Human Evolution Did Not Stop Long Ago

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I didn't ask him directly, but it looks like his research does not necessarily support this prediction. I'm guessing it was part of a larger interview in which he qualified it in some important ways. More info is needed and I was asking if you knew what it was. His research seems to based on mechanisms that maintain overall genetic diversity.

I don't know why you would post this if you didn't want people to think about it. To me, mankind seems to be thriving on earth from an ecological standpoint. Aside from a near-apocalypse, I cannot envision a scenario where human intelligence significantly evolves from it's current state. Maybe social media has changed the way we think about human relationships. Elon Musk has stated that we are already ostensibly human cyborgs, in that our brains partly exist in our computers and cell phones. Finding a partner to raise a family with requires a different set of skills than it used to. Will this societal change lead to an evolution of intelligence?

The basic premise of your argument is still true though. There is evidence of recent human evolution. That's why I asked you, not Chris, what might be a plausible mechanism for the evolution of human intelligence.

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This is exactly what I was aiming for with that question. I'm sorry it came across as nagging.

Of course, if this social change were to lead to an evolutionary change in brain chemistry, it would require that some of the "children who have grown up connected to the internet" were able to reproductively outcompete some of the other "children who have grown up connected to the internet" based on a specific genetic difference between the two groups.

Given how distracted and disorganized everyone seems to have become, what would a gene variant for "focus" do to increase/decrease reproductive fitness?

Originally posted by @wildgrass
This is exactly what I was aiming for with that question. I'm sorry it came across as nagging.

Of course, if this social change were to lead to an evolutionary change in brain chemistry, it would require that some of the "children who have grown up connected to the internet" were able to reproductively outcompete some of the other "children who have gr ...[text shortened]... have become, what would a gene variant for "focus" do to increase/decrease reproductive fitness?

It seems to me if such an adaptation happened and this new population was tied to having to have the tech of social media and games, what would happen to such a population if they grew to say 90% of the world population and then some catastrophe ended technology? Would that population have the resilience to survive the lack of technology?
I was thinking of some genetically engineered plants where they are essentially a colony of clones and if some plant disease comes along that kills one, it is likely to kill the entire population, it has already happened, ruining science experiments along those lines.

Originally posted by @sonhouse
.....what would happen to such a population if they grew to say 90% of the world population and then some catastrophe ended technology? Would that population have the resilience to survive the lack of technology?.....

Sure. The other 10% would be fine. Probably at least a billion people would survive that.

Originally posted by @sonhouse
......I was thinking of some genetically engineered plants where they are essentially a colony of clones and if some plant disease comes along that kills one, it is likely to kill the entire population, it has already happened, ruining science experiments along those lines.....

It's not really an issue with GMOs in particular, but his is a big problem in agriculture for sure. The underlying problem is mono-culturing. It's really easy for diseases to kill a crop when everything is exactly the same. Same field, same corn, same fertilizer, same insecticide /herbicide year after year after year. What happened to rotating crops, alternating rows and such?

Originally posted by @kazetnagorra
Anyone with even the most basic knowledge of evolution theory knows that human evolution has never stopped and never will.

Natural selection does move a bit slowly. We're doing directed evolution now.

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There is an American TV show, don't know if ever heard about it, 'Naked and afraid', where they send a man and woman together, strip all clothing and they are in the most dreadful parts of Earth they can find and they are to survive 21 days, just 3 weeks given only a couple of tools of their choice, fire starter, machete, maybe a pot to boil water so it is safe to drink.
Whatever they find is ok to use. A lot of them tap out unable to make it even 3 weeks. I was wondering how many of them could survive say for 21 MONTHS in the same conditions. Just 2 people would be a definite challenge but less so for 100 people but still, I don't think the average person has the skills or could learn the skills in time to save their lives and there would be wholesale deaths where only the best of them would last years in such jungles or deserts.

I think the DNA record of very early modern humans showed we humans, homo sapiens, were down to just 20 or so individuals from many times that so it seems to me to show how difficult it would be for even the ancients to survive a hostile environment.

Modern soft humans would not stand much chance and the population, whatever the starting size would be cut down drastically, not saying the whole group would die but for sure the genetic diversity would go way down minimum.

Early humans had been brought up to be tough enough to survive with little in the way of technology, Atlatl, fire starting, stone tools, bow and arrow, pretty much it but that gave them the ability to construct temporary housing and they learned early on how to make effective ropes to bind housing, rafts and so forth.

How many modern humans in the same situation would be able to create stone tools? My guess is never since that depended on finding obsidian and flint, glass like rocks capable of knapping? Not sure what range of rocks can do that but soft rocks like sandstone would never be able to be made into tools.

It would seem then such a population would be limited to making spears out of wood and they would have to relearn even the basics like making fire with friction on wood like they learned 200,000 or so years ago.

I am sure a certain percentage would grow tougher so they could at least walk for many miles to find food sources and they would probably have to make buildings out of mud bricks laden with grass but they would be severely limited in their ability to make better tools via knapping unless the group was very lucky and had one person in the know of ancient technology. A bunch of bankers or insurance salesmen thrust into that situation, not many would survive.

The information of primitive life is certainly out there, like this site:

http://www.primitiveways.com/index.html

How many ordinary people would even know about such sites, much less how to start fires with hand drills and such or knapping flint or even how to make mud bricks.

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In some kind of random catastrophe they wouldn't be so lucky as to land on Pitcairn island with its lack of predators and abundant food sources.

It certainly would be in the interest of survival as a species to have more women than men but still if there was a situation where there was one man and a hundred women, all gotten pregnant by that one man, the genetic diversity would be low indeed. Of course it would be low if there was 50/50 men and women too.

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Yes unless Yosemite blows again. There is major rumbling going on underground as we speak. If I remember right it blew majorly maybe a million years ago and spread lava over an area the size of Colorado or so. That would be the death knell for our civilization since the cloud cover and SO2 would cover the whole planet for months.

Of course climate change is gradual and will take 100 years or so to be fully felt so humans can adjust to smaller land masses and so forth. We would just lose a lot of NYC, London, New Orleans and such but it would be gradual enough we could rebuild inland.
It would be a different planet for sure, no more Burmuda, or Andros Island where I used to work but we would survive.

Originally posted by @sonhouse
That would be the death knell for our civilization since the cloud cover and SO2 would cover the whole planet for months

Would we have to keep paying mortgages?

Originally posted by @wildgrass
Would we have to keep paying mortgages?

🙂 I think we would have slightly bigger issues in that case.....