Humankind at its peak

I’m sure that every generation says “This is as good as it gets”. I’m sure in a thousand years from now they will say the same thing

How can you gauge something that really cant be measured? I find it absurd to suggest we are at the peak as humans. Perhaps our physical bodies may be at a peak but there is still so much.

We have just begun to unravel and understand the human genome... how can this fool say such a thing?

Good thing we're just going to destroy it all =/

... silly governments

I don't think we've reached our evolutionary zenith. I'm sure there is a lot more to be tapped into about ourselves. That should be self obvious seeing as we as humans are always striving for more no matter how much we have. It's human nature.

Go figure.

Every so often some loon either writes an essay or a book declaring that there is no further horizon to explore, all the problems known to science have been or soon will be resolved. Thank you. No questions. I have a plane to catch.

Later it is discovered that on the same day as the speech or book was unleashed another absolutely certainty has been dealt a fatal injury and is fading into twilight.

Yet the game persists - we know everything about what evolution is, how it happens, and more complex still - what it means for evolution to exist at all. hence it is possible to decide that random genetic mutations are no longer possible...

Which is a rather huge and immodest assumption about randomness.

That's the dumbest thing I've heard in a long time, its morons like him that hold us back!

The old sci-fi fusion fantasy?

It hit the wall.

AI researchers realized that human anatomy wasn't analogous to a machine. The heart may function like a pump and a limb like pseudopodia - but as soon as technicians started trying to duplicate brain function they realized they didn't understand it. Not even remotely. Don't believe me talk to somebody doing Quantum Gravity, Neurology, and so on..

And decision-making skills which have evolved over millions of years of new integrated levels of complexity? For which there is no reasonable understanding? Good luck!

Yes they will create crude industrialized and militarized robotics. But why take an inferior technology and architecture and downgrade humans with it? Show me a machine which is self-healing? Not as a call up routine but as an intellectual exercise.

The underlying prejudice against human anatomy is death and denial of death. This passion drives the fantasy that humans will be improved by being made artificially. People were first told that there was just tons of "Junk DNA" - purposeless excess - now?

You may be less than happy with how humans behave but in large part we are that ignorant of each other and ourselves that shedding ignorance should be our first priority.

Even in the human is done, the humanoid is long from over. Once the singularity occurs and human bodies and technology are fused as one, the evolutionary results will be endless.

We don't even know how to take care of ourselves anymore.

Scientists are ridiculous.

Okay, thing number one! i think this is pure bull crap!!
How can anybody even think there is such thing as "evolution?" I mean honestly, come on. Hey, let me take some empty space and turn it in to matter... that's nothing i can do! That's nothing that NOTHING can do! That's something that GOD can do! IF YOU HAVE ANY COMMENTS ABOUT THIS, EMAIL ME, i will have no problem talking to you about this. label (subject) it as GOD...

"IDIOCRACY" the movie i think supports his argument, scary funny movie

The 10% of our brains thing is an urban myth started by psychics in an attempt to explain their supposed abilities. There is no truth to it at all.

As far as evolution goes, even if our physical bodies do not change so much anymore, mentally & socially we have a long way to go.

I also object to the use of the word 'utopia' as most people use it, few people have actually read the book or understand its ideology.

Oh, Im still hoping for that holodeck to be invented, too much to ask?

cool now i got an excuse to fail middle school

What? We haven't even gotten to the point of using 10% of our brains. This can't be it. We don't have flying cars yet!!!

NOW IS THE TIME FOR SCIENCE!

Wow, this is as much as we can hope for? That's both utterly depressing and completely fantastic - with this news I laugh in the face of all those fools who think the human race is the best thing ever and we're better than everything and everyone else that has ever existed. We're just a big bag of bones and hormones. Ha!

Evolution is survival of the fittest, which contrary to popular belief is not survival of the strongest, but survival of the species that best adapts (or "fits") to their environment.

Evolution occurs when a species has a genetic hiccup and that hiccup proves to be a bigger asset in survival than the previous genetic make up. The "new" species basically outlives the former species because they are better adapted to the new environment or can fend off predators better and viola evolution.

Saying that human species have reached their final stage in evolution is to say that nothing will change ever again which is totally false. The world is always changing, every nanosecond of every day. It may not be change that human beings can measure but everything is always changing. We may evolve biologically at some point but, it won't be for a very, very long time...if we even make it that far.

However, humans have no natural predators, other than themselves, and adapt to their environment on an physical level rather than a biological level. We can always build shelter or a fire to ward off the affects of the harsh environment. So, I really don't think we'll be coming X-Men anytime soon.

I'd like to see us evolve as a society. We have a long way to go before we stop killing each other. I think that will be the ultimate test. Will we evolve as a community or will we simply kill off our own kind one by one?

....and you can take your pick on which one of our evils will befall us. From climate change to genocide and everything in between. All our predators are man made so can we really evolve beyond ourselves?

We've got perpetual endless arrogance so what does "peak" mean in that context?

Physically maybe but not spiritually or mentally.

I'm not satisfied until I can throw a car with my mind.

the education system is the thing holding us back

Prof Steve Jones is an idiot, death is the handy tool of evolution, but it is not the only tool.

Nonsense. There's loads of animals that we're way behind in terms of certain evolutionary developments. Until we can change colour like chameleons (handy for war camo and strengthening social relationships), make use of multiple stomachs (very useful for our increasingly obese/greedy human race) or fly (pretty much vital now to help slow global warming and our imminent and uncomfortable demise), we're nowhere near done evolving.

I'm not resting on my laurels until I can teleport at the very least.

This seems silly to me. Biological evolution took millions of years to get us to where we are at today. Social evolution, by which I mean the progression from a society of hunter-gatherers to where we are today, has taken a relatively brief 5000 to 6000 years.

The major obstacle to continued biological evolution is the likelyhood that we will self destruct through environmental degradation or more active methods such as nuclear war.

Hmm, isn't this what various people have said of scientific discovery and technology in the past, only proven to be idiotically untrue?

Anyway, what do they mean by 'peak'? Evolution isn't a linear progression after all, it could mean change in any number of different ways - and what about all those abilities we 'lost', such as opposable toes and a better sense of smell? (and we're still in the process of losing our apedixes and wisdom teeth..)

And are they still labeling the 80% of DNA they don't understand as "Junk DNA"?

Try again, Steve Jones.

How on earth do they work that out? If the climate changes, we'll need to evolve further and so on. And until men's nipples disappear, well, there's a long way to go...

People have always thought they represented the peak or aim of all evolution, but isn't the whole point of evolutionary development that it is non-teleological, that it does not have a specific aim?

We use less than 16% of our brains, (for most people it's a single digit figure).

Think we're finished developing?

What I learned from this story is that some scientists are clueless.

HA! That's the best joke I've heard in a while!

Do you really think this is it?!

We currently have two strands of DNA.

There are at least 10 more strands of DNA to develop.

This is the most foolish and nearsighted "scientific" research I have come across in a very long time.

I give it about a week before proof comes forward about the long long way humans have to develop.

There is no such thing as evolutionary completion, we just keep evolving.

I give it one week.

What exactly does the slow slip down the other side of this peak entail? Are we going to become slower, or lose function of important body parts? Or have we hit a brick wall?