The Future of Human Evolution

In the human genealogy tree of evolution, Homo neanderthalensis coexisted along side our ancestors Homo sapiens, who eventually crowded out the Neanderthals because, "Genocide is one way to better the chances of your own group over competing groups."^[1] As Gore Vidal once said, "It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail."

Just a while ago it was commonly accepted that "Homo sapiens and Homo neanderthalensis last shared a common ancestor approximately 700,000 years ago."^[2] It has now been indicated with new evidence that European human and Neanderthal interbreeding occurred as recently as "from 44,000 years ago when modern humans first entered Europe to 30,000 years ago when the last Neanderthals fell extinct."^[3]

Within the taxonomic classification of Genus Homo, anthropogenesis splits into evolutionary branches called species. The biological definition of a species is when individuals are capable of interbreeding and share the same gene pool. "Homo habilis is the earliest known species of the genus Homo"^[4] and the extinct hominods Homo erectus and Homo neanderthalensis were succeeded by Homo sapiens.

The 'Out-of-Africa' evolution theory is why only non-Africans have Neanderthal ancestors because Neanderthals were only in Europe. "Out-of-Africa is a theory of war and Multiple Regions is a theory of sex."^[5] and "at least four, and possibly more, different forms of humans existed in Asia after Homo sapiens migrated out of Africa."^[6] The closest living primate is the chimpanzee where there is only a 1.5% genome difference with humans. All mammals share a majority of genes. The platypus "shares 82 % of its genes with human, mouse, dog, opossum and chicken gnomes."^[7]

The small tiny difference in genome sequence is what the biotech industry is targeting for medical research and food production. That is why pigs are used in laboratories because there in only a a 2% difference between genes of humans and pigs. "Genetic engineering (GE) researchers have been putting human genes into animals for years for medical purposes, such as trying to make pig hearts human-compatible."^[8] Evolutionary theorist Oliver Curry said that far into the future that "the human race will divide into two subspecies"^[9] akin to H.G. Well's "Time Machine" - the Eloi and the Morlocks.

A phenotype is the outwordly differing physical characteristics amongst different races within a single species. A genotype is the description of the DNA sequence. A more familiar contemporary example would be dog breeding based on phenotype/appearance and line breeding/pedigree.

The genographic project collects DNA worldwide where you can get your own personal taxonomy tracking your genetic lineage for a $100.

References

[1] nuenke, "Reproductive Perspectives: A Review of Books in the Field of Genetics" comcast.net 10.19.2007
[2] Berkley Lab, "Neanderthal Genome Sequencing Yields Surprising Results and Opens a New Door to Future Studies " lbl.gov 11.15.2006
[3] Nicholas Wade, "Signs of Neanderthals Mating With Humans" NYTimes.com 5.6.2010
[4] gened, "Homo habilis: The first human species" wsu.edu 7.31.1996
[5] anon, "Mungo Man", convictcreations.com 10.24.2009
[6] Jennifer Viegas, "'X-Woman' Coexisted With Neanderthals, Modern Humans" 3.24.2010
[7] Tulan "The Platypus and Human Shared Genes" scienceray.com 5.2.2010
[8] Don Fitz, "Will Human Genes be Spliced into Food for People" greens.org 1.31.2001
[9] BBC News "Human species 'may split in two" bbc.co.uk 10.17.2006

Resources

http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/channel/human-family-tree/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_sexual_behaviour
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_evolution#Sapiens
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/genotype-phenotype/
http://www.hemmy.net/2006/06/19/top-10-hybrid-animals/
http://www.onelife.com/evolve/manev.html