Where Will Evolution Take Humanity?
Scientists Predict a Radical Change in Humans
Science fiction is full of stories about transformed humans. In 1895, H.G. Wells wrote about the Eloi and Morlocks in his novel The Time Machine. The Eloi are described as a leisure class that is happy but not very bright, while the Morlocks are a downtrodden working class that engages in cannibalism.
Forty years later Aldous Huxley wrote about a future in which bioengineering produces people divided into five castes. In Brave New World the Alpha caste is the most privileged and the Epsilon caste has almost no intelligence and its members are used as workers.
Science Fiction May Become Fact
Oliver Curry sees a trend that suggests that what the writers of fiction have created may turn out to actually happen. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time fantasy has become reality. Dr. Curry is an “evolutionary theorist” and post-doctoral researcher at the Institute of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology at Oxford University. He says humanity may split into two sub-species in about 100,000 years’ time.
He sees the pickiness of people in choosing sexual partners starting to divide the human race. On October 17, 2006 BBC News described Dr. Curry’s two species in an article entitled "Human Species 'May Split in two' ": “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.”
In the near term (the next 1,000 years), however, Curry believes humans will improve a bit. He says they will typically stand between 1.8 and 2.1 metres (six to seven feet) and will live to be 120 years old. Physically, future generations will become more attractive and racial differences will vanish; everybody will be coffee coloured.
However, gadgets will be the undoing of society. People will come to rely on them so much that they will begin to lose a lot of their skills; they might resemble domesticated animals. Social abilities will decline and people might even lose such emotions as love, sympathy, trust, and respect.
Tranhumanist Association Predicts “Posthumans”
Meanwhile, other crystal-ball gazers predict the development of “posthumans.” According to The Transhumanist Association, these future beings will have skills and attributes that “so radically exceed those of present humans as to be no longer unambiguously human by our current standards.” This is according to a seminar presentation, "Introduction to Transhumanism" by Nick Bostrom of Oxford University's Philosophy Faculty on June 26, 2003.
This leads into the world of the fictional “cyborg;” a race of human-like creatures with implanted computers and nanotechnology devices. Such a creation might be intellectually and technologically so superior as to be beyond the understanding of ordinary humans.
It seems highly likely that these posthumans will quickly dominate the world.
Would they be happy to keep humans around? Perhaps, Homo-not-so-sapiens would make good house-pets.
Will Cyborgs Rule the Future?
|
What do you think about this article?
More in Science & Nature
Latest Articles