Is human evolution finally over? (Looks like we're stuck)

The Observer (UK) ^ | Sunday February 3, 2002

[ErnBatavia]

Sam - need that Waxman pic from yesterday.....just as dreadful!

[Maurice Tift]

Warning labels appear that prevent other stupid people from harming themselves, and evolution is thwarted.

- Do not look into barrel of cannon when firing -

That's a real label on a toy cannon.

[who_would_fardels_bear]

I imagine that the "bioists" or "silocophobes" will decide they would rather be freakish and alive rather than perfectly human and dead.

Over time they will engineer themselves into something probably like small gazelles that can burrow and swim and run real fast, and maybe even glide like flying squirrels. They'll need to engineer all of those adaptions to keep out of the crosshairs of the AI robots.

Of course the AI robots will counter by de-biologizing earth, i.e paving it completely over with chlorine-gas-infused asphalt.

It will be very hard for what is left of the freakish bioists to live off the land while it is being transformed by the "transhumans"!

[Free Vulcan]

Oh no, are we going to have to end the Darwin Awards? Darn.

[meowmeow]

our tendency towards a larger brain has been stopped only by the fact that the human birth canal cannot open any further to accomodate a skull larger than we have now.

Interesting - so women's birth canals will never evolve to accommodate bigger heads. Evolution is so sexist. I guess I'll never get that 3rd arm I've been wanting.

[gcruse]

Interesting - so women's birth canals will never
evolve to accommodate bigger heads.

I don't see how unless there are mutations where
a wider canal coincides with a bigger brain/head.
But, I really don't understand everything I know :)

[meowmeow]

I don't see how unless there are mutations where a wider canal coincides with a bigger brain/head.

I don't know, sounds like you understand pretty well...isn't that what evolution is all about, random mutations that are somehow convenient to the organism? I think a third arm would be very convenient. Darn those mutations!