Science Future of the Human Face

[T.Neo]

Meh, stuff like this pops up every so often and it's just as nonsensical every time. Wasn't there something like this several months back? I think it was vaguely similar, but not exactly the same. Something about humans becoming 8 feet tall or splitting into two subspecies or some other garbage. And wasn't there a thing several decades back claiming that blonde people would disappear in a few generations?

This sort of thing starts with a misunderstanding of the disposition of selective effects in humans, extrapolates a load of evolutionary assumptions that would be questionable if applied to any organism, and tops it off with a varying amount of outright garbage. I mean, large eyes to deal with dim environments in the outer solar system? These people have colonised the planets but they can't afford lightbulbs? Those are practically bushbaby, troodont or owl eye proportions- how dark could their habitats possibly be? And if they're living in dark environments, why would they need a plica semilunaris to "shield against UV radiation"? If anything, someone living in a space habitat would receive less UV light than someone living on the surface of Earth- even if they were in the inner system. It isn't like UV light is particularly difficult to shield against, and even if it were, there are probably a good deal of biological alterations for UV resistance that make more sense than "thick eyelids" and a skin-tone that looks like a fake suntan.

And the 'bigger head for a bigger brain' thing- what of the Neanderthals? What of the physical limits of increasing brain size? You can't simply increase the scale of the organ and expect intelligence to increase indefinitely, eventually you will hit a physical stumbling block. Intelligence has more to do with the development of structures within the brain or various neurological details than size alone, the reliance on which sounds more at home in a childish wager that would be made between 1890s palaeontologists.

Besides, we all know that the future belongs to tobacco smokers;

:lol:

If that were so, then most enterpreneurs, inventors or CEOs should be almost exclusively female?

There are far more factors influencing professional and financial success than intelligence alone. If women were generally more intelligent than men, it would not necessarily correlate to the domination of various professions by women.

 

[kamaz]

Well, the grey alien is exactly what you'd get if you let humans evolve in spacecraft environment. Atrophy of muscles due to lack of gravity, atrophy of digestive tract due to eating artificial food, atrophy of sexual organs due to reliance on artificial reproduction, increase in eye and brain size due to focus on information gathering and processing...

---------- Post added at 05:09 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:00 PM ----------

And the 'bigger head for a bigger brain' thing- what of the Neanderthals? What of the physical limits of increasing brain size?

It has been argued that humans are already at the limit of the brain size, because baby's head cannot be larger than a woman's birth canal. Because of that, baby humans are essentially born with underdeveloped brains -- they can't even control basic body functions...

 

[TMac3000]

Well, the grey alien is exactly what you'd get if you let humans evolve in spacecraft environment. Atrophy of muscles due to lack of gravity, atrophy of digestive tract due to eating artificial food, atrophy of sexual organs due to reliance on artificial reproduction, increase in eye and brain size due to focus on information gathering and processing...

Dude, that's spooky as hell to think of. I refuse to ever look like that:lol:

 

[statickid]

Natural selection doesn't just magically change species just because they change their lifestyle. Small eyed people would have to be SO disadvantaged that they DIE before reproducing. If anything medicine and international peace will cause the human "form" to stop developing in new directions. Any further changes will likely have to do with freakish deadly disease outbreaks. Changes in outward appearance will be Incidental. Such as: the gene that gives Immunity to super disease A only appears in people with hazel eyes or some such pairing.

 

[Ghostrider]

Dude, that's spooky as hell to think of. I refuse to ever look like that:lol:

That's why I keep a baseball bat handy.:thumbup:

 

[T.Neo]

Well, the grey alien is exactly what you'd get if you let humans evolve in spacecraft environment. Atrophy of muscles due to lack of gravity, atrophy of digestive tract due to eating artificial food, atrophy of sexual organs due to reliance on artificial reproduction, increase in eye and brain size due to focus on information gathering and processing...

I don't know. That combination of attributes may logically arise in a specific environment, but whether that sort of environment would be found aboard a spacecraft is another matter entirely. For instance, individuals with access to advanced technology would likely delegate their needs for information gathering and processing to computer systems, and while artificial reproduction may mean that organs such as uteri or even gonads are no longer strictly necessary, it would not necessarily precipitate an absence of genitals, as is found in 'greys'.

Furthermore, the appearance of such traits due to the nature of the environment indicates natural selection, which is largely defunct in humans. If a trait increases over time, it would indicate that those with a less extreme expression of the trait had less reproductive success than those who did. However, it is most likely that people would rectify an issue technologically before it could become evolutionarily relevant. Humans change their environment, effectively pre-empting selective forces, and the more advanced our technology and industry becomes, so does this ability. The same goes for medical issues; look at atrophy, for instance. Atrophy is likely caused by a combination of metabolic burden and potential for infection and/or cancer of unnecessary organs being a negative attribute. However, adequate nutrition is guaranteed in developed human societies, and both infections and malignant growths can be prevented and treated, at least to a degree. This reduces the selective pressure for atrophy.

It isn't that selective pressures in humans are absent, it's just that they are subtle and that they differ in nature from those found in various other organisms.

It has been argued that humans are already at the limit of the brain size, because baby's head cannot be larger than a woman's birth canal.

Good point; I didn't even think of the constraints of childbirth on brain size, and was mainly thinking of neurological and other physiological constraints.

Oh, and here's the future human thing I was talking about. This one has brains shrinking rather than growing, along with the digestive tract. From The Sun, of course, so there should be no wondering as to its quality.

And this image is from the article proposing that humans will split into two species;

Here's a link.

Has anyone read Man After Man by Dougal Dixon? It deals with species of future humans created by genetic engineering, and natural selection in the absence of civilisation. A lot of it is rather silly, as is typical of much of Dixon's work, but it is quite interesting and fun nonetheless.

This is a vacuumorph from the book, or vacuum-engineered human, used for in-space construction projects.

 

[TMac3000]

I don't know. That combination of attributes may logically arise in a specific environment, but whether that sort of environment would be found aboard a spacecraft is another matter entirely. For instance, individuals with access to advanced technology would likely delegate their needs for information gathering and processing to computer systems, and while artificial reproduction may mean that organs such as uteri or even gonads are no longer strictly necessary, it would not necessarily precipitate an absence of genitals, as is found in 'greys'.

Furthermore, the appearance of such traits due to the nature of the environment indicates natural selection, which is largely defunct in humans. If a trait increases over time, it would indicate that those with a less extreme expression of the trait had less reproductive success than those who did. However, it is most likely that people would rectify an issue technologically before it could become evolutionarily relevant. Humans change their environment, effectively pre-empting selective forces, and the more advanced our technology and industry becomes, so does this ability. The same goes for medical issues; look at atrophy, for instance. Atrophy is likely caused by a combination of metabolic burden and potential for infection and/or cancer of unnecessary organs being a negative attribute. However, adequate nutrition is guaranteed in developed human societies, and both infections and malignant growths can be prevented and treated, at least to a degree. This reduces the selective pressure for atrophy.

It isn't that selective pressures in humans are absent, it's just that they are subtle and that they differ in nature from those found in various other organisms.

And don't forget that on a sufficiently long, technically advanced stay in space, you're going to have light bulbs, recreational sex, and possibly artificial gravity. So I wouldn't expect much change in eyeballs, you-know-whats, or musculature

 

[kamaz]

Furthermore, the appearance of such traits due to the nature of the environment indicates natural selection, which is largely defunct in humans.

Which is precisely the issue.

Contrary to other mammals, which can synthesize vitamin C, humans must consume vitamin C or die of scurvy. Interestingly though, the sequence responsible for synthesis of vitamin C is present in human DNA -- it is however deactivated. It is theorized that at one point, human ancestors fed on food which was rich vitamin C -- and therefore, the mutation which was selectively negative (i.e. it was being selected against -- the mutants would die of scurvy) became selectively neutral, and as such, spread within the population.

As progress of civilization makes mutations which were previously selected against selectively neutral, you are bound to see the increase of such mutations in population. To use an extreme example, there was a report this year that intellectual deficiencies related to the Down syndrome could be curable by targeting certain neuroreceptors. If such treatment became widely available, then Down syndrome would be effectively curable, and as such, would no longer be selected against (Down females are fertile).

Likewise, if a species relied entirely on artificial means of reproductions, then a mutation causing underdeveloped genitals would no longer be selected against, and could spread -- particularly, if the same mutation provided other benefit. Indeed, such species could decide that benefit outweights the cost (say much increased intelligence at the expense of now purely recreational activity) and start actively selecting FOR such mutation.

Of course YOU may consider this unthinkable, but those whose ancestry will be 100 generations of in-vitro reproduction will probably have a different view.

 

[Spacethingy]

The first things that came to mind were anime and...

 

[C3PO]

Contrary to other mammals, which can synthesize vitamin C, humans must consume vitamin C or die of scurvy. Interestingly though, the sequence responsible for synthesis of vitamin C is present in human DNA -- it is however deactivated. It is theorized that at one point, human ancestors fed on food which was rich vitamin C -- and therefore, the mutation which was selectively negative (i.e. it was being selected against -- the mutants would die of scurvy) became selectively neutral, and as such, spread within the population.

At the start of the 20'th century lactose-intolerance was almost unheard of in the faroe islands. Frequent famine (well, relatively frequent) and the isolated location had produced a population that was almost 100% lactose tolerant. Around that time EVERY household had at least one cow, and if it died you had a very high likelihood of death by starvation. After WWII increased wealth and decreased isolation has produced surge of lactose-intolerance, because it isn't lethal anymore.

Fashion changes way too fast to have any "natural" effect on the human genome. Even genetic manipulation would be hard pressed to make significant changes.

 

[ADSWNJ]

It has been argued that humans are already at the limit of the brain size, because baby's head cannot be larger than a woman's birth canal. Because of that, baby humans are essentially born with underdeveloped brains -- they can't even control basic body functions...

So .. following the logic, we will end up with bigger eyes, bigger heads and even bigger women's birth canals. Requiring larger male appendages of course. Meaning men will need bigger hearts to pump all that blood around. OK - enough of this line of thought!

I think we will become part-Borg though, with wearable technology giving way to implanted technology, with communication at the speed of thought.

 

[T.Neo]

those whose ancestry will be 100 generations of in-vitro reproduction will probably have a different view.

I severely doubt it. Sexuality is more than simply a reproductive utility.The psychological need for sex is already disconnected from parental urges, at least to some degree. Furthermore, simply because something is merely recreational does not make it unimportant. Widespread use of reproductive technologies within society will not change this.

A mutation causing underdeveloped genitals will almost certainly be selected against, unsurprisingly, due to sexual selection- which is currently the primary driver in human evolution. Reproductive success isn't dependant only on physical capability of an organism, it is also reliant on acquiring a mate and successfully raising offspring. A lot of mutations that don't affect physical capability can still hamper reproductive success, even in a situation where environmental pressures are dulled or removed.

Furthermore, it is fairly unlikely that such a mutation would lead to increased intelligence, simply as a matter of probability, and positive effects are unlikely if the mutation is a drastic one- such mutations are almost always deleterious and never provide a benefit to the organism.

Plus, an advanced civilisation would likely possess technology far surpassing their own capabilities, even if considerably increased, which would greatly reduce selective pressures for heightened intelligence and make actively selecting for said traits pointless. Of course, if a species did want to engineer for higher intelligence, they could likely do so in a better way than by conjuring a mutation with undesirable side-effects.

 

[Staiduk]

The Origins of Cute - YouTube

Again; thanks for that excellent vid Nick. This is the second video I've seen featuring this young lad and as an instructor in various non-academic areas; I am most impressed and quite taken by his friendly, engaging style, his humour and solid skill at describing complex issues in easy-to-understand ways. He's a teacher I want to learn from. This might not be the place - if so; ignore - but who is he?

Thanks.

 

[Quick_Nick]

Again; thanks for that excellent vid Nick. This is the second video I've seen featuring this young lad and as an instructor in various non-academic areas; I am most impressed and quite taken by his friendly, engaging style, his humour and solid skill at describing complex issues in easy-to-understand ways. He's a teacher I want to learn from. This might not be the place - if so; ignore - but who is he?

Thanks.

It's all on the YouTube info.
He's Hank Green of the SciShow YouTube channel. I subscribed to scishow about a month ago and have thoroughly enjoyed every video. They do a pretty good job of citing sound scientific research in most of their video descriptions.

 

[Staiduk]

Thanks - guess I should look at the info now and then.

 

[n72.75]

There's a lot of wasted space on the face; there's room for other stuff, loke a second nose, it one should so desire...

 

[Andy44]

There's a lot of wasted space on the face; there's room for other stuff, loke a second nose, it one should so desire...

You can make money using that space for advertising.

 

[statickid]

Or get a sweet face tattoo

 

[T.Neo]

There's a lot of wasted space on the face;

Nonsense. It isn't wasted, just reserved for acne and wrinkles.