Will We Look Different in 100 Million Years

[leon]

Today I was walking down the street, and in my usual singular state was just looking at all the different people hurrying by, some tall, slim, large, old, young, and of either sex.

Yep, we sure all look different, and that is all good, then a thought crossed my mind, probably a strange thought, but however a thought and it went like this.

Us, the Human species, have either evolved, as it has been suggested, or there was divine intervention, and we were created.

So, I'm only going with the evolution side of this theory.

If we evolved from the waters of the deep as it is sometimes stated, and we have evolved to the level we are at now, dose that mean that in another period of some million years we, or the human form will look different, as evolution continues.

Leon

[garyp]

Originally Posted by matt

Hi Leon.

It's also likely we will have heavily populated the galaxy/universe by then.

Given the environments encountered by those 'travellers', it might be more likely they'll show some degree of difference.

This is all assuming, of course, we survive the next few hundred years!!!!

In the time scales we are talking about I wonder how many hundreds/thousands of years It would be before all the earths resources are used up or we blow ourselves up and we have to jump ship to other parts of the universe to survive.


on the question of will we look different I would say no as I come from the creationist veiwpoint which is a whole other debate.

[Ian Robinson]

100million years is a long time .... I don't think humanity will be recognisable in 100million and will likely have developed new traits such depending on where our decendents are living then (and I don't limit that to terrestrial and only on the earth , presuming we don't go the way the neanderthals.

The planet wont be recognisable either as a new mega continent will be near surrounded by oceans .

[PeterM]

I don't think you will have to wait a 500 or 1000 years let alone 100 million years to see unimaginable changes to the human species, physically and intellectually. The next steps in the evolution of our species are happening now, to where we will eventually merge with our technologies. Perhaps the only thing that may stop this happening will be an unforseen impact on our planet - literally, simply because we don't fund research at a level equal to the outcomes of the threat. I have no doubt we will much sooner than later conquer diseases known and unknown and that wars will become nothing more than local skirmishes that will also become less and less frequent as democracy fails us and one world government (call it what you will) has to take control and, in light of the current financial disaster and the looming derivatives time bomb catastrophe leaving potentially billions starving this may have to happen within the next 50 years. Anyways when humans do eventually and inevitably merge with our technologies I have no doubt we will not go through much of the nonsense that we now do.
PeterM

[Jen]

Well we have botox now so we are not scaley wrinkly creatures like dinosaurs no more
(ok i will go and hide now)

[leon]

Peter I tend to agree with your theory, it makes some sense so to speak, and Jen, well how do I answer that one,

Leon

[PeterM]

Originally Posted by Jen

Well we have botox now so we are not scaley wrinkly creatures like dinosaurs no more
(ok i will go and hide now)

Very clever Jen! "Scaley wrinkley dinosaurs" now you know why my picture isn't in my posts..
PeterM

[Jen]

Originally Posted by leon

Peter I tend to agree with your theory, it makes some sense so to speak, and Jen, well how do I answer that one,

Leon

Originally Posted by PeterM

Very clever Jen! "Scaley wrinkley dinosaurs" now you know why my picture isn't in my posts..
PeterM

c'mon now Peter dont be shy show us ya mug

[Jen]

Oh and not to mention the hair removal technics they have these days aka no more gorillas

[xelasnave]

We will probably have very short legs...maybe replaced by wheels even.
Most humans will have USB ports and external hard drives.

If we are still here of course.

Evolution is the exception extinction is the rule.
alex

[Jen]

Originally Posted by xelasnave

We will probably have very short legs...maybe replaced by wheels even.
Most humans will have USB ports and external hard drives.

If we are still here of course.

Evolution is the exception extinction is the rule.
alex

well that counts me out for the future already then i already have short legs arhhhhhhhh

[xelasnave]

No no Jen ... you are one of the new breed of human ...check your toes are not growing castors.

alex

[leinad (Dan)]

Wow. One heck of a question Leon.
I can easily get lost in imagination with this thought.

Check this out:
http://www.environment.gov.au/soe/1996/publications/technical/pubs/plesiosaurs.pdf

Interesting paper on the past 100 million years.

I think though that evolution beyond our age of being can no longer evolve too far physically further due to naturre but by synthetic manipulation.

[jjjnettie (Jeanette)]

Just look at the changes in the last few hundred years!
While visiting numerous castles, pubs and houses in the UK, you can't help but be struck by the tops of the door jams. I mean, struck by how low the doors are.
I reckon that by average, we've grown in stature by at least a foot.

Looking forward though on a sadder note, I feel that we may go back to being the malnourished, undersized people from our past. Our global population is exploding, we're building housing estates on our prime coastal farmland, ( where do they grow the food now? the desert?) we're poisoning the air we breathe, the water we drink and the land we grow our food on.
What chance does the human race have of survival little own evolving?

[KenGee (Kenith Gee)]

Evolution is very unpredictable, at the moment humanity has very little selection pressure on it. So we will see a great deal of genetic variation. If at some point we do see a selection event, say environmental then when will see some rather dramatic change. As others have said though you have to throw our tech into the mix, we will be tempted to have a fiddle ourselves.
100 millions years is a long time though, go back that amount and mammals were just coming to be. Alex is right most species only last around 5 million years, so odds are we will not be here. A more interesting question is how much change will we cope with before we consider ourselves a new species? If you met a Neanderthal on the street you might just think he was a stocky person, if you met Lucy well....

[Ian Robinson]

Originally Posted by KenGee

Evolution is very unpredictable, at the moment humanity has very little selection pressure on it. So we will see a great deal of genetic variation. If at some point we do see a selection event, say environmental then when will see some rather dramatic change. As others have said though you have to throw our tech into the mix, we will be tempted to have a fiddle ourselves.
100 millions years is a long time though, go back that amount and mammals were just coming to be. Alex is right most species only last around 5 million years, so odds are we will not be here. A more interesting question is how much change will we cope with before we consider ourselves a new species? If you met a Neanderthal on the street you might just think he was a stocky person, if you met Lucy well....

Oops .... sounds like me.....

One fine SF I read , The Forever War , dealt with this , shorter time frame , only a few hundred thousand years - humanity became sexless and asexual and there were only in general two types , a male and female (and nearlly all humanity were clones of just two perfect humans) , the gene pool still there in "less evolved planetary colonies / civilisations" who still engaged in more primitive behaviours who were tolerated because they were considered quaint and as an insurance policy if the clones developed a genetic problem - they , just choose a replacement perfect human and clone him or her .

[Tandum (Robin)]

There is an excellent mini series from the BBC hosted by Baldrick (ex blackadder) Terry Robinson I think, called Catastrophe. The show tracks the history of the planet from day one.

Earth was hit early on by another planet which produced the moon and gave us a spin, plus the moon was a lot closer than now, which made huge tides, which dragged minerals into the sea to create slim which made O2 from carbonmonoxide as a by product.

A super volcano under siberia collapsed and over the next 200 thousand years it changed the greenhouse gas content and the earth became a snowcone. The oceans died and that showed that there is a tipping point. Apparently in the deep ocean, there is solid methane, frozen because of the depth pressure and temp into a solid. A 5 degree terestrial shift will melt it, it releases, snowballing global warming and the earth becomes a snowball due to lack of sun almost overnight.

They estimate we have output as much dioxide in 200 years as the siberia incident did in 200 thousand years which caused the initial flip. Science reveals all.

We won't make it to 100 million years, the planet will kill us in an instant. Evolution .... the coachroaches win

[Jen]

Originally Posted by xelasnave

No no Jen ... you are one of the new breed of human ...check your toes are not growing castors.

alex

lol Alex well i didnt think of it that way

[Kal (Andrew)]

We have decoded the human genome, and within the next century or two we will most likely be able to understand and create almost any lifeform imaginable, removing defects before conception and activating genes to improve our physiology or mental capacity. However, while our technology races ahead at this pace, or morality lags way behind, and pressure from particularly religous groups will preventy this technology from being used. Wether we break though this social barrier and embrace this interventive evolution within the next thousand years, or destroy our civilisation though war is still something I am not sure of.

[Ric]

It would be fascinating to step 100 million years into the future and see the changes.

Given the time span I'd say there is a good chance that we would have met other civilisations and there would also be a good chance of some interbreeding going on.