Will Evolution happen agian?

[blue-Kanye]

Will mankind evolve agian? And if we do what would we turn into (marine animals or somthin' like that)? how long do you think it would take?

[brachiopod]

"...happen again..."? Evolution has never stopped.

It is human arrogance to assume that Homo sapiens is the "target" or "final result" of evolutionary processes.

[pagey]

We are still evolving, but at a heavily reduced rate due to ivf, medical care and pharma developments.

[jake-the-peg]

I take a somewhat different view to the one that says mankind's development has slowed or stoped due to medical science.

Firstly the majority of humanity does not have access to high tech medicine. Secondly there are plenty of scope for us to evolve in areas which affect our ability to breed.

I'd strongly agree with Brachiopod, just because we haven't sprouted major physiological changes like a second head doesn't mean we've stopped evolving.

I think the most likely area we're likely to evolve is a greater tolerence to pollutants. The atmosphere especially has changed a great deal in 150 years - I suspect that that may well be a major evolutionary driver.

[chakka35]

The question is unanswerable. For any organism to evolve from its present state there must be random changes to its genetic code (mutations); these are, by definition, unpredictable. Then only those mutations, if any, which are favourable enough to survive natural selection will become new features.

[caro_]

aha - so you think it happened before?

[Homer55]

Here have a look at this..

http://www.theanswerbank.co.uk/Science/Questio n331471.html

[dawkins]

If a load of surfers in, say, cornwall, get cut off from the rest of humanity and over time come to rely so heavily on the sea that they eat sleep and socialise in the sea and go onto dry land increasingly less often then mutations and gene expressions which provide individuals with an advantage in water could increase in the gene pool over the long term (say, for example, webbed feet). As you've probably worked out, its unlikely they will get isolated in the first place considering the increasing globalization of the earth. But see the rubbish film Waterworld for an example of how an environmental disaster could spark it off.

[vaughan1206]

as we restrict ourselves more and more we will slow the evolution process. If we can not see something we build a telescope (saturn has rings). this is clever but we may have been able to see further with our own eyes if we had to. When i was born i could not hold my head up, now i can as my parents let me learn how

[Kingaroo]

Interesting novel with a premise somewhat like the surfer story above: Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut