zen_tom

In another thread, there were some suggestions to the effect that, man, having invented hospitals and medicine etc has effectively stopped the march of evolution.

I'm not entirely sold on this idea, since I think that selection criteria play more of an important role in evolution than the old 'fittest survive' notion. By selection criteria, I mean what men find attractive in women and (perhaps more importantly?) what women find attractive in men.

In the west, many people would only consider having a child in a very strict set of circumstances, with someone they feel is 'right'. (There are of course, many other people who don't apply these criteria)

If our pre-disposal to good personality, bone-structure, intelligence, social abilities etc is part of our sexual selection process, then both these traits, and the preference for them will likely be passed onto our children.

This double-hit, if anything, might be accelerating our progress down the evolutionary path. Some recent scientific claims (that I will try and find a link to at some point) suggested that from the outset, man has evolved and changed at an unprecedented rate compared with other creatures - perhaps this is likely to continue?

Anyway, I wanted to hear your thoughts. No doubt, the idea of technological enhancement of the human/body/brain could be said to be an evolution of sorts, as could the idea of the creation and development of intelligent machines - but if possible, lets try and stick to natural evolution of people over the next few thousand years.