• Question: I n your opinion, how would you describe human evolution and do you believe that we will keep changing?If so, why?

    Asked by anon-186311 to Verity, Danny, Catherine, Andy on 11 Nov 2018.
    • Photo: Danny Ward

      Danny Ward answered on 11 Nov 2018:

      Humans have evolved very slowly over millions of years from a single common ancestor. We aren’t better or worse than any other animal, we aren’t more evolved….we’re just different to them and suited to our own environment/lifestyle like they are to theirs.
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      Our biggest evolutionary change compared to many of the other life forms on our planet are to do with our neocortex development. This is the bit of the brain that processes abstract thinking, long-term planning, empathy and language…its what makes us human!
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      We will inevitably keep evolving as time goes on over millions of years once again. Things that threaten life or advance our survival will be traits that could be passed on but this takes a lot of time.

    • Photo: Verity Hill

      Verity Hill answered on 12 Nov 2018:

      Humans have been around for about 200,000 years after evolving from a common ancestor with chimpanzees (so we have parallel but equal evolution with them).
      The most recent changes to human evolution have involved us moving around the planet. Things like the colour of our skin has changed – all humans used to live in Africa and were dark-skinned. As a small minority of humans left Africa and went to places with less sunlight like northern europe, we started dying because we didn’t get enough vitamin D. Some humans therefore evolved to have lighter coloured skin so that the sunlight can get in!
      I’m not sure that humans are still evolving, but evolution can take a very long time so it’s difficult to tell. Things like modern medicine reduce “selective pressures” on us – this means that in the past, somebody would have died if they had eg asthma, and so there would be fewer genes for asthma in the population. Now, people live and have children which carry the same genes that in the past would have killed them. Because people have the same “fitness” (ability to reproduce) with modern medicine, you expect to see much less evolution, or at least much slower if there is any.

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