We, as Humans, are coming closer to evolve into a new race of Humans.

Submitted by Coloss260 t3_124tg0f in Showerthoughts

As science and history states, before being Homo Sapiens, the Humankind was populated with different races of Humans, Homo Neanderthal to provide an example.

Homo Sapiens took the lead of the evolution process, and became the dominant race of Humans while other races slowly faded into genes in our today's biology.

However, with the birth of phones and other digitalised forms of interacting with objects, Humans biologically follow a natural process of evolution, and it already started for our newly born generations, where our fingers show more precision to interact with things, and our bodies tend to be less muscular than it could be in the medieval eras for example.

In a not so late future, newly born generations will be, logically, even more precise with their fingers, maybe even have slightly longer index, and will slowly but certainly become the dominant race of Humans, slowly erasing the Homo Sapiens: Homo Digitalis (I think that's the name I read somewhere). I'm not an expert in biology and the process of evolution, but I think like that is a possible and predictable future as a living being that is constantly evolving to adapt to it's environment, and this environment being mostly composed of finger-usable machines and objects.

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dclxvi616 t1_je0q30g wrote

Wow, I did not think our finger precision on cell phones was so essential to reproductive fitness that this would be expressed through natural selection in less than a generation.

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Coloss260 OP t1_je0qu5z wrote

I think you got confused here, I was thinking about a "not so far" future, this could be a lot of generations, but even one hundred years compared to history is not so far away.

Living beings adapt genetically to their environment, in order for future generations to survive better than they did, and in human history, our bodies slowly reduced the need of strength, to give us more brain capacity (I might need to have a look on that to be honest). This works the same for any of our physical features, and in our today's way of living, we use more our fingers that we use our strength, so what could happen then?

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dclxvi616 t1_je0wrx7 wrote

Okay, you’re correct I was confused about the timeframe. But I don’t think the fact that we merely use our fingers more is expressed through natural selection unless people who are better at using their fingers are more effective at reproducing offspring. And they very well may be, it just takes a stretch of the imagination, imho.

Basically the selective pressure is always about if it makes you more or less likely to successfully produce offspring, who then in turn produce offspring of their own. Characteristics that make it less likely to do this die off, or are at risk of doing so. Characteristics that don’t effect your ability to reproduce don’t really effect the selective pressure.

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Bax_Cadarn t1_je1omz6 wrote

You are absolutely correct. That is like that facebook meme my wufe found where a woman had nose surgery because she wanted her children to be born with nicer noses xd

Unless humanity devolves to only mate on Tinder. I'm sure misswipes could affect one's ability to procreate.

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AxialGem t1_je0wkfo wrote

Tbh, if it is true at all that people are more precise with their fingers, it sounds like just learning and adapting on a physiological level, not a genetic one. If you lift a lot of weights, you will we more muscular, but that's not genetics necessarily. If you had an identical twin who didn't do that, they wouldn't be as muscular.

Also, that story of evolution sounds kinda...larmarckian? Of course us using our finger more during our lifetime doesn't necessarily make future generations automatically better with their fingers, right? But maybe I read your description wrong

Also the obvious thing...is it true that humans now are more dextrous with their fingers than at most points during history? I can think of a lot of things before smartphones that also require a lot of dexterity

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