Debunking Shits About Evolution - Episode 8 [Homo sapiens futuris - Part 2]

In the predicted future, technology would have become really advanced and this will place in the hands of humans the power to alter the human genetic material or tweak them at will. That means, the evolution of humans would no longer be at the mercies of natural selection, but the fate of human would be at the choice of humans... thanks to genetic engineering. But one area that has been left in the grey zone is; would this Homo sapiens futuris be just a single specie? Rephrasing it; would this extant modern human evolve into a single specie or multiple species, just like our ancestors evolved into both us and the present day ape? Obviously, going by the trend of evolution, it is almost hard to say that a specie evolved directly into just a single species, so why would this be any different?

You can have a fuller detail from here.

INTRODUCTION

By virtue of our placement in the evolutionary chain of the hominid species, and by reason of our complexities, we consider ourselves already at the peak of evolution - and that could explain why we think that we are the most advanced species in the entire planet. But we tend to forget that what we see in us today is a product of years of selection, adaptation, and mutation. After all, that's what evolution is all about - the series of changes within an organism over time. So what would be our next point of call in our evolution from the Homo sapiens sapiens to the Homo sapiens futuris? Note; we will be considering both the induced adaptation (evolution by artificial causes) and natural selection, and then draw inference through the systematic reviews of the trend and patterns of evolution. Length alert: Again, you may find this piece lengthy, but I know you'll survive the length and gain broader knowledge of evolution. Welcome to the era of the Homo sapiens futuris.

OUR FINGERS: OPPOSABLE, OR EXTREMELY LONG?

Your finger thumbs are very opposable right? Of course, that's the reason you can even hold your phone and type shits, but do you know that those opposable thumbs are the resultant effects of long-term evolutionary changes? Speaking of "long-term", according to evolutionary biologists and gradualists, evolution is a very slow process, and an entirely new species could take as much as a whopping 1million year to completely evolve. What does this tell you about the Homo sapiens subspecies? Going by the few number of years we have existed in this extant form, it is only logical to believe there are more evolutionary changes coming our way - though it has been proven to be unusually faster over the last couple of years as revealed by this report. That means; the natural process of evolution (the slow and steady) has almost been sidelined. But let's look at how our fingers evolved, and how they are still evolving.

Our ancestors using their hands to support locomotion. From Flickr Licence:Public Domain

Way back down the trail, one of our ancestors and the borderline specie between Ape and Ape-men; the Sahelanthropus, had use of their hands majorly as support for locomotion, and not necessarily to grab and grasp things. This was before the evolution of bipedalism (walking on just two legs) and uprightness (fully erect). And from the fossils of their hands discovered, their thumbs were primitive and didn't wiggle as ours could.

To put the records straight; even though the Sahelanthropus is in the borderline between Ape and Ape-men, and also one of the oldest known hominid species (which was discovered in Chad, Africa), the actual split between the ancestors of Ape and Men was initiated between 20-40million years ago _[ref]. Going by this, the Ramapithecus can be considered to have existed before the Sahelanthropus, but why is it not mentioned majorly in our trail from Ape? This is because it has more of Ape features, and also has resemblance to the modern day orangutan.

But one thing is common among these earliest hominid species in relation to their fingers - their digits (particularly their thumbs) were not as opposable as our, and didn't wiggle - obviously, they were very primitive. Why is this so? Let’s consider the Ramapithecus closely (judging from their fossil bones), they were neither bipedal nor upright - that means; they used their hands as support for locomotion and not for handling tools; that explains why their digits were barely opposable, and in place of that, their toes were the ones very opposable. But like I said in my last episode, evolution came with its own perks. After the era of the Sahelanthropus, the next species; Orrorin tugenesis (also discovered in Africa), had a little freer hands than the Sahelanthropus. And they started grabbing and grasping stuffs. And as man began to grab stuffs with their hands, the fingers started assuming the shape and structure that would make room for more grasp - the opposability; and this is in affirmation to the Lamarck’s theory of "use and disuse".

From Wikimedia Commons. By Rufus46 Licence:CC BY-SA 3.0

The usage of their hands to grasp stuffs favoured the opposability of their fingers. The trend continued, even when it came to the Australopithecus, which was recognized as the species to handle tools, and then to the Homo habilis; which had the ability to fashion their tools... And ever since then, opposability shifted from their toes to the fingers - and the thumbs became wiggly. So this trend can be linked back to the moment man moved with the ability to grab stuffs and handle tools. But what are we likely to see our fingers evolve into?

THE FUTURE OF OUR FINGERS

This is where the concerns have been lying lately. And one thing with evolution is; we may not actually dictate the pace and outcome of evolution. If choices were to be made, trust me, the Sahelanthropus would have preferred to be hopping from tree to tree, instead of walking on the ground, but evolution kicked in. No doubt, this era has been greeted with technological advances, touch screen, and soft touch devices, which has led to humans exerting less pressure on their fingers to handle tools. And this is having effects on our fingers as compared to the recent past.

If you have observed closely, the overall finger length of the extant modern humans has been increasing over time, and they have been becoming thinner. And with this trend, the length is still expected to increase, and would also wiggle more, or even have a curly appearance. Of course; we wouldn't have much exertion to do with our hands and fingers. So, going by the trend of event, the future human species; Homo sapiens futuris; might have a tentacle-kind of fingers, instead to the normal wiggling opposable fingers - just like the damn octopus. Don't be too quick to say we would look weird, remember, we also looked at our ancestors as being weird and ugly, and that's exactly how the future species would look at us. Now that we've considered the fingers, let's look at another aspect of the evolution of the Homo sapiens futuris.

THE EYES - COLOUR AND STRUCTURE

There have been assertions that we have successfully tamed evolution, but have we surpassed the natural limit of evolution? In this era, we can see people with beautiful eye colour, and some people have found the blue eye colour particularly sexy. But do you know that the eye you see today is also a resultant effect of evolution? Okay I ask you; what is the rarest colour of eyes you have ever seen?

_{Dark eye colour, just like the one possessed by our ancestors. From pixabay. CC0 licensed}

Now this might interest you; but the earliest of our ancestors has been proven to have been birthed in the African continent. And if you are living in Africa, you would agree with me that we have an abundance of sunlight almost all the year round, and also very hot. No wonder our skins are dark - because of the natural selection that occurred and made us adapted to the excess ultraviolet rays from the sun, through the production of melanin. But also, it is worthy to note that the gene that is directly in control of the colour of the skin is also related to the one that is in control of the colour of the eyes too. So by inference, the earliest of our ancestors had a black to dark brown eye colour, and no doubt, this colour of eye is still predominant; particularly in this part of the world; Africa.

So if the ancestors of modern humans had dark eye colour, where did we get all these eye colour variations from today? As the ancestors of modern man began to migrate out of Africa to other parts of the world, and even to the humid region, it was almost unnecessary and useless for the melanin in the body to do its damn work - of course, there wasn't an African-kind of intense sunlight there. And the theory of "use and disuse" would set in, and the concentration of this pigment started to be kicked out by evolution, and also the subsequent generations started having less melanin concentration in the skin, and they started getting fairer. That's because they wouldn't need the black skin again to ensure their survival through intense sunlight.

And remember what I told you about the gene controlling the skin colour being linked to the one controlling the eye colour, the eyes started evolving to be lighter in colour. And as these individuals began to crossbreed, the best adapted genes were selected from the gene pool to also birth some other shades and tints of eye. All thanks to evolution and genetic transmutation. Maybe this would strike you; the entire individual on the planet with blue eye colour came from a common ancestral parenthood.

But the truth is; lighter eye colours are set to still emerge in the future. Just like one of the rarest eye colours; the green tint... Holy shit!! And also, with humans possibly becoming multiplanetary in the future, they would also need to evolve with larger eyes to optimize their vision in a dark planet - that's if "Mars" would be their destination. Well, till then, let's keep evolving guys!!

FINAL WORDS

So many changes have been occurring in our lives here and there, but these have been proven to have their roots in an evolutionary trend that was initiated millions of years ago by our ancestors. With the evolution of the modern humans into the future humans species; Homo sapiens futuris; many changes are still expected - like the elongation and thinning out of the fingers, and also some weird-looking eye colour and structure. Oops! I didn't just use the "weird" word again - but I'm really imagining how we would look like in the future. But not to worry, this thing is not happening anytime soon, but the process has already been initiated.