• Question: We evolve to improve but over the past few thousand years the human race has become slower, fatter and each person has become less capable of fending for themselves, have we really improved?

    Asked by ogoldfinch09 to Asif, Laura, Lena, Sean, Viv on 18 Mar 2012.
    • Photo: Viv Lyons

      Viv Lyons answered on 18 Mar 2012:

      What we have done is invented and developed ways to make our lives easier but I agree, some people in the developed world have got lazy. However I would say that those inventions and developments themselves are impressive and as long as people are asking great questions like yours there is hope that we are still improving.
      I notice from your profile that you want to be a teacher so you can encourage others to ask questions.

    • Photo: Lena Ciric

      Lena Ciric answered on 18 Mar 2012:

      This is a great question and one we should ALL be thinking about.

      I sometimes think that we are a bit too successful. We managed to live in harmony with the Earth for 100 000 years but this has really changed recently – particularly in the last 150-200 years. I don’t actually think this is to do with us evolving as the time scale is very small (thinking in evolutionary terms). I think it’s to do with the advances we’ve made in medicine, science and technology. We’ve almost become too successful for our own good.

      When I grow bacteria in the lab, there are four distinct stages in the process. The lag phase (where not much happens while they’re getting going), the log/exponential phase (when they are multiplying at their optimum speed), the statoinary phase (when they are starting to run out of food so they slow down), and the death phase (when they start dying off due to lack of resources). Here is an illustration of the process:. I think humans lived in the lag phase for many thousands of years and only entered the log phase a few hundred years ago. When I’m feeling pessimistic I think we are currently in the stationary phase. But I think if we all realise this it is possible for us to carry on for a long time as long as we invest in the future and treat the Earth with respect.

    • Photo: Sean Murphy

      Sean Murphy answered on 18 Mar 2012:

      I think we have improved in some ways, however evolution does not occur with an aim of improving the species. It is simply a process to describe how we do change over a long period of time. This change can be for better or worse. The key for a species to be successful is simply to survive. We are very successful at this based on our population, however I do think that we are in the log phase of growth. Hopefully we will realize that some resources are finate before we enter the final “phase”.

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