homo Sapiens evolution over the next 200 000 years

Hard to say for certain. Since we are becoming more and more mixed racially I would assume that over time a mixture of the races would eventually pan out and we might not have any racial distinction any more. I could be wrong but given two hundred thousand years of direct contact I would assume it is possible. But that also depends on the atmosphere of racial discrimination and other barriers to racial mixing.

If I am right then humans will look however the most dominant traits tend to come about. Certain traits might disappear, like blond hair or blue eyes. It is hard to say for certain. We might even develop new traits. It all depends on what kind of mutations enter into the genetic code during all that time. We know for certain that biology can quickly adapt.

For example we created nylon. We discovered there was a form of bacteria outside a nylon plant that adapted to feed on the nylon products that seeped into the run off from the plant. Nylon never existed before that so clearly within the last fifty years this bacteria had adapted to feed on the nylon.

My point is, that biology is hard to predict. It is also hard to predict where we will be as a species that long into the future. If we have ventured into space, perhaps long exposure to zero G environment has caused other adaptations to arise. Perhaps a smaller heart because it requires less power to pump blood through the body. Limbs and bones might atrophy and take on a different form. Muscles that were once used for keeping the body held up might change into simple tendons.

Maybe we would turn into large headed, big eyed, skinny limbed, short and gray skinned humans. Maybe if we saw ourselves in the future we might think we were looking at an alien.

Homo Erectus
Homo Sapiens
Homo Economicus
Homo Ludens
Evolution / De-volution

What task 4 Philo-So-phUS?

Homo Universalis is Our Aim in Nature

Vriendelijke groet,

Pepijn Sweep
X:DO0o
After Thought

Hi Allan my friend,

The task of thinking 200,000 years ahead is an arduously difficult exercise, and a certain impossibility, isn't it. Yet you asked. And it would be in the fit of curious mind that we providentialy possess, to speculate about the future of our species.

I am going to indulge in some guess work, and with little sense of any responsibilty whatsoever, now and hereforth.

I get a feeling that we will be divided into three sub species.........

1) Homo sapiens technus
2) Homo sapiens tradius

The first will have two races, namely 'urbanis' and 'noahsis'.

Technuses will be the advanced human beings who would take the path of using technological developement as their core idealogy. The race 'urbanis' will be terrestrial, and 'noahsis' will be living in islands or in mega-super ships or super oceanliners, surrounded by all sides with water.

The Earth will no longer be called Earth - the rock; rather, it would meta morphise into a term called Warth. a combo of watery earth. The ices sheets would have melted long ago. The Earth which is the terrestrial part would be 1/6th of what it is today, 5/6th being covered by or under water. Homos will be staying in higher grounds where the mega polises remain.

Desertification will happen. There will not be any large vegetation anywhere except under water. Except grasses no other plants will grow. The temperature above the land mass will be 45-55 deg. celsius. Winds will be hot during day time and cool in the night. There will be no nations. The billions will have been reduced to millions, after reaching a peak of 50 billion humans. This would take place after a minimum of ten to twenty world wars. Including nuclear wars.

The sub-species technus will be using and moving around in aero-bikes, They will live in sky scrapers completely insulated from outside weather systems, like depicted in Flash Gorden stories. The insulation will make the towns look like a city or towns inside a bubble. Lets call them bublites. The bubblites will be self sufficient towns or cities affiliated to other megapolises. Of course the aero-bikes wil be used to travel from one bubble to another, but special ducts will also be there between and inter-bubble having mass transporter machines. All people will have wired systems that will take solar energy and it will charge the mobile phones, laptops, fans etc which can be carried on their back-packs. They will rule the air. And they will be ruled by a woman.

Technus has another race that calls itself Noahsis. The Noahites, oririginating from the word naav, which means boat from the Indo-European language, will be the masters of the vast oceans. They will be th eboat people. But their boats are lik ecities of their cousins bubblites. The boats are as big as a few square Kilometeres. These may be populated by over one lakh people each. They are also self sufficient except for some agricultural produce. These mega ships or ocean-liners wil be protected by battle ships. They also have submarines which will take the few who occupies it down to the abysses. Noahites visits the bubblites after going through an acclimatisation process at the port of entry.

The rich will be staying in water, in large mega barge kind of ships. People will stay in large mega liners, on rent to the ship-owners. Fishes will be primary diet........ they will all turn meganin or black,

The most interesting people are the tradis, which means the traditionalists. They are the rebels, they have defied the human genetic inclination, and has resisted any modern way of life in terms of lifestyle. They believes that only the earth is the ultimate saviour. Humans therfore should be loyal to Earth and not Warth.

This sub-species will veer itself away from the techno-homos, and form cities protecetd by a transparent sheath -dome over head with wallled cities inside it. All kinds of agriculture will be produced inside the walls. They will trade with the bublites and noahites ony for perishable products like vegetables and fruits. And will not keep any formal communications with them. They will arm themselves with nuclear weapons, and have mined inside the earth, where many factories will produce all useful materials needed by those men. They choose agriculture as ther primary source of occupation. But they too are good in their sciences. They too have space crafts. Here, man will rule.

These three sub-species will rule over, but there would be other smaller groups which will occupy the deserts, here and there. They will turn nomadic.

In general, man would have colonised the Moon and planet Mars. Mars will be cooler than Earth. Each of these groups will be fighting to have space in the moon and mars, some may go exploring to Titan, and Venus.

All tribes will be exterminated by the ground dwelling semi urbanites (tradis) and urbanites (bublites). All large animals will be extinct. There will be no birds except vestiges of vultures and perhaps crows. Insects will all go subterrean. Micro-organisms will be totally fumigated and remain outside the cities. Flowers will be like gold. Cloned milking animals will be there in all the worlds.

Nuclear missiles will still remain facing the bubble cities and the walled cities. The military will now be called spacetary. Military generals each affilitaed to the three kinds will overlook any military manouveres from the respective space stations, each protected by their own missile systems like in the star wars program. Internet will be wireless controlled by the space-military, and the cities.

The smarter, ground dwellers will have flat footed horse hooved feet, and the bubblesites will have feets similar to the shapes as today but no nails nor hair will grow,.......... lungs and nose will grow, eyes will be larger, brain again larger, their will be professional women who will give birth, men will have no say on child birth,........ the woman will rule.

In the walled city the men will continue to rule, and birth will take place, in family sytems, but all children will work on communal systems, slaves will be in fashion, who will do all the labour,

...... Warthians will be the first to have laser weapons and go to battle on the moon.

Fantasies may turn into reality who knows.................

edit: I think i had overshot my limit..... wrong calculations. The fictionothesis above, is thought for the year 20,000 A.D.; The likely scenario 10 times over and above this period is simply unimaginable, at least for me. Probably, humans may have abandoned the 3rd planet!... who knows??.

Great posts from all of you guys up to this point, Science Fiction often depictes humans in the very far future as something like the flying Sauces Grey's, big heads, huge eyes tiny limbs etc

But I think that we are already at the end of our physical evolution, take the size of our heads this results in all human babies being born premature

Remember Alan, evolving isn't about change for the sake of change, it is change to adapt to the environment for survival. If our environment never changes then we will change very little. If our environment drastically changes then we will see change happen. Just like my example of us moving into space would probably see drastic changes in the physical appearance of humans because of that space environment.

People who don't use limbs lose them. Like a person who is wheel chair bound their muscles in their legs atrophy. The same would happen if you were in a weightless environment. The majority of the muscles in the human body are for structural support to counter act gravity. Some others are for moving within gravity, so take away the gravity and a majority of muscles lose their function. The body is quick to gobble up resources it doesn't have to use so muscles that get neglected shrink. The parts of the body that get used will strengthen and enhance.

Oh wow, what a question. I'll bite

Welp, I'd say larger brains, longer bodies and likely longer (more agile fingers). The pinky-toe would probably be gone as well. I also have a sneaking suspicion that mental abilities are likely to change (given the extremeness of how our evolution has been so focused on the brain); thus, it wouldn't surprise me one iota if we had more neural-sensitivities (read: telepathy)

Most would likely end up being house-bound, lying in large heaps of Living, wriggling MSG with remotes preinstalled in their hand in front of television screens. Communication would be confined to ranting about the ills of the world, with the "Auto-Straffe" feature on their front door machine guns set to *ON* in case someone comes by.

woops... think I went off on a tangent there.

Seriously, if I had to say: I don't think we'll be around then. Life will be, but the very attributes of humanity that have made us prosper (personality and behaviorally) will likely be our end.

Thanks

I assume we would engineer ourselfs, taking on desireable traits, such as dark skin for western people, and light skin for dark skin people.

Different eye colors, and most of all look like our favorite idiol.

Hopefully we have a better gene-anitmutaion/damage feature.

more likely there is no longer distinction of black and white, tall and small, asians and americans because all races will mix and evolve into one higher race.

No? ..people will choose exotic features.

In Africa and asia, some will actually use skin brightener, while in western culture we use skin darkener or sunbathing for darker exotic skin.

I'm sure we will uphold a diversity, through choises.