« Finding the predictive geniuses | Main | Freakonomics 2.0 is out »
Dr. Curry and the future of mankind
Dr Curry warns...in 10,000 years time humans may have paid a genetic price for relying on technology.
Spoiled by gadgets designed to meet their every need, they could come to resemble domesticated animals.
Social skills, such as communicating and interacting with others, could be lost, along with emotions such as love, sympathy, trust and respect. People would become less able to care for others, or perform in teams.
Physically, they would start to appear more juvenile. Chins would recede, as a result of having to chew less on processed food.
There could also be health problems caused by reliance on medicine, resulting in weak immune systems. Preventing deaths would also help to preserve the genetic defects that cause cancer.
Dr. Curry also claims:
Further into the future, sexual selection - being choosy about one's partner - was likely to create more and more genetic inequality, said Dr Curry.
Only his third paragraph -- about less sociability -- fits my basic model of future human evolution. Genetic engineering aside, won't greater choosiness favor physically fit partners? And given the ease of birth control, I expect that people will come to love their children more, even though they will care less about everyone else. Who needs allies for quality child care when per capita income is very high?
Here is the full story. Thanks to Jason Kottke for the pointer.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on October 19, 2006 at 07:18 AM in Science | Permalink
Comments
Unfortunately, evolution doesn't quite work the way Dr. Curry seems to think it does. There are no genes for "technological skills". The map from genome (genes) to phenome (what we are)is extremely complex, and while selection may directly produce resistence to a disease that kills,it is less likely to impact on this kind of trait. Ibn general, technology grows/speads as a disease (epidemiologic model)but changes in genes, and in particular, loss of traits,grow with a much slower model.
If there was ever an argument for teaching more evolution, this is it.
Posted by: evolgirl at Oct 19, 2006 7:56:28 AM
Dr Curry warns...in 10,000 years time humans may have paid a genetic price for relying on technology.
Beh. Technology as we know it won't last that long. We'll run out of easily available energy, and that will give us time to figure out how to approach this whole technology thing.
Posted by: A Tykhyy at Oct 19, 2006 8:25:57 AM
Two points: with increased technology, there will be increase in leisure time.
And thus more opportunities for social interactions then currently exist.
As for birth control and the connection to caring for children more: The ease of birth control often causes
children to be placed chronologically after the career, the house, the car, the boat, and all
other nice things. I can't help but theorize that because a child comes last often
chronologically in modern families -- they also are inadvertantly placed lower on
the rung in importance. After all, what comes first later, the toys and career or time with a child?
Posted by: Jipp at Oct 19, 2006 9:02:54 AM
Considering how close we are to preimplantation screening for desired traits and some years later fullblown genetic engineering, these kinds of 'future evolution of humanity' predictions are really quite stupid. Curry adds an extra layer of stupidity by not understanding how evolution works; he seems to be a bit of a Lamarckian. For example, in order for chins to recede, there has to be either some reproductive advantage to a smaller chin or else some excess mortality associated with a larger chin. In times past, when food was scarce, starvation's winnow might gradually eliminate people who had jaws (or other body parts) larger than they needed. Or else a smaller chin might have appeared more attractive on women. With neither condition seeming to hold today, however, there is no mechanism for smaller chins to evolve.
The possible outcomes for self-directed future human evolution are a very interesting topic. At first I would expect a split between those who continue to have kids the old-fashioned way and those who embrace preimplantation screening. In the long run I wonder: will there be a consensus on which direction we want to go with genetic engineering, or will varying preferences result in a splintering off of human subgroups who are very different from one another?
Posted by: bbartlog at Oct 19, 2006 9:08:19 AM
Less sociability? No. Just look at everyone talking on cellphones all the time and compare it to rural society in the 1800's when you only talked to nonfamily at church on Sundays. A vast increase in sociability.
Posted by: Bill Harshaw at Oct 19, 2006 9:54:12 AM
As usual, predictions of this sort don't go far enough. Ten thousand years is a very long time. Ray Kurzweil is predicting thorough human integration with technology in a hundred years or less, and indeed that's already happening. Parkinson's sufferers get chips implanted in their brains; quadriplegics can manipulate computers through thought. In a relatively short time, we'll be essentially half human, half machine, and evolution will be thoroughly under human control.
Posted by: Dennis Mangan at Oct 19, 2006 9:57:12 AM
My prediction is that over the next 10,000 to 100,000 years, soi-disant experts will continue to make baseless predictions.
Posted by: J. at Oct 19, 2006 10:39:28 AM
Also we might blow everything to bits by then. I'm just saying.
Posted by: josh at Oct 19, 2006 10:50:36 AM
he seems to be a bit of a Lamarckian.
There is actually a lot of empirical evidence for Lamarkian-type effects in evolution.
Posted by: Matthew Cromer at Oct 19, 2006 11:26:26 AM
I'm with "J"
C'mon - ceteris paribus doesn't hold for the next 10 minutes, let alone the next 10,000 years.
Posted by: anne at Oct 19, 2006 11:42:00 AM
Oliver Curry is not a biologist. He teaches political science. PZ Myers at Pharyngula is a biologist and
quite effectively points out the silliness of Mr Curry's ideas.
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/
Posted by: Ronald Brak at Oct 19, 2006 12:17:29 PM
Matthew, I looked at the post about Lamarkian-type effects but I'm afraid it was a few calloused knees
short of a heard of camels. That is, not convincing.
Posted by: Ronald Brak at Oct 19, 2006 12:31:58 PM
The big part of fitness right now is based on the choice of whether and when to have kids, and how many to have. Genes that predispose you to choose to have lots of kids (don't use birth control, start cranking them out early, don't abort them) are presumably under heavy selection. Assuming away genetic engineering, imagining we stay at the current technology level for the next few centuries (impossible!), I would expect that almost everyone would just want kids really bad, and would hate the very idea of birth control.
Posted by: albatross at Oct 19, 2006 12:34:10 PM
Ronald, you may find this blog post about confirmation bias helpful in understanding why you are not convinced, and not likely to be convinced.
Posted by: Matthew Cromer at Oct 19, 2006 12:45:21 PM
I knew that article on confirmation bias would arrive at that conclusion.
Posted by: Ronald Brak at Oct 19, 2006 1:14:32 PM
See John Hawks' comment,
Why, oh why do we have to deal with things like this?
http://johnhawks.net/weblog/2006/10/18#curry_morlock_future_2006
Posted by: Lars Smith at Oct 19, 2006 1:36:41 PM
So, how has the last 10,000 years of technological development worked out?
Posted by: Fred at Oct 19, 2006 2:50:09 PM
We are already mostly spoiled by that most basic of technologies: fire. Our teeth are only good for cooked meat.
Posted by: luispedro at Oct 19, 2006 3:07:05 PM
Ninety-nine point nine percent of natural selection is not about
becoming something different -- at least not in any positive sense
-- but about holding on to what a species already has.
It is possible for a child to be born without mutation and indeed
this must frequently occur -- or we wouldn't be here -- but most
children are born with one or two or three or nine significant
changes to the DNA they inherit from their parents. It is
possible that a random change could be constructive but it's
fantastically unlikely. Thus every generation starts with more
problems -- more genetic problems, more things that don't work --
than the parents that gave birth to them.
In the natural world natural selection kills much of the new
generation (in most species it's most of the new generation)
before reproduction. Individuals with mutations are slightly
more likely to die than those without. The new generation of
parents ends up being just as fit -- just as relatively mutation
free -- as the old.
Since mutations compound (it's an exponential curve) any species
that has a tiny, persistent tendency to accumulate mutations
will rapidly become extinct.
Death and differential fertility are the tools of natural selection.
If they aren't significantly present among the young then natural
selection simply isn't happening and the mutational load has to be
rapidly rising.
This would seem to describe the human situation today. There are
few places in the world where the raw death rate among the
young is anything like what natural selection would need to do its
mutation pruning. There are significant disparities in human fertility
but my guess would be that though some of this is the grist for natural
selection most of these fertility disparities are uncoupled from the DNA
(and mutation pruning) and are being driven instead by the differences
between human cultures.
Of course just because we are on this path now does not mean we will
follow it all the way to the end.
Unfortunately I can imagine only a few ways out.
One would be to try to reestablish what I'm almost certain was the
human condition 10,000 years ago: tens of thousands of tribes with
relatively few members (implying only a tiny fraction of today's
population) who spend a significant portion of their lives trying to
and succeeding in killing their neighbors.
Or genetic engineering. There are a number of different ways to do
this but one of the easier would be to outlaw natural fertilization
and only allow implantations of embryos that have been prescreened.
If anyone can think of any other way out I'd like to hear about it.
Posted by: Mark Amerman at Oct 19, 2006 4:37:43 PM
Oliver Curry needs to stay away from evolutionary theory.
"Preventing deaths would also help to preserve the genetic defects that cause cancer."
That's just silly! Cancer deaths usually occur during adulthood and most often in old age ... AFTER reaching sexual maturity and having children. Thus selective pressures do not apply in those cases.
Posted by: knight in dragonland at Oct 19, 2006 4:51:32 PM
Luispedro - are you being sarcastic?
While I have no intention of joining raw food addicts, I have torn apart the odd very raw steak, chomped into sashimi (raw seafood), carrots, apples, bananas, etc. We've hardly lost the ability to eat raw food.
Posted by: Tracy W at Oct 19, 2006 6:09:49 PM
from a CBC article: When the women were told bogus scientific theories about being born bad at math, they did worse, says the study, which was published Thursday in the journal Science.
The women who were told that prior experience determined their math ability got twice as many answers right on the exam as women who were told their genetics were to blame, the researchers said.
"So, when they hear there's a gene for math, and they might not have it, they can be affected," said Ilan Dar-Nimrod, a doctoral student in social psychology and the lead author of the study, Exposure to Scientific Theories Affects Women's Math Performance.
"The relations between genes and behaviour are very complex and unfortunately people do view them in more deterministic terms than they ought to."
http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2006/10/19/women-math.html
Posted by: lwb at Oct 19, 2006 7:30:00 PM
The brilliant evolutionary anthropologist John Hawks' thinks Dr. Curry's future is about as likely as Zager and Evans's future in "The Year 2525."
http://johnhawks.net/weblog/reviews/future/curry_morlock_future_2006.html
Posted by: Steve Sailer at Oct 20, 2006 3:29:53 AM
Privatization of education is a problem. Any way to design a system to raise the children independent of the parents' net income?
I do not understand the significanse of any type of private school. Up till now, no one can say whether a street smart or a book smart is smarter.
Posted by: dreamer at Oct 20, 2006 6:45:46 AM
Privatization of education is a problem. Any way to design a system to raise the children independent of the parents' net income?
Yeah, I think they covered that pretty well in Brave New World.
Posted by: Matthew Cromer at Oct 20, 2006 7:32:40 AM
