Human species 'may split in two'

[Roman]

You know.
On India?
I just remembered reading in Durant that the untouchable caste (forget the name) grows ever and ever larger because of interbreeding between the castes. A mix-caste is untouchable, yes? Or is it just the Bhraman class that breed untouchables that way?

And. About Britain?
The class system never kept a prince from getting his knob polished by a gutter slut.

Prima Nocta anyone?

Exactly.
People have a tendecny to hump everything, regardless of cultural taboos. Aussies shag sheep, for instance.

Social revolution, invasion, economic turn over mixes populations up, too. Those on the bottom may not be on the bottom 10 generations later. 10 generations is a lot of human history, but not much in evolutionary time.

 

[Jaster Mereel]

The thing is that the conditions in the world right now do not favor speciation. The world is growing smaller and populations are merging. Not dividing.

To speciate, there would need to be something enormous happening. A catastrophe that would wipe out a huge percentage of the population and leave pockets stranded away from each other. Colonizing other planets would also possibly lead to the right conditions.

I mostly agree with you. However, I have become fairly convinced over the course of the past two years that, within the next few hundred years, a combination of receding coastlines, the coming Ice Age (that will probably be in a thousand years or more), water shortages, pandemics made easier by a surging population in Third World nations, expanding deserts, etc... all of these things will serve to reduce the population greatly. Of course, that probably won't reduce the population enough for speciation to occur, so you're probably right.

Colonization of other planets (if that ever become practical) will probably be the only way it will happen short of major catastrophe.

Heh.
Yeah. I had the same thought.
But, with such a 'prediction' as this, I wouldn't be surprised if the 'prophet' was confused enough to be able to embrace both ideas fully.

Of course, I also wouldn't be surprised if the guy who made this prediction just made some lighthearted theoretical thing and it's been taken too seriously by the press.

No doubt.

 

[TimeTraveler]

Curious.
Do you have any idea what speciation is?
How is it 'happening' now?
Because rich people don't have sex with poor people?
Oh? Really? Since when?

How many rich people do you know who are traveling to the local ghetto or to the third world country to find a mate?

If you want statistics, look it up, most people actually end up with people in the same class they are from. It's not difficult to figure out why. Social mobility, at least this sort, is lower than it's ever been, it's a fact that social mobility is lowest in the USA.

http://www.economist.com/world/na/displayStory.cfm?story_id=3518560

 

[TimeTraveler]

Bullshit.
Autistic people aren't going to take over the world. They can't handle touching each other long enough to make babies. And how can you raise offspring that you don't love. Robots, I guess.

But right now, it seems like selection mechanisms are choosing soft, loving, trustful, respectful communicators. Why would cold-hearted, cheating, lying, socially-retarded psycopaths pass on their genes in civilzed society at all?

Though perhaps if only a handful of such retards liked to breed with each other, there'd be divergence.



And cutting the tails of mice leads to new generations of mice with shorter tails. Right....

Actually, it's true, we are slowly going numb. The human species is hardening, and it's as much of a mans fault as it is a womans. We just aren't good at choosing our mates, or perhaps we choose hardened mates because we want hard children, it's our choice.

 

[invert_nexus]

How many rich people do you know who are traveling to the local ghetto or to the third world country to find a mate?

Personally?
A few.
Anecdotally?
Lots.

Let me clear something up for you.
"Mate" doesn't equate to "wife".
Get it?

 

[valich]

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 human race would peak in the year 3000, he said - before a decline due to dependence on technology. People would become choosier about their sexual partners, causing humanity to divide into sub-species, he added.

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.

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.

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

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.

The logical outcome would be two sub-species, "gracile" and "robust" humans similar to the Eloi and Morlocks foretold by HG Wells in his 1895 novel The Time Machine.

"While science and technology have the potential to create an ideal habitat for humanity over the next millennium, there is a possibility of a monumental genetic hangover over the subsequent millennia due to an over-reliance on technology reducing our natural capacity to resist disease, or our evolved ability to get along with each other, said Dr Curry.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6057734.stm?lsf
Thoughts?

Recent discoveries last year suggest that Homo sapiens originally had three lineages: Homo erectus, Neanderthals, and dwarf hominids discovered in Indonesia.

Today, with genetic modifications; stem cell research, developments and implants; cloning; cyberkinetics; and implantations of computer chips creating bionic people, we are headed towarded a diversity in the splitting of the human species into many diverse species - more than just two - which a challenge to biologists in naming all these future hybrids.

Virus mutations, such as AIDS, SARS, and Avian Bird Flu, as well as adaptations to environmental toxins, intensifying dependencies on advanced pharmaceutical medications, AI prostheses, our development of the Space Station and its future inhabitants, as well as time-extensive ventures to other planets, will all result in evolutionary adaptations resulting in diversities in the human species in the long-term that can now only be subjects of science fiction writers to conjecture on.

There is no doubt that humans will continue to evolve into other species. To think otherwise is to limit your thinking only to the hear and now, to the short-term of human existence, rather than looking at the totally of life on earth and the much larger and longer huge timescale of evolution.

 

[iam]

i can't see how it could ever plausibly split. due to technology we are becoming one. More like we'll become cyborgs or new species due to biotechnology and artificial environment.

 

[invert_nexus]

...and dwarf hominids discovered in Indonesia.

Ermm.
You talking about the 'hobbits'?
You're a bit out of the loop, apparently. The issue is still up for debate, but many, if not most, believe that the specimens were not a new species but rather normal humans suffering from microcephaly.

There is no doubt that humans will continue to evolve into other species.

Eventually. If they survive long enough. But the opening post stating a date of 100,000 years with such certainty is nothing but dramatics.

 

[(Q)]

Oliver Curry is a political theorist with no scientific background. This is the same guy who opined 'all men will have big willies' by the year 3000 and womens breasts will be pert.

"Oliver Curry received his PhD in 2005 from the Government Department of the London School of Economics. He currently teaches Political Theory at New York University in London."

http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/CPNSS/people/centre_research_associatesinResidence.htm

 

[S.A.M.]

Oliver Curry is a political theorist with no scientific background. This is the same guy who opined 'all men will have big willies' by the year 3000 and womens breasts will be pert.

"Oliver Curry received his PhD in 2005 from the Government Department of the London School of Economics. He currently teaches Political Theory at New York University in London."

http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/CPNSS/people/centre_research_associatesinResidence.htm

Probably inspired by Dawkins to expound theories in fields unrelated to his PhD.

 

[invert_nexus]

Valich (non sequitur),

Recent discoveries last year suggest that Homo sapiens originally had three lineages: Homo erectus, Neanderthals, and dwarf hominids discovered in Indonesia.

Oh. And yeesh. So intent was I on the fact that the homo floresiensis find being debated, that I completely missed this.

Home erectus, homo neandertalis, and homo floresiensis are not three distinct lineages of homo sapiens. If they were, they'd be homo erectus sapiens, etc...

That's a pretty big goof.

The only one that could be considered a 'lineage' of homo sapiens would be homo floresiensis as these fossils were most likely microcephalic homo sapiens rather than a whole new species.


(Q),

Oliver Curry is a political theorist with no scientific background. This is the same guy who opined 'all men will have big willies' by the year 3000 and womens breasts will be pert.

"Oliver Curry received his PhD in 2005 from the Government Department of the London School of Economics. He currently teaches Political Theory at New York University in London."

Heh.
That fits.

 

[spuriousmonkey]

Ermm.
You talking about the 'hobbits'?
You're a bit out of the loop, apparently. The issue is still up for debate, but many, if not most, believe that the specimens were not a new species but rather normal humans suffering from microcephaly.

indeed. i made a thread about it a while back, but nobody responded

http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2006/821/2

The bizarre "hobbit" bones unearthed a few years ago in Liang Bua cave on the Indonesian island of Flores were billed as a rare find--a new species of human, Homo floresiensis (ScienceNOW, 11 October 2005). But a few critics weren't buying. Now in a report released today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), the skeptics lay out a detailed case arguing that the leading hobbit specimen, a one-meter-tall, 18,000-year-old skeleton with a brain the size of a grapefruit, was merely a diseased Homo sapiens.

Can't find the original thread anymore, but there was this whole shit on the 'hobbits' blabla.

And it turns out it is probably blabla.

 

[tablariddim]

Oliver Curry is a sensationalist talking out of his arse. The way he desribes 2 distinct types of humans has nothing to do with future evolution and everything to do with class, culture and location in the here and now. Anyone who has ever done a bit of 'people watching' has seen this 'difference' as plain as day. Watch people in an affluent middle class part of london and you will see tall, handsome and smart people. Watch them in some run down part of Northern England and you will see short, fat, ugly and ignorant people. He is as much a futurist as I am a math genius.

 

[S.A.M.]

Has anyone heard of his field, evolutionary theory?

I'd hoped someone would comment on it.

 

[invert_nexus]

indeed. i made a thread about it a while back, but nobody responded

Well. Obviously. There's no soap!!!
Kidding.
Actually. I know that I did respond to a thread on the topic. Maybe yours was a duplicate? Or the other one was. I specifically remember stating that while the subject was still being debated with believers on both sides, that I lean towards the microcephalic viewpoint.

 

[invert_nexus]

Tablariddim,

he way he desribes 2 distinct types of humans has nothing to do with future evolution and everything to do with class, culture and location in the here and now.

Makes sense now knowing that he's a political theorist though, eh?

He's got politics down pat. Gonna start a class war next.

Has anyone heard of his field, evolutionary theory?

I'd hoped someone would comment on it.

Q said he was a political theorist, not an evolutionary theorist. Although, I do seem to recall the post originally saying evolutionary theorist... I think that Q made a freudian slip and quickly edited it away.

Hmm. The opening post states: "Evolutionary theorist Oliver Curry of the London School of Economics..."

An evolutionary theorist at a school of economics...?

 

[invert_nexus]

Oh god...
Who drew this?

Heh.

 

[(Q)]

Q said he was a political theorist, not an evolutionary theorist. Although, I do seem to recall the post originally saying evolutionary theorist... I think that Q made a freudian slip and quickly edited it away.

Hmm. The opening post states: "Evolutionary theorist Oliver Curry of the London School of Economics..."

An evolutionary theorist at a school of economics...?

Nope, the guy is little more than a political theorist. Most likely, 'evolutionary theorist' was coined either by him or the media. It's called bad science.

 

[(Q)]

Has anyone heard of his field, evolutionary theory?

I'd hoped someone would comment on it.

If you think about it, theorizing evolution is literally impossible, there are far too many variables at stake, any one of them throwing the predictions for a loop.

 

[S.A.M.]

If you think about it, theorizing evolution is literally impossible, there are far too many variables at stake, any one of them throwing the predictions for a loop.

Thats what I thought. Hence the thread.