Humans evolving to pollution and global warming?
Offline Could it happen?
I was sitting up in bed last night letting my mind wander about the idea of the Earth getting continually hotter and more polluted. Then I wondered, could it be possible that humans may once again EVOLVE?
It really makes sense for natural selection to occur. As our climate and environment change, won't the humans also change ot fill that niche? So in the following years, will many heat-senstive humans die out, leaving darker races of humans to exist? It only makes sense that as the Earth gets hotter, the less fit humans to survive in the intense heat will die off, leving the more adapt (darker skinned humans) to live on.
I think it really only makes sense for this to happen. I mean, if we follow the laws of evolution, there will come a time when only darker skinned humans will survive, while natural selection takes its course on the rest. What are your thoughts on this?
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Actually there's a good chance we wont survive as a species. No evolutionary process will save us... there wouldn't be enough time. The only thing we really have to rely on is our culture to save us and at that point the genes are out the window.
There's also much much more involved than just skin pigment, full environmental shifts will have a diverse effect on all life on this planet. That's also if we don't bring this planet to an impromptu extended winter at some point in the near future. The most likely event will be caused by isolation of a group of people, selection towards that environment, minor selection towards skin pigment but depending on the environment that could have nothing to do with it. If anything survival in such a place would be backboned on our cultural powers along with selection for said isolation. Depending on the location of the isolation light pigmentation could easily be selected for just based on the environment.
Even then it's quite unlikely in my opinion. We'd likely either survive on our cultural products until we cannot anymore and then fade off, there's the small chance of speciation... but if the laws of evolution have taught us anything, it's that there's a rare chance such speciation would survive and a better chance it would die out along with the parent species (us) with it or the parent species would live on in another part of the world.
If I had to make any guess... we'll fall (or survive) with our culture. You won't see another speciation event or true evidence of 'evolution' in the future of our species... if it did occur culture would likely be ditched with it, culture keeps the doors closed for continuous efficient genetic selection.
'We are all atheists about most of the gods that societies have ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.' - Richard Dawkins
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There's a part of us that's evolving on scales we can barely comprehend and thanks to the ability's granted by this part of us (collectively!) the need or chance of 'once again evolve'(ing) is nearly non-existent. There's just too much trial and error that will never see the light of day, we're rarely cut off from other humans, for such things to occur this world would need to radically change on multiple levels from what we experience today and what we expect to find tomorrow.
Considering the environment and how fast of learners we are... I doubt I'd see any form of skin pigmentation arising as a genetic trait that was selected for. There are just too many things that would stop such selection from ever occurring, your ability to find shade, to physically sweat for the 'better', your dwellings, ability to find water, the prospect of owning a fan, along with your ingenuity at cooling off day after day within your environment. This all enters into natural selection's process and it's just too many different things that influence one's ability to survive in a warmer climate. Too many different genes that have no connection to make the chance of seeing it physically produce itself in a future phenotype unlikely... unless some other event causes a drastic change in our species... but then that wouldn't be us 'evolving'.
Skin pigment is an extended reflection of the environment we came from along with the one we exist in. Unless some great changes occur in the near future when it comes to the loss of the ozone... not much will change when it comes to selection for pigmentation currently. Skin cancer, in the end, is too slow of a killer... but when it comes to regulating body temperature many other factors enter the equation besides the skin on your back. If you?d see anything when it comes to a phenotypic selection it would be linked to how your genes affect your ability to regulate not only physically, but behaviorally, hold your temperature within healthy bounds.
'We are all atheists about most of the gods that societies have ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.' - Richard Dawkins
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Do I think we'll evolve? Possible, but I can not see anything significant. Thing is, just cause we don't see ourselves evolving, doesn't mean it's not happening. From what we've seen, it's an unending process.
Do I think we won't survive? No, because our spiecies has already survived a massive and long drought in africa and the most recent ice age. I mean, we are the only spiecies that lives everywhere, except the antartic, but we still have extended visits there. So we are most definitly the most adaptive spiecies this world has seen.
As for the comment about darker skinned humans surviving better in the heat is untrue, for dark skin's only real purpose is to filter out sun, not heat. A black man is just as susceptible to heat (humid heat especially) as a white man. Only difference is the black man would sun burn less, than the white man. This "supposedly" devistating global warming will be a greenhousing effect, not getting us closer to the sun.
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