Us humans think we are the pinnacle of evolution the most advanced creatures on the world without opposable thumbs and our altruism, where is there left to go what's in store for the future of human evolution.

Homo sapiens first appeared on the scene about 200,000 years ago and modern human culture has endured for at least the last fifty thousand years in that time our physical appearances haven't changed very much but that's not really surprising because evolution is a gradual process and the geological record shows that new species often take up to a million years to get going.

A million years ago in human history, homo erects had not long discovered fire, but hadn't yet used it to cook food when everyone loves salad right I'm sure homo erectus did.

So, what about the next million years, well there's no shortage of speculation from the realms of science fiction, you've got HG Wells is prediction of subterranean goblin like Morlocks and passively elegant Eloy or how about populations of superpower wielding mutants or even the worryingly portentous fate of space bound humans in warning but little of these speculations are based in fact and providing we don't wipe ourselves out any changes are likely to be a lot more subtle, in fact some people think there won't be any changes at all.

According to Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection any changes come about as a result of natural variations in an existing population that turn out to be a helpful bonus for survival in their chosen environment take our opposable thumbs for instance nifty little things good for grabbing and manipulating things and you know spring sppiner, sorry sorry I'm getting distracted again,

We've all got them because way back when one of our ancestors was born with a slightly more mobile thumb by chance, being able to grab onto things and manipulate them a bit better was good news for its survival and then it lived a long and happy life and had lots of babies.

Over time Wiggly thumb gave the advantage over a non-wiggly thumb and the more primitive version gradually disappeared while the new model became what we have today that's natural selection in a competitive world, thank goodness because how could you text. Only the theory goes that this natural selection isn't really working for us modern humans anymore without technology and our big problem-solving brains we are finding ways of overcoming many of the challenges that nature puts in our way without necessarily resorting to survival of the fittest. If we were faced with the same need for a wiggly thumb today we could probably make a machine that could fulfill that need well we humans could just stay the same not changing not evolving.

It's a compelling idea, but it's probably not true even in the relatively short time that humans have been around some changes have been found for instance about ten thousand years ago we developed a tolerance to lactose allowing us to drink milk to supplement our diet and in the last hundred and fifty years the average adult height has increased by 10cm (ten centimeters) not only that but the age at which women have children is slowly creeping up and we're gradually developing resistance to diseases like “Malaria” and HIV,

So, changes are taking place but it's a slow, slow business, and it's likely that when combined with the technological taming of the world around us people a million years from now will simply look like healthier longer living versions of ourselves, we could however speed it up by dabbling in a bit of genetic engineering choosing desirable disease-free embryos or physically changing a human's genetic code, but since our understanding of the human genome is still vastly incomplete.

The possibilities for future change are far too numerous for me to consider here, so let's assume we're stuck with natural change over a long period of time one of the reasons it would take such a long time to see any big changes in human characteristics is the sheer amount of crossbreeding we do for most animals simply living on opposite sides of a river could put a dampener on any romantic notion leading to the isolation of two different populations and quicker evolution is different groups go their own separate ways but many of us humans wouldn't think twice about getting on a plane to sustain a long-distance relationship this globalization means that pretty much all seven and a half billion of us inhabit the same gene pool so it's going to take a long time for any changes to ripple out across the whole pool and evolution to take place.

Given a million years thought it's conceivable that we will find a way to isolate small populations in potentially stressful environments like in space send up ships of colonists to a world with less oxygen or lower gravity or one that's covered in ice than you've got yourself all the ingredients for major physical change, giggling with a thin atmosphere could lead to humans with red blood cells that can stuff way more oxygen in like people who live in the Andes today or who breathe much faster than we do and have wider blood vessels like the modern Tibetans. If gravity was lower like on Mars or the Moon humans could grow taller with longer arms and legs and would likely develop new ways of getting around and that would change the structure of the muscles in their bodies and on an ice world we could see the return of insulating body hair and fat and even a change in our body clocks to encourage hibernation through the coldest times.

 Actually, I tell you what hibernation and a reason to increase my body fat has awesome can you put me a seat on the next spaceflight.

Yeah, I would love to hear how you think humans will change in the next million years.



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