Human species 'may split in two'

[mrpiddly]

There is a therory that eventually differnt classes of humanity will evolve differntly. It says the poor people will grow short, ugly, strong, unintelligent, and defencless to many diseases while the upper class will evolve into tall, smart, and overall superior people. These divides would happen eventually over time, some argue, if no mixing occured but future technologies offered only to the rich such as immunization, breading out defects, and enginering babys to look "perfect" may cause this to happen even sooner, soon being like 10,000 years. Enviromental changes, like living in space, may also cause a similar effect over time.


What exactly do you think of this subject? Will humanity eventually split in two because of class or enviroment? Why would god do this?

 

[Fed]

No way, we're getting more integrated, not less. Once we move out into space it'll be more likely, but even then not for a really long time.

 

[billwald]

IO think that people are mating and self segregating on the basis of IQ, education, and ambition, and appearance. The middle class will disappear and we will end up with a master class and a grunt class.

 

[astrios]

At the present, human society is closely integrated in political,cultural,economical senses in dispite of national boarders which are just transient in long flow history. if we are going to take on 2 different ways of evolvement, something of radical change must create a significant gap between the groups of people that follow the most suitable or other causes. I am sure the cause and the gap are primarily spiritual, possibly about a new religion and a new level of awareness. Some people may already have these traits: indigo children, they are kind of extremely intelligent people since their child hood, and even possessing paranormal abilities. These people need a new environment for full demonstration of their potentials. Our current technocracy and scientific dictactorship blind us from believing our spiritual intuitions, which play an impotant role in evolvement of humanity.

Maybe this cause is underway, but the gap will not be visible in near future.

 

[LouTheWicked]

Little vicious goblin-like people snatching rich little children from their mansions in the dead of night, then sending badly-written ransoms without realising they sent them to the wrong address afterwards.

Meanwhile, the kidnapped child uses his highly sophisticated intelligence, blessed unto him by his parents before from a long line of "pure breeding" to escape the nasty little goblin people.

 

[aspiringchef]

This is the most ridiculous theory I've heard yet. Going by that logic. The poor would become taller, stronger, braver and more equipped to protect themselves because of the need to and the rich would become frail, and useless, because their money would buy protection and everything they need.

Any rate, both seem high illogical.

 

[platzapS]

No way, we're getting more integrated, not less. Once we move out into space it'll be more likely, but even then not for a really long time.

I agree with this. For speciation to occur, there probably would need to be some physical barrier, because as it is integration is increasing.

 

[billwald]

Sentient beings don't evolve. If anything, Christian protests against abortion and modern science are causing the trash to stay in the gene pool i.e. encouraging defective dna to be passed to the next generation.

 

[mrpiddly]

Natural evolution is to slow of a process and would take a long time with alot of seperation to occure.

However with Genetic engineering it will be possible to have parents pay for what their child will look like as well as their immunities. Also, scientist would most likly make a couple cell samples and then choose the best, no disabilities or anything like that, to breed the peoples requested babies. This in combination with better health habits, living conditions, and health care would create this divide.

Just think about it for a second. Lets say there are two rich families that genetically engineer their babys to be almost perfect. These children grow up in great living conditions and with great healt care. Now these two genetically engineered people marry and have a baby. This baby will already be immune to many things, without modification, and some genes will be bread out. Combine this with 100s of cycles, presume that all the rich people only marry among themselves with a few exceptions, and even further genetically engineering to the babys, you will eventually end up with a class of people who are immune to almost everything and have only the best body structures and looks built in.

Germline engineering would change genes in eggs, sperm, or very early embryos. This type of engineering is inheritable, meaning that the modified genes would appear not only in any children that resulted from the procedure, but in all succeeding generations. This application is by far the more consequential as it could open the door to the perpetual and irreversible alteration of the human species.

What kind of changes can be made?

Human genetic engineering means that some part of the genes or DNA of a person are changed. It is possible that through engineering, people could be given more arms, bigger brains, or other structural alteration such as fins if desired. A more common type of change would be finding genes extrodinary people - such as those for intelligence, stamina, longevity, and incorporating those in embryos.
Disease
Human genetic engineering holds the promise of being able to cure diseases and increasing the immunity of people to virus. Disorders such as Cystic fibrosis, which is a genetic disease that affects lungs and other organs is the result of small DNA changes.
Research
Researchers are currently trying to map out and assign genes to different body functions or disease. When the genes or DNA sequence responsible for a disease is found, theoretically gene therapy should be able to fix the disease and eliminate it permanently. However, with the complexity of interaction between genes and gene triggers, gene research is currently in its infancy. Computer modeling and expression technology could be used in the future to create people from scratch. This would work by taking existing DNA knowledge and inserting DNA of "superior" body expressions from people, such as a bigger heart, stronger muscles, etc and implanting this within an egg to be inserted into a female womb. The visual modeling of this process may be very much like the videogame "Spore", where people are able to manipulate the physical attributes of creatures and then "release them" in the digital world.
Physical
The possibilities of physical changes are endless. Strength, speed, endurance and so on can be enhanced. The baby can be made taller, more beautiful, the changes possible are really up to the imagination, and the ability of the techniques employed by future gene manipulators. Certain people have been identified with extraordinary physical abilities (think athletes, geniuses, physical and mental event record holders) and their genes could be identified and replaced into the target embryo. There is also the possibility that science will advance so much that people will create genes not identified in nature or people and implant those in the human body.
Mental
Corresponding gene function to intelligence or mental aptitude in various fields is much harder because while researchers are finding out which sections of the brain light up when used through MRI imaging, corresponding genes to manipulate and/or expand intelligence are harder to map. The brain seems to be the last great medical mystery because unlike a muscle, it transfers information and handles complex processes like a computer but without any logical process discernible to researchers. However, in certain individuals that have a higher apptitude at certain tasks, the history of their family having done the same work seems to show that either through practice, teaching, or gene expressions these individuals find tasks such as composing music or mathematics much easier than the average member of the population.

The main "problem" with the whole thing is capitalism. If we had a communist society, this would work becuase the rulers would genetically engineer themselves and marry among themselves while the workers would not be able to. But because of capitalism, anyone can become rich and then "infiltrate" the already genetically engineered gene pool.

Also if this ever happened and there were two species of humans, the rich 1% would most likly be unable to control the 99% of other people, so they would loose power.









(This is all based on the work on other scientists and is not my own opinion, in other words i do not believe there is a supperior race)

 

[us38]

Sentient beings don't evolve. If anything, Christian protests against abortion and modern science are causing the trash to stay in the gene pool i.e. encouraging defective dna to be passed to the next generation.

Sentient beings do indeed evolve. Maybe not as fast as non-sentient populations, but there is still evolution. Humans have been getting taller and fatter as the years have progressed.

 

[mrpiddly]

Sentient beings do indeed evolve. Maybe not as fast as non-sentient populations, but there is still evolution. Humans have been getting taller and fatter as the years have progressed.

No, that is because of better eating habits. A body will grow larger if it is raised in a environment with ample food.




There is another therory that eventually the upper class will become so dependant on technology that they will bee unable to surrvive without its. This does not acount for GE. It says that since little will be physically demanded from the body of the upper class, people may not even have to do anything for themselves, their bodies will weaken over time and degrade. This combined with a reliance on medicine and possible inbreeding will create a race of people more machine then human. It may even eventually evolve into a system much like the one seen in the matrix where the rich people live in a virtual world of pleasure and have all reqired food and medicine feed into them by machines.

The poor people on the other hand would gain increased mental and physical capacities and they will be able to support themselves beccause of their demanding enviroment.

(this is a real therory)

 

[us38]

No, that is because of better eating habits. A body will grow larger if it is raised in a environment with ample food.

No, it's not. While the development of technology certainly has some effect, to say that it is all attributable to technology is simply wrong.

 

[lucaspa]

There is a therory that eventually differnt classes of humanity will evolve differntly.

I am familiar with evolutionary biology and I have never heard of this theory. Can you provide citations?

What exactly do you think of this subject? Will humanity eventually split in two because of class or enviroment? Why would god do this?

I think the theory is ridiculous. There is far too much gene flow (mating) between "classes".

However, it is possible that the human species will split into 2 or more species, but based on geographical isolation. It has been documented that
1. Andean and Himalayan highlanders have adaptations for living at those high altitudes. They have different populations. If these populations continue to live at their high altitudes and do not mate with the lowlanders, eventually each will form a separate species of Homo.
2. The !Kung in the Kalahari Desert in Africa have adaptations to living there. They also have alleles (forms of genes) that are unique to them and not found in any other human population. What is more, there is no gene flow into the !Kung. If a !Kung decides to marry outside the !Kung, then they must leave and live with their spouse's people. So we get !Kung alleles coming out of the !Kung (but very little) but no outside alleles going into the !Kung. Speciation is reproductive isolation and the !Kung are well on their way to that.

Otherwise the increased mobility of humans is reducing the genetic uniqueness of populations. People from India move to northern Europe, marry the natives, and have kids. That contributes to genetic mixing.

"Class" is simply not rigid enough in the various societies for people of one socio-economic class to be isolated from all the others. There is too much economic mobility for the kind of restrictions the "theory" is talking about.

Sentient beings don't evolve. If anything, Christian protests against abortion and modern science are causing the trash to stay in the gene pool i.e. encouraging defective dna to be passed to the next generation.

I think you mean "technological" beings. You think that technology isolates a species from natural selection. That is true to a degree, but only a degree. There are several studies documenting positive natural selection among alleles in H. sapiens.

 

[redmartian89]

There is another therory that eventually the upper class will become so dependant on technology that they will bee unable to surrvive without its. This does not acount for GE. It says that since little will be physically demanded from the body of the upper class, people may not even have to do anything for themselves, their bodies will weaken over time and degrade.

This is everybody. The entire human species is becoming more and more dependent on technology, not just the richest among us. Look at India and China, they're accelerating in their use of Western technology like cars and computers. Even in Africa and the Middle East, there is a movement toward computer tech and the Internet.

The idea that homo sapiens will split is preposterous. Even with genetic engineering, we'll still be human. The only split that I can see is if we can perfect AI tech and the split would be political: Luddites and Transhumanists. Other then that, there'd need to be humans on Mars or Titan for thousands of years before we see another major evolutionary split.

 

[lucaspa]

The idea that homo sapiens will split is preposterous.

It's only "preposterous" along "class" lines. See my post above for H. sapiens splitting based upon allopatric speciation.

 

[EkmanSpiral]

The 1997 film Gattaca already presented this scenario. What all of this ignores is the possibility of cybernetic enhancements such as artificial organs, muscles, and neural pathways. Genetics would always play second fiddle to cybernetics - one can build a better person instead of having to grow one.

 

[moonkitty]

There is a therory that eventually differnt classes of humanity will evolve differntly. It says the poor people will grow short, ugly, strong, unintelligent, and defencless to many diseases while the upper class will evolve into tall, smart, and overall superior people. These divides would happen eventually over time, some argue, if no mixing occured but future technologies offered only to the rich such as immunization, breading out defects, and enginering babys to look "perfect" may cause this to happen even sooner, soon being like 10,000 years. Enviromental changes, like living in space, may also cause a similar effect over time.


What exactly do you think of this subject? Will humanity eventually split in two because of class or enviroment? Why would god do this?

Personally I think it sounds like part of the plot to H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine.
Do you have a link from a reputable source for this theory?

 

[Autumnleaf]

Rich kids are ending up fat, asthmatic, and myopic. Lets say that wasn't happening... Once the rich get too rich and the poor get too poor there will be a war and eventually most of the rich will find themselves a foot or so shorter and about six feet underground until the second coming. Some make the case that religion can separate a people long enough to create genetic differences as seem to be the case with Anikasazi?sp Jews who tend to have an amazing intelligence with numbers and an uncommonly high rate of some weird birth defect.

 

[Allister]

I don't think human beings will separate into two distinct groups on Earth, not because it isn't a possibility scientifically but because I don't think human morals and ethics will allow it.

I think if humanity spread to the Moon and Mars permanently it would eventually happen. A smaller variety of food sources, weaker gravitation and more difficult environments would no doubt become noticeable on the human body.

 

[Quasarsphere]

There is a therory that eventually differnt classes of humanity will evolve differntly. It says the poor people will grow short, ugly, strong, unintelligent, and defencless to many diseases while the upper class will evolve into tall, smart, and overall superior people. These divides would happen eventually over time, some argue, if no mixing occured but future technologies offered only to the rich such as immunization, breading out defects, and enginering babys to look "perfect" may cause this to happen even sooner, soon being like 10,000 years. Enviromental changes, like living in space, may also cause a similar effect over time.


What exactly do you think of this subject? Will humanity eventually split in two because of class or enviroment? Why would god do this?

It might be correct, might not be. But it's not a theory so much as speculation. And I can't see money having any real part in it - rich people can lose everything, poor people can win Lotto or invent some clever device that makes them a lot of cash...basically, as far as Darwinian natural selection is concerned, absolutely anything can happen in the next hundred thousand years.