Human Species May Split (old article I ran across recently)

[Storebrand]

Very old article about the possibility of the human species splitting into two subspecies.  

BBC released this article  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/6057734.stm

Humanity may split into two sub-species in 100,000 years' time as predicted by HG Wells, an expert has said.
Evolutionary theorist Oliver Curry of the London School of Economics expects a genetic upper class and a dim-witted underclass to emerge.

[The Johnny]

Quoting the first paragraph or explaining further would be nice.

[The Johnny]

BTW, humanity will be lucky if it even makes it to year 3000.

[Kai]

Old article is old. Cock plus Repost.

[Requia ☣]

Holy shit this is hilarious.

Lets do this piece by piece.

The human race would peak in the year 3000, he said - before a decline due to dependence on technology.

How the fuck could you possibly know that?  I can't even tell you what the world will look like in 100 years, our environment may shift in truly radical ways in the next 50 years, changes in climate technology, laws about what food is considered 'safe'.  We simply have no way of knowing what the world will look like in 50 years, let alone 900, this is really all the debunking we need to do, since without knowing the inpput you can't predict the output.  But I feel like really tearing this apart right now.

People would become choosier about their sexual partners, causing humanity to divide into sub-species, he added.

That would lead to lack of reproduction on the part of the rejected mates, not division of species.  For that to happen the second group also needs to reject the first and prefer its own, the scenario described leads to the rejected pursuing the more desirable partners.  

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.

the problem here is there's no real correlation with attractiveness and intelligence.  In fact, I can't be arsed to find the exact study right now, but fat adults are actually slightly smarter, so the correlation is negative.  You'd need two stages of separation, one to select for intelligence, and a second to select for attractiveness.  If both are selected for at the same time then ugly smart people and pretty stupid people both get to reproduce.

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.

I can kindof see this, the age of adulthood has been pushed back, which means adults who stay healthy longer have an advantage in raising kids and helping with grandkids.  But only in the first world,  And you have to assume that the first world will stay where it is for 1000 years straight.  I somehow doubt we can keep it up that long.  The tall thing is possible, due to more food being available, but height is hardly a survival advantage, and desire for taller partners comes and goes.

Physical appearance, driven by indicators of health, youth and fertility, will improve, he says, while men will exhibit symmetrical facial features, look athletic, and have squarer jaws, deeper voices and bigger penises.

The trend has been by and large *away* from squarer jaws.  That's an appearance characteristic based heavily on environment, all the softer food we eat growing up these days means large square jaws are less likely to develop (in fact, the jaw has shrunk so much that we have the whole wisdom teeth problem).

Also, believe it or not, not all women want bigger penises.  i doubt its even the majority.

Women, on the other hand, will develop lighter, smooth, hairless skin, large clear eyes, pert breasts, glossy hair, and even features, he adds. Racial differences will be ironed out by interbreeding, producing a uniform race of coffee-coloured people.

again, some of this, in particularly the large eye part, shifts in desirability. That interbreeding can only really occur in countries that have diverse populations.  It has happened in parts of the new world though.  Also, hairless skin?  Any woman, any man, can have hairless skin for the cost of a razorblade and some shaving cream.

However, Dr Curry warns, in 10,000 years time humans may have paid a genetic price for relying on technology.

Spoiled by gadgets designed to meet their every need, they could come to resemble domesticated animals.

Or we could start genetically engineering ourselves to weed out the undesirable traits in future generations.  Of course, at that point any predictions about evolution go out the window, because we'd be in control.  Or society will collapse into barbarism, and rebuild itself, and collapse, 5 10 or 20 times over the course of the next ten thousand years.

Social skills, such as communicating and interacting with others, could be lost, along with emotions such as love, sympathy, trust and respect. People would become less able to care for others, or perform in teams.

People without social skills are not going to have a huge reproduction rate.  What those social skills are might change if technology persists (half a newly married couples met online, which requires different kinds of interaction, of course, they all did meatspace sooner or later).

Physically, they would start to appear more juvenile. Chins would recede, as a result of having to chew less on processed food.

That already happened, see above.

There could also be health problems caused by reliance on medicine, resulting in weak immune systems. Preventing deaths would also help to preserve the genetic defects that cause cancer.

This is possible, assuming civilization doesn't collapse temporarily, or we don't start eliminating those genes artificially etc.

And screw it, you can all figure out whats wrong with the rest of the article yourselves.  

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

We already have. Three years ago.

[Storebrand]

I modified the post after Requia replied.  I checked to see if there was anything on pd.com about this article before  I posted and didn't see anything. Sorry, probably user error.  I just thought it was ridiculous and wanted to share. 

[The Johnny]

I dont know how to use the search function too well myself, and you are new and wouldnt know if this was posted before... but id say this thread belongs to the "Techmology and Scientism" section...

just trying to be useful...

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

It's OK though, really it is not a big deal at all. Just the normal daily rash of shit-flipping.

[Storebrand]

 

[Brotep]

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.

[Kurt Christ]

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.

Elves and orcs.

[Brotep]

Or the Eloi and the Morlocks!

Not very convincing, but pretty funny--especially the fact somebody bothered to write an article about it.  Ooh, an "expert" said this stuff?  

Evolutionary theorist Oliver Curry of the London School of Economics

Wait, what?  An evolutionary theorist from the London School of Economics?  So he knows a lot about evolution...of economics?

Oh, I see now...Not only is this Oliver Curry character an expert--he's in The Directory™.

He appears legitimate enough--after all, he's in The Directory™--but nowhere is there evidence of a degree in far future human evolution!  

[Cain]

I thought Eloi and Morlocks, too.

Also amazing is how exactly this vision corresponds to Victorian stereotypes about class and worth (which may not be that amazing in the fictional realm, when you recall HG Wells was trying to make an analogy of the distinction...but the expert in question should've noticed this as well, and asked if any lingering British social biases might be at work).

For what it's worth, Neal Stephenson has, what seems to me at least, a far more plausible view in In the Beginning... was the Command Line:

"But in our world it's the other way round. The Morlocks are in the minority, and they are running the show, because they understand how everything works. The much more numerous Eloi learn everything they know from being steeped from birth in electronic media directed and controlled by book-reading Morlocks. So many ignorant people could be dangerous if they got pointed in the wrong direction, and so we've evolved a popular culture that is (a) almost unbelievably infectious and (b) neuters every person who gets infected by it, by rendering them unwilling to make judgments and incapable of taking stands."

[Voodoo Chile]

With a span of 100,000 years all I can think of is The Grim Darkness of the far flung future.

Genetic Supermen



and Dim witted underclass