There is also the fact that we already are, effectively, controlling our own genetic pressures through culture and civilisation. Our culture largely influences our partner choice, and thus, breeding. Our medical sciences, agriculture, and urbanization takes pressure off survival. So the eugenic/dysgenic/paragenic process is in effect anyway, just… stupidly.
Some simple examples: - agriculture pushes us to be lactose tolerant and carbohydrate dependent - art and media dictates our sexual choices and mate choice - education creates pressure for intelligence, but a very specific kind of one. - in the long run, contraception methods might pressure a further evolution of our reproductive systems (ex: sooner or later, women with extremely unlikely mutations that allow them to “beat” the contraceptive pill will outbreed those who do not share such mutation. )
Im particularly interested in how our sexual culture effectively works as a secondary “blind goddess of eguenics”. For likely the first time since the Neolithic (or possibly since forever), we have reached an age in which women are free to chose their male partners based on physical attraction and mental kinship, not social pressure and need for survival. Assuming this trend continues, and we do not relapse into social conservatism, I expect a rather sudden (by evolutionary standards) shift in male choice, and thus sexual dimorphism.
Atop of that, we the rise of affordable In Vitro fertilization, we effectively are using conscious Eugenics, one specifically geared towards the needs of women and couples, rather than society at large. We are entering an age when the human male is not strictly necessary for breeding, or his offspring’s survival, and thus, with the exception of the rare super-specimens who are sperm donors, men no longer fall under any evolutionary pressure, and do not really need to exist.
The decades between the moment when in-vitro becomes the norm, and the moment when artificial wombs become the norm, will be very interesting indeed.
There is also the fact that we already are, effectively, controlling our own genetic pressures through culture and civilisation. Our culture largely influences our partner choice, and thus, breeding. Our medical sciences, agriculture, and urbanization takes pressure off survival. So the eugenic/dysgenic/paragenic process is in effect anyway, just… stupidly.
Some simple examples:
- agriculture pushes us to be lactose tolerant and carbohydrate dependent
- art and media dictates our sexual choices and mate choice
- education creates pressure for intelligence, but a very specific kind of one.
- in the long run, contraception methods might pressure a further evolution of our reproductive systems (ex: sooner or later, women with extremely unlikely mutations that allow them to “beat” the contraceptive pill will outbreed those who do not share such mutation. )
Im particularly interested in how our sexual culture effectively works as a secondary “blind goddess of eguenics”. For likely the first time since the Neolithic (or possibly since forever), we have reached an age in which women are free to chose their male partners based on physical attraction and mental kinship, not social pressure and need for survival. Assuming this trend continues, and we do not relapse into social conservatism, I expect a rather sudden (by evolutionary standards) shift in male choice, and thus sexual dimorphism.
Atop of that, we the rise of affordable In Vitro fertilization, we effectively are using conscious Eugenics, one specifically geared towards the needs of women and couples, rather than society at large. We are entering an age when the human male is not strictly necessary for breeding, or his offspring’s survival, and thus, with the exception of the rare super-specimens who are sperm donors, men no longer fall under any evolutionary pressure, and do not really need to exist.
The decades between the moment when in-vitro becomes the norm, and the moment when artificial wombs become the norm, will be very interesting indeed.