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Re:More and more humans are growing an extra artery, showing... by ozarkerD on Thursday August 26, 2021 @04:01PM (#28319877)
Given that there’s so much technology available to keep humans alive, will human evolution continue? It seems like it could give rise to a lot of negative traits propagating that would usually mean death before producing offspring a couple hundred years ago.
Re:More and more humans are growing an extra artery, showing... by thunderbird120 on Thursday August 26, 2021 @04:34PM (#28320320)
Evolution is the propagation of traits of individuals who survived and reproduced and whose offspring survived and reproduced. In a modern developed country survival is less uncertain but reproduction of healthy individuals is actually more uncertain as can be seen by looking at the birth rates in essentially any developed country. As a result, traits that affect certain behaviors, such as underlying desire to reproduce, are likely under more intense selection pressure now than any traits in all of human history.
Re:More and more humans are growing an extra artery, showing... by thaumasiotes on Thursday August 26, 2021 @04:38PM (#28320385)
> will human evolution continue?

This is a nonsensical question; it isn't possible to have reproduction without evolution.

Re:More and more humans are growing an extra artery, showing... by echelon on Thursday August 26, 2021 @06:14PM (#28321662)
> This is a nonsensical question; it isn't possible to have reproduction without evolution.

It's possible to have reproduction without evolution.

We have monoclonal immunocompromised mice with fixed genomes. We created them.

Re:More and more humans are growing an extra artery, showing... by thaumasiotes on Thursday August 26, 2021 @06:23PM (#28321758)
You say that like clonal organisms aren't out in the wild, evolving. It is not possible to have reproduction without evolution.
Re:More and more humans are growing an extra artery, showing... by echelon on Thursday August 26, 2021 @06:43PM (#28321984)
Monoclonal mice aren't out in the wild. Some of the lines are incapable of breeding, yet we keep making them.
Re:More and more humans are growing an extra artery, showing... by nradov on Thursday August 26, 2021 @06:29PM (#28321847)
Evolution will continue. It just won't be heavily influenced by our ability to survive in the natural world.

One evolutionarily change I predict is that certain forms of birth control will become less effective over the next generations. Hormonal birth control isn't 100% effective and there's probably a genetic component to that. So the women for whom birth control doesn't work as well will tend to have more offspring and pass those traits on.

Re:More and more humans are growing an extra artery, showing... by koheripbal on Thursday August 26, 2021 @07:39PM (#28322448)
Obesity as well, since birth control is less effective on women who are very heavy.
Re:More and more humans are growing an extra artery, showing... by nradov on Friday August 27, 2021 @09:40AM (#28327687)
Perhaps, but obesity also causes infertility. So it's harder to predict how humans will evolve for that trait.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4456969/

Re:More and more humans are growing an extra artery, showing... by WalterBright on Thursday August 26, 2021 @07:34PM (#28322400)
> will human evolution continue?

Of course it will. For example, social media has completely changed the way people date and pick partners. This will inevitably change the next generations.

Re:More and more humans are growing an extra artery, showing... by jl6 on Thursday August 26, 2021 @06:18PM (#28321706)
In general it's hard to make value judgements about which traits are positive and which are negative. Natural selection cares only for survival advantage of offspring in the immediate environment.

A good example is sickle cell trait, which provides a higher resistance to malaria, but a risk of a variety of other complications. In areas where malaria is a severe threat, the survival advantage of the higher resistance outweighs the other drawbacks. Medical intervention such as administering a malaria vaccine might reduce the threat of malaria such that there would be selection pressure against the sickle cell trait instead of for it.

Re:More and more humans are growing an extra artery, showing... by woleium on Thursday August 26, 2021 @05:25PM (#28321020)
right, so without external pressure we get diversification, making a more resilient pool of phenotypes.