Human evolution at the crossroads

[-live-wire-]

Scientists are fond of running the evolutionary clock backward, using DNA analysis and the fossil record to figure out when our ancestors stood erect and split off from the rest of the primate evolutionary tree.

But the clock is running forward as well. So where are humans headed?

Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins says it's the question he's most often asked, and "a question that any prudent evolutionist will evade." But the question is being raised even more frequently as researchers study our past and contemplate our future.

Paleontologists say that anatomically modern humans may have at one time shared the Earth with as many as three other closely related types — Neanderthals, Homo erectus and the dwarf hominids whose remains were discovered last year in Indonesia.
Does evolutionary theory allow for circumstances in which "spin-off" human species could develop again?

Some think the rapid rise of genetic modification could be just such a circumstance. Others believe we could blend ourselves with machines in unprecedented ways — turning natural-born humans into an endangered species.

Click here to see Before and after humans http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7348103/

Very interesting !
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[Dr. Bullet]

MSN's been reading too many Asimov books...though it's amusing to see what some professionals actually think will happen.

I've recently come to a conclusion of my own since being at university, and it's this: the professors and scientists who come up with this stuff just need bigger offices. They have such cramped quarters that their evolutionary "discoveries" are just attempts to be able to bargain for more office space, and possibly tenure faster. After so long of being cooped up in these cramped closets, they even begin to believe that these half-baked ideas are right.

Although that was supposed to be a joke, I think there's a hint of truth in it

[Hellfighter]

in the future the human race will die off, do to it like to kill each other for the fun of it all. not much there so they talk more about the pass then the future.

they like to talk hot air all the time to fool people to get money for a con-job "grant's"

i can say we started as a pool of biomass we will die in a biomass in the end.

all thing's returns to were it all started from crap of the earth lol

[BADDOG]

Originally posted by Chief ADFP
in the future the human race will die off, do to it like to kill each other for the fun of it all. not much there so they talk more about the pass then the future.

they like to talk hot air all the time to fool people to get money for a con-job "grant's"

i can say we started as a pool of biomass we will die in a biomass in the end.

all thing's returns to were it all started from crap of the earth lol

That's a somewhat disconcerting view of our future Chief bro lol!!!!

Warm Regards

[Lakie]

I've recently come to a conclusion of my own since being at university, and it's this: the professors and scientists who come up with this stuff just need bigger offices. They have such cramped quarters that their evolutionary "discoveries" are just attempts to be able to bargain for more office space, and possibly tenure faster. After so long of being cooped up in these cramped closets, they even begin to believe that these half-baked ideas are right.

You been reading Dilbert or Scott Adams Books havent you? Only a dilbert /adams fan can be so cynical with an element of truth at the same time....

tbh i really could care less how we'll evolve thousands of years in the future, ill start caring when they work out how to make me live that long....

[JonM]

Originally posted by BB/Mike*MFA*
You been reading Dilbert or Scott Adams Books havent you? Only a dilbert /adams fan can be so cynical with an element of truth at the same time....

tbh i really could care less how we'll evolve thousands of years in the future, ill start caring when they work out how to make me live that long....

[Dr. Bullet]

No, as a matter of fact, I haven't read those. Although it was meant to be humorous, I do believe that that does have bearing on their opinions.

It would take something like a cramped office to make you believe in evolution and all the half-baked stuff they come up with.

[IcIshoot]

Originally posted by Dr. Bullet

It would take something like a cramped office to make you believe in evolution and all the half-baked stuff they come up with.

I agree

IcI

[Lakie]

Evolution is there, you can actually witness it if youre keen enough, in the galapogas islands, a team measured, monitored and tagged a whole buch of birds, they went back a few years later and realised that the flock was split by a storm, and one groups beak had dramatically changed...

Whether or not its how we came about im not touching, but im more inclined to think we evolved than any creationism theroy, but thats for another thread....

[Dr. Bullet]

I agree that there is a sort of macro-evolution going on, but it's not that drastic, and certainly not anything that's going to dramatically change any species.

Not to disagree, but it's easy enough to get a bird's beak to change. If their diet is dramatically changed or if the bird is getting too much of certain minerals and nutrients, the size and shape of the beak will change. Now take a group of birds, have their beaks change due to diet, then they reproduce, their offspring will keep those beak characteristics as their natural shape. It's just how birds work. They mutate easily, and those mutations are very very easily passed on. If you get two mutated birds together, almost all of their offspring will carry the mutation as their dominant trait.

[Sal UK]

Hmm Evolution Well I dont believe we just changed over time from Apes into Humans, My first question to any scientist would be How come Apes are still here today? Surely they would have all evolved?

But Thinking more in the way things are done today with DNA now that hits more nails than some morph we done over time.

I do believe we are created, Not like someone building the first humans with bits and thinking oh that looks cool we'll go with that, But created by some higher intelligent being.

Just in the way scientists are messing with DNA today whats to say someone else didnt in the distant past?
There are many different apes, monkey, chimps, Gorillas ect, And there are many different people like chinese, Japanese, White, Black, Brown. so with us having I think its something like 2% different DNA to a Monkey, What if we were a DNA Experiment? With the different Evolution Pictures they show what if they were stages of an Experiment getting to the finished product US.

I dont believe in Evolution, For me its just too hard to grasp we just changed over time all by ourselves and for apes to co-exist at the same time.

But Then Again I do Believe in God and if you believe in Evolution you dismiss god.

I think A day will come when we will know the whole truth, After all if Evolution was right and they were a 100% sure we evolved Then There would be No wars because that would destroy the main thing wars are faught over religion.

I hope I have given another way of thinking to this thread, If I have Explained properly....lol (It will be a first if anyone understands it first time.....)

[-live-wire-]

Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs.

[Lakie]

Theres not anything in evolution that automatically discredits creaitionism, infact there is a growing line of thinking that says that the fact that we do evolve and there is the "natural selestion" or "survival of the fittest" or whatever you want to call it is the greatest evidence that there was a creator, sicne any creaotr that created the dynamic earth, would naturally would have to had created dynamic life..

[Hellfighter]

i hear they are making a new set of DNA mix with Seal lions & Human to see if there anything in commune with the two set 1-mix and the other one from a 600LBS man, if they can find a DNA link then maybe they can edit it out remove it totally fat Geno's. UCLA
1-set a hyper breed Seal Lion with Human gen mix.
human egg with male seal lion sperm.
2-600bls loaded with fat cels of a human male.