A new species of dumb, ugly humans?

No, I'm not talking about FEMA again. I'm talking about evolution, baby:

The human race will one day split into two separate species, an attractive, intelligent ruling elite and an underclass of dim-witted, ugly goblin-like creatures, according to a top scientist.

100,000 years into the future, sexual selection could mean that two distinct breeds of human will have developed. ...

"[T]hings could get ugly, with the possible emergence of genetic 'haves' and 'have-nots'."

So basically, it'll be Eloi and Morlocks, as the linked article photographically suggests.

Of course, the odds are we'll have blown ourselves to radioactive smithereens -- or destroyed ourselves in some other creative way, or fallen victim to some cosmic calamity -- long before then, so I'm not sure what the big deal is.

Comments

[PenguinSix]

morlocks and eloi. been there done that

[Brian Foster]

"Of course, the odds are we'll have blown ourselves to radioactive smithereens -- or destroyed ourselves in some other creative way, or fallen victim to some cosmic calamity -- long before then"

Not if we come to our collective fiscal and budgetary senses and abolish Social Security or welfare or something, and direct all that tax money into an aggressive plan to start colonizing other planets and developing some workable version of an FTL drive or its substantial equivalent, so we can untether ourselves from this rock and ensure survival of the species on hundreds, if not thousands of planets scattered across the galaxy.

(Seriously. Okay, maybe not the "abolishing Social Security" part, but definitely the part about aggressive funding and planning to become a permanently spacefaring people.)

[Andrew]

I'm going to rely on Mike Wiser to point out that this guy is selling a load of crap. Mike, where you at?

[Drive-By Media]

This article is complete BS:
Morlocks don't keep the Eloi happy, they eat the happy Eloi.

[Mike]

I haven't found a clip from the Bravo segment he is supposed to have delivered these predictions in, but I did find a summary of the predictions. From what I've read, this guy is completely out of his depths from a scientific standpoint. It should be noted that while he is indeed a PhD, it's from the Government department from the London School of Economics, an institution where he currently teacher political theory. Therefore, perhaps we shouldn't expect him to actually know the science of what he makes wild speculations about.

The homogenization of skin color is a common idea among a number of utopians. It's also fairly unrealistic from a scientific standpoint. Centuries of people with mixed skin tones living in close proximity to each other in several locations--most notably the Caribbean and much of South America--has not lead to a uniform skin color in these locations. As such, there are a few likely explanations. One, perhaps there are not a large number of unlinked genes of small effect which sum together to result in overall skin tone, but rather a smaller number of genes of large effect, which therefore prevent homogenization. (eg: eye color. There are lots of brown eyes, some blue eyes, rarer green eyes, and rarer still things like gray or black. But because the genetic effects come in discrete packages of substantial impact, you don't mix brown and blue together to come up with a bluish brown or a brownish blue. You continue to have some people have blue eyes and others have brown eyes). Two, perhaps people mate assortatively, in that light skinned people prefer light skinned people and dark skinned people prefer dark skinned people and medium skinned people prefer medium skinned people. There are other possible explanations as well. But the high diversity of skin tones in countries where lots of different racial backgrounds have been close together for centuries argues against a growing uniformity to color.

A lot of the other physical traits he suggests are entirely laughable from any reasoned understanding. As one example, let's imagine, for the sake of argument, that men do continue to prefer women with hairless legs (which he's expecting in his idea that women will have more and more hairless skin). Although it's a relatively recent cultural development, let's assume it stays in place. We already have a wide variety of technological means to create hairlessness--razors, depilatory creams, electrolysis, waxing, etc. Technological means such as these drastically decrease the probability of any biological change occurring, as they allow individuals without the genetic makeup for a given trait to achieve the same appearance as those with it. Consequently, there is no selective pressure on the genes, and no increase in likelihood that humans will move in that direction.

As far as a splitting of humans into two species, that would most likely require vast amounts of time. The people who populated the Americas before European contact had been isolated from all other humans for around 12-15,000 years. Yet there is no indication that couplings between them and other humans were any less fertile than couplings within any chosen geographic region. To get distinct species by 100,000 years seems extremely unlikely.

[Andrew]

Thanks for coming through, Mike, I knew you would. ;-)

[David K.]

Sorry Mike, if it were anyone else I probably wouldn't point this out but :

"an institution where he currently teacher political theory"

Nice spelling ;-)

[Alasdair]

Mike - aren't humans already two distinct species, one of which lacks the Y-chromosome ? (grin)

If I remember correctly, shortly before the collapse of apartheid in South Africa, the ruling white elite was starting to have some problems because, in spie of 'em intermarrying to keep the 'white bloodlines' pure and unmongrel, at aroudn the 6th or 7th generation of living in South Africa, the kids were starting to have skins too dark to be able to be considered as 'white' ...

While not wishing such idiocy on the kids involved (since they couldn't really help who their parents were), I 'fess up to mucho schadenfreude with respect to what the ruling white elite parents were going through ...