Quote:
Originally Posted by inBOIL
Evolution doesn't direct the development of new adaptations, it only selects for existing adaptations that confer a benefit. Furthermore, an organism will not evolve, only populations evolve.
As it relates to the OP, for humans to evolve these powerful mental capabilities, some precursor ability would have to already exist, and it would have to be selected for. If the strength of that precursor is small, it would take very strong selective pressure to get it to spread through the population. It would be difficult to engineer such pressure without knowing anything about the precursor. Of course this all assumes that such powers are possible, and as yet there is no solid evidence suggesting that they are.
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Actually it selects for
mutations which happen spontaneously. Otherwise we would have never evolved into humans if it only ever selects current adaptive qualities. It's just the mutations are usually worse than better, and getting the right bunch of mutations to make a significant difference in an animal takes quite few tries.