If man survived until year 8511 (or much more) where will we get to evolution wise?

Am hoping man’s right pinky will be about 7 inches longer to make it easier to hit the high notes on the piano. The legs of women will be much stronger from 6500 years of 60 mile walks in three days in attempting to find the cure for breast cancer. The Mac vs. PS debate still rages on, and Twitter, in the ultimate for of stubborness, still only allows 140 characters per tweet. As a result, the kids found a way to tell the story of War and Peace using just 138 keystrokes. The one thing that hasn’t evolved is FDR will still be considered the worst President ever.

Archeologists finally found Obama’s birth certificate. It’s at the lab, results pending.

It will be then abundantly clear that Mickey Rooney is truly immortal.

Evolution is random; it’s not “upward” or “downward.” As to where we would be in 10,000 years, I’d say that depends on the environment we live in. Evolution would tend to favor those who could live in such an environment.

Maybe our lungs would be better able to filter out some of the crap in the atmosphere.

Humans will be like The Observers from the television show FRINGE.

“The Observer, and possibly the other Observers, seem to have the ability to share thoughts with others telepathically; he can also read and accurately predict the thoughts of others…”

“It is also suggested that they are able to observe time…”

They have other abilities and appear to be hairless and almost robotic like.

If we survive that long, we will have gotten over short-sightedness about environmental conservation!

I think thousand and millions of years can go by with very little evolution for well adapted species. Then following a dramatic change in the environment evolution happens very quickly. The happy and contented don’t evolve.

I think we’ve peeked already as a species, it’s down hill all the way now I Expect…… :-/
We’re in great danger of evolving up our own arses, we may have gotten there already!? :-/

@Dr_Dredd Evolution is random; it’s not “upward” or “downward.” Then would not ancient man still be ancient man? The only thing different between Neanderthals would be developing curly hair, then less hair, then straighter hair but Neanderthal man would not have evolved. If evolution was not a upward path ancient man would not have developed spears, arrows, snares, and such to catch prey or flint knives and use of bone to skin the hide or fire to cook the animal or protect the cave so they in turn do not become prey. By way of biology and invention man has by measure improved over his predecessors.

@flutherother think thousand and millions of years can go by with very little evolution for well adapted species. Would man be one of them? Seeing science alludes to the fact that man has evolved from Crow Magnum, Neanderthal, Homo erectus etc, the species that hasn’t seen that much change like sharks, crocs, ants, and cockroaches would seem to be more adapt than man, so 10s of thousands of years from now is man more likely to be on the end of the cockroach or the Dodo?

@Scooby _ I think we’ve peeked already as a species, it’s down hill all the way now I Expect…… :-/_ With that you believe mankind is going by way of the Dodo and T-Rex rather than something far more glorious than we have reached today?

I’ve always wondered if all the races will eventually blend together. We’ll all be the same shade of light brown, I would think.

@Hypocrisy_Central

Yep! That’s about the size of it, unless we can find sustainable resources & stop the planet from destroying itself or realistically be able to intercept any incoming heavenly body bent on another global wipe out, then yeah! :-/
I think any progression in the evolution stages will be pretty much nipped in the bud… Long before our bodies have a chance to morph into something “far more glorious” :-/ that’s just me though, still, we can fantasize I guess.

Stephen Baxter predicts that humans split into two species.

Hopefully with more radiation resistance.

One species develops a smaller less energy-hungry brain.

@Hypocrisy_Central

“If evolution was not a upward path ancient man would not have developed spears, arrows, snares, and such to catch prey or flint knives and use of bone to skin the hide or fire to cook the animal or protect the cave so they in turn do not become prey. By way of biology and invention man has by measure improved over his predecessors.”

I understand the temptation to think so, but evolution is not an upward path. That implies a consistent direction, which implies that all species are being selected with a developmental goal. But the direction of evolution is inconsistent through time, as it is determined by changing environmental pressures faced by each species, not inherrent goals. In humans it was our intellect and perhaps our efficient bipedal gate that provided us with an advantage over many other species and other groups of humans. So in this case, intellectual capacity was favoured. But that’s hardly representative of the vast majority of other species.

Also, the vast majority of species that have ever existed are extinct. That’s not upwards.

Also, relative to their ancestors, taxa can lose limbs (ie consider whale evolution, or that of snakes), grow larger or smaller, etc..etc..etc.. Where evolution takes a species depends on a species’ changing environment, selection pressure from other species (competitors, predators), evoltuionary history, and the genes available for selection pressure to act on.

“the species that hasn’t seen that much change like sharks, crocs, ants, and cockroaches would seem to be more adapt than man”

Which species of shark, crocs, ants etc..are you referring to? Don’t confuse retaining a general morphology with evolutionary stagnation.

Check out this basic outline of a which point in the fossil history different shark groups have their first identifiable representatives, or lost representatives, over millions and millions of years of evolution.

http://www.elasmo-research.org/education/evolution/time_chart.htm

That’s not to say that some body plans haven’t been more successful than others. Beetles for instance, as do nemotode worms, kick our assess in terms of being successful body plans for speciation. Why some body plans are consistent óver long periods of geological time, is because such body plans have consistently found suitable environments within which to reproduce. As long as such a body plan is not selected against, offspring retaining this plan with successfully reproduce, and hence the body plan is retained over the eons.

With respect to where human’s will go. I don’t know. It depends on the selection pressure we face, and whether reproductively isolated populations occur.

What’s notable about us now, is that we have the power to dramatically alter our own environments…hence we are directly influencing our evolution via altering selection pressures.