Where is evolution taking the human race?
Renowned author Dan Brown released his iconic scientific-fiction novel Origin towards the far end of the year of 2017. As expected, it was your generic ‘renowned symbolist Robert Langdon’ novel, featuring the usual ingredients of what has become his style: a foreshadowing of some scientific or cultural discovery threatening to change how human society sees itself, followed by the inevitable murder of the person who made that discovery at some location in Europe, which obviously means that an American professor has to be called in to crack the code, while certainly being chased by some bad guys, accompanied by a ‘beauty with brains’ and discovering world changing secrets (not to mention, plot twists!)*
Yes, Dan Brown’s writing can be bad. Excruciatingly bad. For one of the 21st century’s most popular book writers, his excessive use of clichés, his Wikipedia-style references, the scientific half-truths he imposes upon his readers make him one of the most criticized writers around. Yet, despite all of that, he does bring in ideas and thoughts to mainstream, which otherwise wouldn’t have been discussed widely. That is the extent to which he sways his fan base. In his latest book, Origin, one of the many things he mentions is how far evolution has taken humans and how far it will take us in the future. This is a very intriguing thought as there are a lot of possibilities for the human species to evolve further and become something far more advanced, as compared to who we are today.
From what did we evolve from?
Assuming that we accept the Darwinian theory of evolution (as how we accepted the Big Bang theory), we could very well agree that it all started at a point about 3.8 billion years ago, with single-celled prokaryotes. Multicellular life evolved over a billion years later, and it is in the last 600 million years that we have begun to see life forms that are widely recognized today-fish, plants, amphibians and the likes. There was even a brief cameo by of our very own Ross Geller’s favorite creatures, but sadly, their existence came to a tragic end 65 million years ago, due to an asteroid that happened to come across Earth on it’s way.
The real movement of evolution towards the human species as we know it, began six million years ago, with us humans beginning to inherit various physical and behavioral traits from our ape-like ancestors. Bipedal-ism, or the fact that we can walk on two feet, emerged 4 million years ago. Two million years, we decided to spread our horizons and move beyond Africa and live in various parts of the world. During this time, the apes we share our ancestry with went through evolution and adapted to their surroundings, creating many other species like the Neanderthals, the Australopithecus and others which are part of the hominins, the human family. We, the homo sapiens, are the last of this family. Many advanced traits — including complex symbolic expression, art, and elaborate cultural diversity — emerged mainly during the past 100,000 years. Homo sapiens as we know it, only came up about 10,000 years ago, with the development of advanced civilization.
So will we evolve further?
There is no question, or reason, regarding this. Or at least there should not be. The fact is that, we humans have been around for only 10,000 years when compared to life on Earth, which has been around for almost 4 billion years. The development of life from single celled organisms to large, complex creatures which have an ability to think suggests that there is more yet to come. But let us consider for a second: What if, we humans are the pinnacle of evolution? What if we are the ultimate form that cannot be surpassed?
This thought may not be as far-fetched as it may seem at first. Consider that while other species like dinosaurs have dominated the landscape of earth longer than we humans have, no other species has had the ability to think at a higher level, or modify the planet to the extent that humans have. The crux of the argument here is, with the technology we have at our disposal, humans do not need to adapt to the environment as they can make the environment adapt to them. While that is certainly true, it discounts lots of scenarios, such as world changing catastrophes like nuclear winter or global warming or even asteroids which can cause a new environment for humans to adapt to. There is also the possibility of technology itself being a part of the next wave of human evolution, which we will come to shortly.
A final argument in favor of this theory is that the human species have traveled too far, and have become too settled. This has created a ‘genetic inertia’ which prevents humans from evolving further. But while these theories are quite sound, the history of evolution suggests that there is further to come for the human species. The real fun begins when investigating these possibilities!
How fast can we evolve?
The reality is the difference in DNA between humans and the Neanderthals is just 0.004 percent. So a tweak in the DNA structure can result in the formation of new species over time! We know that, or have been taught from a young age that certain characteristics are desirable and some not so. Some humans have a set of attributes they want in their mating partner and stick with it. Humans by and large have control over who they can mate with, and take into consideration the attributes they consider desirable.
Now for the silly (or is it?) theory: Humans may split into two! If desired characteristics such as high intelligence, toned physique, fair skin remain constant, and a large enough population of people breed amongst themselves, a sub-species may emerge with one set having the desired attributes, leaving the rest to form underclass species akin to goblins. Rich people can even modify the genetic features of their newborns to fit this new paradigm and reinforce this evolution process.
Of course, there are lots of holes in this theory, the main one being there are no universal or constant set of desirable attributes humans look for in each other. Even then we cannot discount this theory as it gives rise to possibilities of people like Adolf Hitler emerging, who saw one race as superior. Imagine such people using the new genomic modification capabilities we have to promote their race actively at the expense of others!
So what can, and what will change in humans over the next few centuries? There are lots of possibilities! For one, the average height of humans has increased over the last few centuries- 10 cm over the last 150 years! People see increased height as a good attribute to have and that will lead to the increase in average height. A good diet and lifestyle aids this, as seen in the disparity between North and South Koreans.
Another possibility is that of weakened immune system! As humans become more and more dependent upon medication for survival, we can expect the human immune system to slowly weaken. With lots of treatment and hormones being injected into our body, our body will learn to use that and not develop internal defense mechanisms. On a similar note, we can also expect our muscles to get over the coming generations, as there would not be a possibility of us doing as much physical work as much as our ancestors did.
Who would have thought Google may be the cause of our brain being rewired? With more information available online than ever, and with it being accessible just with a few clicks, there is less incentive for humans to store large amounts of information in their memory. Rather than remember facts, our brains are increasingly being wired to just remember where the information is. So our brains may adapt in such a manner as to maximize efficiency, but this will only lead to the detriment of our memory. Some have suggested that our teeth and toes will keep getting smaller, as the need to chew hard food or climbing with our feet simply doesn’t exist in the present world.
How about using technology to mutate and evolve?
Imagine you are this aspiring soldier who wants to join the army, but you don’t meet the strict fitness requirements. But you keep trying anyway in the faint hope that you can make it one day. This resolve to somehow make it catches the eye of someone in the upper hierarchy of the army, and you become the test subject for a project wherein a special serum gives you physical abilities beyond your imagination. The project succeeds and now, you have abilities that place you above the mere mortal. Does this sound familiar to you?
Well, I just happened to describe the origin story of Steve Rogers aka Captain America, one of the most popular comic book and film characters in the Marvel stable. The sci-fi community has always dealt with characters who are different from the average human in terms of physical and mental capacities. You have Cyborg, Cable, Robotman, Ladytron. I could go on and on. But the most popular example of a ‘cyborg’- a combination of man and machine- would have to be Tony Stark or better known as Iron Man. Originally, Tony Stark’s life giving chest plate was something he wore to keep deadly shrapnel from embedding itself into his heart. But when he underwent the Extremis process, it embedded nano machines into Tony Stark’s blood, essentially turning the legendary Avenger into comics’ most popular cyborg.
Having went off on a tangent there, what is the point I am trying to make here ?
There are tons of exciting ways in which man and technology can combine to an exciting and terrifying effect- and we already have taken steps in that direction! We already have prosthetic limbs that are activated on neural impulse, cochlear implants for the deaf, and even bionic eyes! But apparently that’s not enough for Elon Musk, aka the real life version of Tony Stark, who says that humans must become cyborgs in a larger sense:
Creating a neural lace is the thing that really matters for humanity to achieve symbiosis with machines.
There are also attempts to make humans immortal- by uploading our consciousness! While this might seem like something out of a Netflix sci-fi thriller series (which it is), serious research and investment into ideas like brain mapping, human and AI neural links, and mind uploading to computers has been doing. The feasibility of such a game-changing possibility remains to be seen, as there are still many questions to be answered, like: what is the mind? Are we transferring our personal identity? Should we create a simulation of a brain? How can a recipient body ‘download’ a mind? Whether you believe in such ideas or not, thinking about this creates lots of ideas in our heads.
Finally, the futuristic possibilities of evolution arise when humans eventually realize that the Earth alone would not suffice for survival. Migration to other planets would be inevitable and the different environments in each planets would mean humans would have to adapt to the planets they reside in. Consider if humans decided to go to Mars for example: develop genetic mutations that would counter the risks of decreased bone density and muscle mass, increased height due to less gravitational pull on Mars. A likely consequence would be that after a few generations, Martian humans would not be able to go back to Earth and live there, having adapted to Mars- meaning this could be the beginning of the splitting of homo sapiens depending on which part of the universe they reside in!
In other words, there is so much we can speculate about the future of evolution, and it is possible that many of our predictions could go wrong! But that shouldn’t stop us, for thought provoking ideas will come out of this mind exercise, and we can always share the possibilities of human evolution amongst ourselves, how wild it may be!
*The first paragraph is a parody of how Dan Brown writes his sentences.
