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What will humans look like in 100,000 years?
Posted: Thu Jun 20, 2013 1:06 pm
by JazHaz
According to Discovery News,
see here.
Re: What will humans look like in 100,000 years?
Posted: Thu Jun 20, 2013 1:16 pm
by Disembodied
We're all going to be anime characters ...
I think the person who did this needs to read some more decent SF, and give his imagination a bit of a boost. 100,000 years to play with, and the best he can think of is swollen foreheads, pointlessly large eyes and a David Dickinson tan? What about whole-body remodelling for alien environments, or for vacuum living? There's a much better take on this sort of thing in Dougal Dixon's book
Man After Man.
Edited to add: or in Bruce Sterling's
Schismatrix, or in Paul McAuley's
Gardens of the Sun trilogy, or in Michael Swanwick's
Vacuum Flowers, or Greg Bear's
Queen of Angels series, and doubtless many more ...
Re: What will humans look like in 100,000 years?
Posted: Thu Jun 20, 2013 1:19 pm
by Smivs
Smivs is wide-eyed in amazement!
Re: What will humans look like in 100,000 years?
Posted: Thu Jun 20, 2013 3:25 pm
by FSOneblin
I'm curious to see what data and research went into the conclusion. Right now, their only sources seems to be speculation and SF.
Re: What will humans look like in 100,000 years?
Posted: Thu Jun 20, 2013 3:49 pm
by Disembodied
FSOneblin wrote:I'm curious to see what data and research went into the conclusion. Right now, their only sources seems to be speculation and SF.
I doubt there's any research at all - it just looks like pure (and not very imaginative) speculation. If humans do evolve on a physically large scale over the next 100,000 years, it'll either be voluntary (i.e. through deliberate genetic manipulation) - in which case, see posthuman SF for further details - or involuntary, in response to some major environmental shift, where certain characteristics are selected for because they confer some reproductive advantage - in which case, see postapocalyptic SF for further details ...
Re: What will humans look like in 100,000 years?
Posted: Thu Jun 20, 2013 4:00 pm
by Smivs
Well, I've long thought humans would eventually evolve into just a giant brain with a finger - we'll still need to 'Press Space' from time to time
Re: What will humans look like in 100,000 years?
Posted: Thu Jun 20, 2013 4:22 pm
by Selezen
I used to respect Discovery. Until they basically turned into a reality show channel. I used to sit for hours watching their documentaries and SCIENCE shows, now they rarely show anything other than "MY SHOCKING STORY: HOW FAT CAN YOU BE AND STILL LIVE!?!?" and "GENERIC SHOW FEATURING PEOPLE DOING BORING JOBS IN A DANGEROUS ENVIRONMENT". No imagination goes into it at all these days.
And this article proves it. Shaky news on shaky subjects based on NO science.
Well done, Discovery - you've proved that you've been taken over by former Channel 4 bosses.
Oh, Channel 4's latest "documentary" is titled "THE MAN WITH 20 STONE TESTICLES". No doubt a Discovery co-production.
Even National Geographic has gone down this slippery, satanic slope.
Re: What will humans look like in 100,000 years?
Posted: Thu Jun 20, 2013 4:43 pm
by Tichy
I don't think that we'll have that larger brain, since we are "externalizing" some of our cognitive functions more and more. This doesn't mean that we'll be "stupider", but that we are changing our habits to include more ability to deal with human machine interfaces (or, better, human-tools interfaces... we are doing this since ages), replacing some other abilites.
As one of the most influential philosphers of the extended mind theory, Andy Clark, says: we are alredy cyborgs.
http://www.edge.org/conversation/natural-born-cyborgs
Personally, I think it in a more radical way. I like the thoeries of externalim and enactivism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externalism
Philosophy of mind and cognitive science are two of my passions... Maybe because they combine wery well with science fiction
However, if I'm not mistaken, I think that, since Cro-Magnon, the volume of our brain is unchanged.
Re: What will humans look like in 100,000 years?
Posted: Thu Jun 20, 2013 4:46 pm
by Cody
Tichy wrote:However, if I'm not mistaken, I think that, since Cro-Magnon, the volume of our brain is unchanged.
I think that the birth canal limits head size.
Re: What will humans look like in 100,000 years?
Posted: Thu Jun 20, 2013 4:58 pm
by Selezen
It's meant to, but studies have indicated that cranial size is increasing. That's why our ladyfolk are having so many issues and so much pain giving birth.
Other mammals can manage the process without much in the way of pain and strain, where human heads take a lot of effort to come into the world, often tearing the region in question in the process.
Some people (bloody scientists again) think that there will come a time when the head will become too large to pass through the pelvic opening and that births would have to be induced before reaching full term.
Re: What will humans look like in 100,000 years?
Posted: Thu Jun 20, 2013 6:02 pm
by JazHaz
Selezen wrote:I used to respect Discovery. Until they basically turned into a reality show channel. I used to sit for hours watching their documentaries and SCIENCE shows, now they rarely show anything other than "MY SHOCKING STORY: HOW FAT CAN YOU BE AND STILL LIVE!?!?" and "GENERIC SHOW FEATURING PEOPLE DOING BORING JOBS IN A DANGEROUS ENVIRONMENT". No imagination goes into it at all these days.
Most of their pure science shows have gone onto
Discovery Sc.
Re: What will humans look like in 100,000 years?
Posted: Sat Jun 22, 2013 2:21 pm
by Eric Walch
Cody wrote:I think that the birth canal limits head size.
For cows, that never was a problem. There are whole types that no longer fit the birth canal and get mounted a zipper.:
Re: What will humans look like in 100,000 years?
Posted: Sat Jun 22, 2013 11:10 pm
by Tricky
Eric Walch wrote:Cody wrote:I think that the birth canal limits head size.
For cows, that never was a problem. There are whole types that no longer fit the birth canal and get mounted a zipper.:
Well, how else are you going to get the Shergar burger out of the cow?
Looks like bacon... mmm, Bacon!
Re: What will humans look like in 100,000 years?
Posted: Fri Aug 16, 2013 2:53 am
by Commander Wilmot
Would it be possible to make everyone bigger without too many problems? A larger cranium might work fine if the rest of the body could be genetically engineered to be larger in stature to make it more proportional. Such a modification might be popular as it would also allow increased strength by resulting in more muscle mass. I realize that there are limits as the human form is not efficient in large sizes from an engineering stand point. The problem would be whether or not larger body types would increase the birth canal.
Of course Tichy's prediction of better technology causing an adaption in mental processing could prove accurate, or possibly the way our brains are engineered/structured could change.
Re: What will humans look like in 100,000 years?
Posted: Fri Aug 16, 2013 8:13 am
by Disembodied
New research might indicate that it's not the cranial size/birth canal size that's the limiting factor, it's the demands placed by the fetus on the mother's body:
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/obs ... ss-babies/
The researchers argue that instead of fetal brain expansion being constrained by the dimensions of the pelvis, the dimensions of the human pelvis have evolved to accommodate babies, and some other factor has kept newborn size in check.
That other factor, they contend, is mom’s metabolic rate. “Gestation places a heavy metabolic burden (measured in calories consumed) on the mother,” Dunsworth and her co-authors explain. Data from a wide range of mammals suggest that there is a limit to how large and energetically expensive a fetus can grow before it has to check out of the womb. Once outside of the womb, the baby’s growth slows down to a more sustainable rate for the mother. Building on an idea previously put forth by study co-author Peter T. Ellison of Harvard University known as the metabolic crossover hypothesis, the team proposes that “energetic constraints of both mother and fetus are the primary determinants of gestation length and fetal growth in humans and across mammals.” By nine months or so, the metabolic demands of a human fetus threaten to exceed the mother’s ability to meet both the baby’s energy requirements and her own, so she delivers the baby.
Scaling up the body might just proportionately scale up the fetal requirements, too.