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My point was that the "same process as any other organism adapting to its environment" won't continue for very long for humans. Once you have people that don't
by olalonde 3y ago
My point was that the "same process as any other organism adapting to its environment" won't continue for very long for humans. Once you have people that don't die, DNA that can be edited at will, or even entirely non-biological bodies, you no longer have the ingredients required for natural selection.
- defrost 3y agoOf course you do. The most likely scenario for some time is at most a few thousand people that don't die a natural death, that can afford to edit DNA, and perhaps even transfer their mind into a tin can ... along side some greater than a few billion others who continue to practice natural selection. How that works out in the long term will be .. interesting *. * for some value of 'interesting'
- RetroTechie 3y agoEven non-biological bodies are subject to accidents, disasters, sheer neglect, or perhaps willful termination (for personal reasons, as punishment, kill for hire, ...). Everything dies at some point - no exceptions. So essentially that would mess with the timescales. But you'd still have evolution somehow. Perhaps even fashion in what's considered desired physical format. Everybody bio/tech enhanced cyborg one year, everybody flying around as a drone the next year.
- olalonde 3y agoIndeed, by natural selection I meant evolution based on random DNA mutations. Of course, technological and cultural evolution (aka memetics) will persist.