• Question: How will humans evolve in about 300 years and will humans even survive until then?

    Asked by nyancat to Christine, Edd, Jess, Nicolas, Zara on 16 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Christine Switzer

      Christine Switzer answered on 16 Jun 2011:

      I’m sure humans have 300 more years in them, but I don’t think I will survive until then! It will be interesting to see how we evolve as a species. I also wonder if technology will have a part. Maybe our fingers will evolve smaller to adapt to mobile phones and weird things like that.

    • Photo: Zara Gladman

      Zara Gladman answered on 16 Jun 2011:

      I think we probably will survive until then… but who knows!

      I like Christine’s suggestion that we will have smaller fingers for using phones (which are getting smaller and smaller too!). Edd mentioned in another answer that we’re also getting taller as a species but that might be due to better nutrition. People have been debating human evolution in the Copper Zone: https://copperj11.iasuk.ddev.site/2011/06/do-you-think-that-humans-might-evolve-in-the-later-future

      I guess diseases will change but we will also develop new medicines and probably live longer… so the world is likely to be a very overcrowded place!

      PS your username made me laugh, the nyancat drives me crazy!

    • Photo: Edward Codling

      Edward Codling answered on 16 Jun 2011:

      I hope we survive until then – it would be depressing to think otherwise! 🙁

      Humans are constantly evolving – as I mentioned in a different post we are already getting taller as a species (this may be due to diet rather than genetics but it is certainly happening). The average height of English men in the 19th century was 1.72m, but in 2008 it has gone up to 1.78m (with a similar increase for women).

      What would be interesting to see is the change in technology and medicine in the next 300 years – if it continues at the current pace then it is hard to imagine how different it might be. For example, only 20 years ago (when I was at school) we didn’t have the internet at all – look how much has changed since then!

      There is an interesting essay on this topic here:
      http://web4health.info/en/aux/homo-sapiens-future.html

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