Evolutionary theorist Oliver Curry thinks the human race is going to split into two distinct species — like in The Time Machine, by H. G. Wells — one attractive, intelligent, ruling elite, and the other an underclass of dim-witted, ugly, goblin-like creatures.
But then again, he also thinks that before that happens, we’ll all become a single coffee-colored species that mixes all the qualities of all the different races we currently know. I have a hard time with the first 1,000 years of Curry’s theory, but if you want to get into that, you can start by having a look at Ben Goldacre’s response to Curry, at Bad Science.
Believe it or not, the part in which I’m interested is the two species, H. G. Wells, sci-fi future of humanity. In fact, I think he’s right.
Background
First, I should explain that physical evolution has not stopped, but for humans it has taken a back seat. Biological evolution and natural selection require thousands of years for they newly evolved mutations to become prominent in the gene pool.
In contrast, psychological evolution and sexual selection shows it’s evidence much faster. Mate choice and sexual selection show immediate results after one generation, and can thus become rather widespread after only a few centuries.
Also, in a world where the environment changes so much from one generation to the next, natural selection is too slow to evolve changes for adaptation. That leaves sexual evolution in the driver’s seat, and that means the most attractive people will couple with equally attractive people, and unattractive people will be left to couple with equally unattractive people.
Evidence
The top half of today’s children are physically superior not only to others, but to history’s children of similar ages. Kids are developing at earlier ages. The beautiful people are getting more beautiful.
They’re also getting smarter. Today’s teenagers can operate the computers and program the VCRs and work the cell phones that drive their parents crazy. They’re better at spelling, better at math, better at music.
But the bottom half of today’s children are significantly inferior. Nearly 35 percent of American children ages 6 to 19 are overweight. Half of those—some 11 million children—are so overweight they’re classified as obese. They’re getting shorter, and fatter, and more unhealthy.
They’re intellectually inferior, too. Mark Morford at SF Gate writes:
But most of all, he simply observes his students, year to year, noting all the obvious evidence of teens’ decreasing abilities when confronted with even the most basic intellectual tasks, from understanding simple history to working through moderately complex ideas to even (in a couple recent examples that particularly distressed him) being able to define the words “agriculture,” or even “democracy.” Not a single student could do it.
It gets worse. My friend cites the fact that, of the 6,000 high school students he estimates he’s taught over the span of his career, only a small fraction now make it to his grade with a functioning understanding of written English. They do not know how to form a sentence. They cannot write an intelligible paragraph. Recently, after giving an assignment that required drawing lines, he realized that not a single student actually knew how to use a ruler.
So the smart, good-looking, physically fit people are getting smarter, better looking, taller, stronger. Meanwhile the fat, lazy, dumb people are getting fatter, lazier, sicker, shorter, and dumber.
Evolution
So indeed, I can see how the human race could easily be headed for a genetic split. After all, the smart, beautiful people don’t want to be with the dumb, fat people, right? Sexual selection will continue to lead the superior genes to mix, while leaving the inferior genes with no better options.
