that within a persons lifetime. A person living on a low gravity world might not be able to survive on other worlds with higher gravity, simply because his muscles and bones can't support the weight of his body in higher gravity environments. Think about the medical problems facing astronauts and cosmonauts after just relatively short periods in space.

[Spike]

What I found a bit funny was the speculation upon what men and women will find physically desirable 10K years from now. As it is right now, the "ideal" physique varies rather greatly from culture to culture. It's entirely possible that by the time the 20,000 rolls around, guys might think women with moustaches and ample waistlines are the ideal.

 

But this one cracked me up.

 

....dim-witted, ugly, squat goblin-like creatures.

 

SQUEEEEEE I WANT ONE!

[twjolson]

Further proof that degrees accounted to your name has no bearing whatsoever to intelligence. As a rule of thumb, the more detailed someones prediction of the future, the more money you can bet they are wrong. In a thousand years, this will happen, which will cause this, etc. It's retarded. Furthermore, like Spike said, you can't account for tastes in the future. Up until a hundred years ago, maybe more, the slim figured woman was considered unattractive, and large, full figured women where the epitome of beauty. This theorist and the idiot that predicted human robot marriages should be stripped of their degrees and forced to mine dehydrated water, which they are just stupid enough to believe.

[matsumoto]

It's retarded. Furthermore, like Spike said, you can't account for tastes in the future. Up until a hundred years ago, maybe more, the slim figured woman was considered unattractive, and large, full figured women where the epitome of beauty. This theorist and the idiot that predicted human robot marriages should be stripped of their degrees and forced to mine dehydrated water, which they are just stupid enough to believe.

dehydrated water! yes!!! can i bottle it and sell it to them in special vogue containers for 5$ a gallon???

 

like i said, genetic drift more likely than split evolution. hate to say it, but the THEORY of evolution needs at least one other theory to stand up solidly, as with any scientific theory or being with legs...

 

y'know, human genetic modification has an interest of mine for a long time. can i be re-tooled to live longer? can i get fangs, or breathe in shallow water? can i auto-tan in blazing sun and go pasty in arctic environs? beign able to regrow lost fingers like lizards can tails would rock, as would dense muscle and a thicker hide...

 

but all that doesn't come about from screwing into existence...

 

that's eugenics. eugenics doesn't affect humans so much it can create superhumans...the best our good friends the nazi mad scientists would get is "tall, blonde, and has alot of body maintenence required so all that muscle doesn't fall slack..."

 

hardly a superhuman.

(besides, if i wanted to eugenize smart combat bad a$$es i'd go with Southern Africans, Spartans, and Islanders. Maybe add Norse if the Zulu types didn't already have the same traits...then you raise them in hardcore military academies with a wide and advanced curriculum. you can train someone to be smart, that isnt genetic, it's in the childhood and the society....)

[kristof65]

y'know, human genetic modification has an interest of mine for a long time. can i be re-tooled to live longer? can i get fangs, or breathe in shallow water? can i auto-tan in blazing sun and go pasty in arctic environs? beign able to regrow lost fingers like lizards can tails would rock, as would dense muscle and a thicker hide...

I don't know about fangs or auto-tanning, but you can now get Elf ears:

See this thread

[CuCulain42]

Fangs are a can do as well.