Are Humans Still Evolving?

It would be interesting to discuss the probable evolutionary road our species takes over the next, say, 100,000 years. What traits shall become dominant? What traits shall be found to be harmful, rather than beneficial, as they once were in our dim past, especially taking into the equation the environmental stresses mentioned in the post to which I have responded?I wonder if that would be an interesting, speculative side debate?...

i would argue that we are more likely to continue our social evolution than any real, palpable physical evolution. i mean. some genetic stuff is boud to change... some things are bound to pass away and new things are bound to appear, but we haven't really physically changed since before neanderthal went extinct when we were still in africa and i don't imagine we will change much more.but then i don't know.

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It would be interesting to discuss the probable evolutionary road our species takes over the next, say, 100,000 years. What traits shall become dominant?

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Given our ever increasing genetic technologies, the question may become what traits do we WANT? We may become the first species to control our own evolution through direct manipulation of our DNA. Of course, I am not talking about "breeding programs" or eugenics, but rather insertion of extraneous DNA into a fertilized egg to ensure the expression of desireable traits. Also, technology might expand to the point where we can change our genetic makeup in our adult years (through DNA vectors such as lenti viruses).

I think that might depend on how much reprodutive successs "the traits we want" would give. About controlling our own evolution, I don't think so. How many children could be born "through direct manipulation of DNA"?
I think the problem with human is our population is growing at exponential rate.We are at the carrying capacity, but natural secection has been weak for humans. That is what my professor said. So do we know what are advantageous traits? Might be human's technology that delays the selection. However, we are still meeting the noises; wars, disasters,.... Another possibility is because of our reproductive rate and long life span, and thus our evolution rate is so slow.
nice summer.

Humans evolve through technology. Since the advent of our large brains, we have used technology to adapt to our envirmonment as opposed to the slow biological evolution.

Lol, sounds like Eugenics. Unfortunately, what you are quick to agree with is neither true or accurate. I leave you to look up the huge amount of evidence that was gathered in the case against eugenics.
FOR EXAMPLE:
My grandparents swear up and down that crime has increased because...blah blah. When, if placed in context with population growth it has remained unchanged.
While I agree that studies indicate that the more education an individual has the lower the number of progeny I think it is leading you to the wrong conclusion. Remember, there were intelligent humans before there were universities to school them. Let's not forget the Bill Gates of the world(just to mention a recent example). However, money is one way for ugly people to procreate(I'm side-stepping rape). However what do I know? 'I are a graduate'.

Except that there was a world difference between the education he got at all those extremely expensive private schools he got in comparison to what public school schmucks like myself got.We didn't have a computer programming class in my highschool in the 80's. He and Paul Allen did and probably got more education in computers than most students had the opportunity to receive at many universities.

um. when i said intelligent, i was not referring at all to education.but most people on welfare with a kabillion children (and their children) don't care much to further their minds (yes i'm falling on stereotype, but there is a reason.). i would argue that this is a symptom of a weakness in that mind. a strong mind desires to grow stronger. but in spite of that, most of those people don't have any opportunities (education is expensive) and therefore little chance to further their minds.i think i lost my train of thought...my point is that the logic behind 'let me have another baby so the government will pay me' is faulty. those babies require food and medicine and clothing and... yeah. no, not all smart people become successful, but most do. most intelligent people suffer from vast discontent and end up making something of themselves--if only--out of sheer boredom. yes, some languish in their present defeat, but that is the exception (i would argue). no, all people on welfare aren't stupid. but, chances are, they're not blinding geniuses either.and the more education a person has the fewer children he/she has because he/she has other responsibilities and generally starts popping those puppies out later in life.yes it is ethically dangerous to proclaim that poor people have less worthy children, but my point is that there is no need to have a great number of children now... the reason people used to have children (besides the lack of birth control) was the high infant mortality rate. but the limit on childbirth should be a voluntary one and not government policy. cause yeah. democracy and shit.

cool.I like that. High young mortality rate, great no. of children. But I think it is just a plastic phenotypic ability; not life history trait, right?So, it is not a trait that evolved?
Thanks.

Any of you has any idea about human's genetic diversity? Do we have just a few diversity like cheetah?

I believe it is rather low. Somewhat like the Cheetahs but not as bad. The greatest range of diversity is in some african populations. IIRC, the numbers suggest that we went through a population bottleneck around 60,000 years ago that may have been 10,000 or fewer individuals.I don't have a site for that. If you want more try a google and let us know what you find.

The bottleneck you may be referring to is associated with the eruption of Toba, which now is a huge caldera. The size of the caldera indicates that the eruption would have led to a "nuclear winter" (anyone else remembers that phrase) type of perurbation in the world's climate.

It's interesting but the Yellowstone Caldera was also active around the time of the Toba explosion. The Yellowstone Caldera is as large (maybe larger) than Toba and has a record of major erruptions about every 600,000 years. The last major event at Yellowstone was about 600,000 years ago.If there were another event of that magnitude, something that totally disrupted the environment for 1000 years or so, would we be better prepared to survive that we were the last time?

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

jar Nah, the vast majority of people would be unable to survive the mass extinction of Starbucks and the subsequent loss of latte's.

well having a bunch of children in response to a high infant mortality rate isn't necessarily a trait. well. fecundity and multiple births yes, but um. generally many children is a conscious choice in response to the risk of death. but then infant mortality has dropped along with maternal mortality...