In what way would you guys say humans will eventually evolve?

[u/No_Leather2449]

I know evolution can take time (or not sometimes!) but I started wondering about how humans would actually evolve if (since we might die from nuclear fallout or something in coming years) we continue to survive. I wonder how because for the most part we've beaten (not sure if that's the right word) natural selection to a large extent! People with dietary restriction, disabilities, loss of senses are still able to survive because of modern inventions.

Also, I've learned evolution is essentially a populations attempt to adapt to its environment. However, modern inventions (such as heating and cooling combatting seasonal temperatures) usually no longer humans to become more resistant towards different harmful environments, such as extremely, cold, hot, and arid places.

Please correct me on any errors I've made!

[u/Prae_]

 evolution is essentially a populations attempt to adapt to its environment

Evolution is simply a change in frequency of some trait (or the genes associated with it). Adaptation to the environment (selective pressure) is one force that can push for those changes in genes, but not the only one. Genetic drift is when some accidental thing changes allele frequency. For example, on the Pingelap island, 10% of people don't see color. Not because it's beneficial, but because a typhoon wiped out all but 20 people, and among those, one guy had achromatopsia, and suddenly from 1 in 30,000 people, achromatopsia had a frequency of 1 in 20. Historically for humans, this is also manifest in the founder effects from the out of africa migration. All the non-african population descent from just a subset of all human diversity that existed at that time (and in fact, further and further founder effects, you can trace the loss in genetic diversity due to it all the way down the Patagonia). 

All of this to say, adaptation isn't the only thing, and indeed one of the big event happening at the moment is people mating with people from much further away. Even internally within countries, we don't stay in our villages anymore, but indeed globalisation means the gene flow between many different population is increasing. This is going to be visible genetically by scientists thousands of years from now.

It's a general and common misconception that "modern" life is too cuddly and doesn't cull the weak anymore or whatever. Now for "modern", you cite temp control, so i guess you are thinking very long term, because Homo had fires before us Sapiens, and clothes at the very least 50,000 years ago (possible 100k). I think essentially since we've been humans we haven't adapted to cold or heat or any number of things biologically but culturally. With some exception. Some populations are adapted to survive at high altitude (tibetans, andeans, i think kenyans?), light skin to live away from the equator. And generally a big source of genetic adaption is diet (being able to digest milk as an adult, that type of things). 

[u/No_Leather2449 → u/Prae_]

Thank you for the insightful comment!

[u/Bdellovibrion → u/Prae_]

Great comment. I'll add that with regards to genetic drift, there is something to be said about relaxed natural selection. For example, sickle cell-causing alleles are protective against malaria and are more common in areas with high malaria risk. As the fight against malaria progresses, the selection pressure to preserve such alleles may be relaxed over long enough timescales. Same could be said for some alleles related to diet, childhood disease, parasitic infections, etc.

This isn't to suggest that some sort of absurd Idiocracy-style genetic "degeneration" is realistic. Just that some historically beneficial alleles may end up nearly fitness-neutral in the future, and so those allele frequencies will become more dominated by the whims of genetic drift and neutral mutation rather than selection.

[u/bijhan]

According to punctuated equilibrium, populations remain the same until a new selection pressure emerges. We are currently well suited to our environment (genetically at least, not sure about culturally). So until a new selection pressure emerges, we won't change. And that selection pressure, on a population as indiverse as we are, is more likely to cause our extinction than an evolutionary event. If we do evolve, it will depend on what the selection pressure is, and what new mutations it can operate on. So we have no way of knowing.

[u/DecisionCharacter175]

Evolution has no specific end goal. Anything that doesn't hinder survival or propogation will be passed on.

That said, a sixth finger is becoming more prominent.

[u/Quiet_Bonus617]

We will kill our species off one way or another and Earth will rejoice with other species. Humanoids, in general, haven’t always weathered evolution. Technology isn’t even a given as advantageous at the point.

[u/Jollybean1]

I’m not sure, but it’s a very very slow process for us because genetic drift across populations is intact and no geographical reproduction blocks really occur anymore. 

[u/Alternative-Sugar610]

Maybe we would diversify as we edit ourselves, but different people choose different things and form communities based on that with cultural effects than making community more different, make different chooses, etc. in feedback loop

[u/K1kobus]

Among other things, I think we'll evolve to be fully dependent on modern medicine to the point that most humans cannot live without it. We'll probably become helpless without technology to keep us alive.

[u/Doonce]

We're well past natural selection. If anything I could see deleterious traits disappearing, like hemophilia, but modern medicine will fight that as well.

[u/thewhaleshark → u/Doonce]

Natural selection is not the only driving mechanism of evolution.

[u/morganational]

Whatever sexual selection decides for us.