Rather than evolving something that would be really useful like an extra 3D lens in the eye or fingers that are better suited to typing on a QWERTY keyboard, we’re going to start living in trees and evolve a hook thumb that lets us grab branches.

A future Scarlett Johansson on the red carpet?

This isn’t to detract from the extraordinary imagination displayed by Ryan Hopwood in his vision of humans in a future Earth with less gravity and a different atmosphere. It’s impressive, thought-provoking work that throws a light on some of the challenges humanity faces adapting to whatever changes may lie ahead in the environment.

But after millions of years of evolving in one direction - smarter - even if Earth’s gravity does reduce and the climate heats up, are we really going to say, “Screw it, let’s go live in the trees”?

More useful evolutionary advances might include an extra lens that allows us to enjoy 3D TV without having to look like a retiree who has escaped from Florida. Or a built-in bullshit detector extension to the ear that kicks in whenever you’re listening to a waffling politician, or a social media expert.

Marsupials are on to something with the built-in pocket. Perhaps there’s scope for evolving a small clip on the arm from to which you can attach any accessory, such as the latest Louis Vuitton handbag or your AppleBerry.

Facetiousness aside and, again, while fantastic visions of future humans are a worthwhile exercise, the broad sweep of evolution is towards more brain power, more technology, and more shelter. Apartment buildings with shag pile carpets, well-lit offices with swivel chairs, industrial-scale food production, the development of creative goods and services and large societies working together for mutual benefit are as much the products of evolution as Usain Bolt.

If gravity slowly decreased over time, surely it would make more sense for humans to become a bit smaller and lighter and using ever-increasing brain power to create technologies that address the risks posed by a changing environment.

Hmm. Using technology to address the risks of a changing environment. Hasn’t been much success with that lately, has there?

Maybe Ryan Hopwood’s right. We’re all heading for the trees.

What evolutionary features do you think humans should evolve?

Most commented

27 comments

Show oldest | newest first

    • PatC says:

      09:37am | 25/05/10

      OMG - It’s my mother-in-law!

    • BTS says:

      09:44am | 25/05/10

      You know PatC, there’s a good chance your wife will at least resemble half of that when you are older…food for thought…

    • Jenni says:

      09:40am | 25/05/10

      I’d like to see an adjustment to our sensitivity to pheremones, so I can smell a deadbeat coming from a mile away *before* I invest time and emotion in them LOL

    • Magic robot lover says:

      09:48am | 25/05/10

      Interchangeable genitalia.

      GFY takes on a whole new meaning and awesomeness

    • Bob H says:

      10:00am | 25/05/10

      I have been told that dinosaurs moved into the trees and then became birds.  If this is to be our evolutionary path, I have no complaints. Safer, cheaper flights for all and no Branson promotional stunts and standing on trains.  Being able to fly is superior to being able to sit in a chair washed over by a lovely big flat screens showing US forensic TV.

    • Justin says:

      10:16am | 25/05/10

      Star Wars taught me that more gravity = shorter, more muscular beings, & less gravity = taller, more lithe beings. George Lucas is about as qualified as anyone else who proclaims expertise in climate change, so I’ll take his word for it.

    • stephen says:

      11:21am | 25/05/10

      Other way round mate.Yer ‘causal mechanisms’ are skew-wiff.

      Just imagine a Miner in a million years time : still got flat-feet and those jug-handled ears, spitting on about having to cough up whats rightfully ours. This is the human development we did not have to have.

    • Crusader says:

      04:43pm | 25/05/10

      Good observation Justin. The height and muscle structure of beings on other planets can often be determined by gravity, as can their other adaptations. Geonosis, for example, has low gravity. Its inhabitants, although not exactly tall and lithe, have adapted by gaining the ability of flight, making the most of their lesser gravity and countering their fragile, insectoid-like figure. On the other hand, I wonder what kind of gravity Kashyyyk has, because wookiees are tall but muscular. You’re right about George Lucas too. Only difference is that he admits his work is fiction.

    • Lily says:

      10:21am | 25/05/10

      It doesn’t make sense , there will be no trees.

    • TheBigMicka says:

      11:05am | 25/05/10

      Evolution doesn’t happen overnight Lily.  Maybe when the trees grow back…or when the remaining moss and fungi evolve into future trees, then what crawls out from under the stinking ruins of our cities could very easily decide they’d prefer to live there, safely out of reach of the giant rats. 

      I’ll say this for the little guy, pink skin aside, he looks seriously pissed about something.  Maybe he’s a future talk-back jock.

    • Zeta says:

      11:08am | 25/05/10

      It’s a nice idea, that we’ll ‘evolve’ - but I think we’re actually an evolutionary dead end. That hypothesis, that’s we’ll all undergo physiological changes over the course of a few million years to adapt to changes on Earth is possible, but more likely as environmental changes present themselves, humans would use technology to adjust, instead of waiting around for biological adaptation.

    • Markus says:

      01:54pm | 25/05/10

      Exactly.
      We are impatient creatures, what makes this student think we would wait a million years to evolve skin to make it easier to live in hot temperatures, when Miami and Dubai are already flourishing in what should be barely inhabitable wastelands.
      More likely would be keener eyesight or sonar, to adapt to living in a cooler underground society, like a utopian Coober Pedy.

    • Patrick says:

      03:12pm | 25/05/10

      Yeah Zeta, my figuring on humans and further evolution was that we sorta slowed to a complete crawl once the first damned caveman decided “Shit I’m cold, maybe the fur from this animal I just killed with that there rock could keep me warm?”.. I mean all that’s changed since then is less hair.

    • Saskia says:

      11:37am | 25/05/10

      Looks like Kevin Rudd in budgie smugglers. (if Rudd was fit).

    • Louisa says:

      05:38pm | 25/05/10

      It is Kevin - no balls

    • Scott Glennon says:

      12:33pm | 25/05/10

      Good Lord, that has to be Lindsay Lohan 20 years from now.

    • CJ says:

      12:37pm | 25/05/10

      So we’re all going to turn into golum? excellent.

    • Tony H says:

      01:03pm | 25/05/10

      “If gravity slowly decreased over time”. May I just ask DUBYA-TEE-EFF?

    • DG says:

      01:48pm | 25/05/10

      Apparently, a large part of the mass of earth is going to slowly vanish for no apparent reason, or perhaps the inverse square law is completely wrong and living in the trees means we are exposed to much less gravity than we expect.

    • antiperspirant says:

      01:45pm | 25/05/10

      “It’s impressive, thought-provoking work that throws a light on some of the challenges humanity faces adapting to whatever changes may lie ahead in the environment. “

      Are you serious? Using a flavour of the month scare in AGW to promote a art collection of movie extras?

      Whatever I guess. Brb watching zombie movies.

    • Paul Colgan

      Paul Colgan says:

      10:38pm | 25/05/10

      I hope they are AGW-related zombies. Everyone knows they are the scariest kind.

    • Botfly says:

      02:26pm | 25/05/10

      Intresting article, we still have the tail bone so presumably we can grow a tail and swing through the trees in some sort of reverse evolution. Since I do not like heights , thank heavens I will be long gone before I start sprouting a tail

    • AKoiLus says:

      02:42pm | 25/05/10

      Oh great another future scientist at the ready to spend million$ of taxpayer dollars on absolute crap, and hypothetical nonsense!

    • Hendo says:

      03:39pm | 25/05/10

      I don’t buy this future-world crud from Hopwood. At the Royal Easter Show in 1976, I watched in awe as a regular homo sapien flew around the Sydney Sportsground with a jet-pack strapped to his body. My wise 10-year-old big brother assured me that, “When we’re grown ups, we’ll have those growing out of our backs.”
      F%$#ing bulls&%$, bro - I’m still slowly dying in the traffic.

    • Ray says:

      04:10pm | 25/05/10

      It is alarming that global warming alarmists can so alarm forming minds to come up with such alarming outcomes. In any case, there is no convincing evidence of anthropogenic global warming. There is no proof of the atmospheric greenhouse effect—it is a figment of warmists’ imagination.

    • neil says:

      05:35pm | 25/05/10

      The problem is evolution requires isolated populations to selectively breed in useful adaptations and breed out bad ones. A global breeding species that allows all mutations to survive has effectively stopped evolving.

    • Bitten says:

      05:39pm | 25/05/10

      I want us to get tails. Tails would be awesome.

 

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