The future of the human evolution Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

The future of the human evolution - Essay Example In his book, Darwin of the eighties, sought to explain the evolution of man as a process of natural selection. Darwin proposes four components of natural selection. First, he argues that characters within a population exhibit variations in appearance and conduct. This may be in terms of height, skin color or even body size. Darwin also talks about heritable traits, which are passed on from parents to offspring as opposed to traits powered by environmental conditions. His third component concerns population growth, which at times leads to mortality in cases where the resources cannot support the high population. The fourth component is derived from the third, in which Darwin argues that individuals with desirable traits will always survive in such an environment and give rise the next generation. This is known as natural selection, in which individuals struggle to survive and nature favors the strong. Based on this theory, human beings then have a high chance of evolving, powered by t he advancement in technological innovations, which will enable them survive. Variations among individuals within a population are occasioned by genetic differences. Genes are the materials through which traits are inherited from parents to offspring. ... Not all mutations are detrimental: a mutation in the brain of the Australopithecus enabled him to develop a larger brain and evolve into a hominid. Technological knowhow, however, has been seen to interfere with natural selection. Today, medics have come up with medicine to prolong the lives of mutants, thus encouraging the survival of weaklings which ultimately affects future generations. This means that individuals with desirable traits might mate with mutants and bring forth changes in the human race. This will lead to evolution, which will be occasioned by mutation. Consequently, future generations of human beings might not be able to survive. This not withstanding, not all mutations are negative. Some mutations may be advantageous to the human race. This perception has led to medical practitioners trying to come up with genetically modified human beings known as clones. These clones are designed to have all the positive attributes of their original humans and thus be more suitab ly adapted to live on earth. Human migration might also affect future evolution in terms of gene flow, which is a process of interbreeding between different populations of a given species (Mayr pp.55). When a person migrates from his original place of birth to go to another country, he is bound to start a family with the local people. This leads to the emergence of a new breed of people carrying the genes of both parents. An example of this is the era of the trans-Atlantic trade in which, many able bodied African men were shipped off to the United States to work as slaves. They later married the local women and gave rise to the African Americans. The latter were seen to have inherited most of