Take this story with a huge grain of salt: Apparently a professor has warned that due to transhumanist-like modifications and eugenic mating decisions (my words), the human race will split into two branches, one beautiful, intelligent, and lithe, the other ugly, short, and brutish. From the story in the not-always so-journalistic Daily Mail:
The human race will one day split into two separate species, an attractive, intelligent ruling elite and an underclass of dim-witted, ugly goblin-like creatures, according to a top scientist.
100,000 years into the future, sexual selection could mean that two distinct breeds of human will have developed.
The alarming prediction comes from evolutionary theorist Oliver Curry from the London School of Economics, who says that the human race will have reached its physical peak by the year 3000. These humans will be between 6ft and 7ft tall and they will live up to 120 years.
“Physical features will be driven by indicators of health, youth and fertility that men and women have evolved to look for in potential mates,” says the report, which suggests that advances in cosmetic surgery and other body modifying techniques will effectively homogenise our appearance.
He goes on to describe more personal parts of men and women that you can read in the story if you are interested.
He’s right that transhumanism would probably result in stultifying sameness rather than the wild differences for which most adherents yearn. But H.G. Wells warned about this a long time ago in his book The Time Machine—one of my favorite movies as a youngster. Hey, do you think the Morlocks were the inspiration for Tolkien’s orcs? As I recall the novel, they were made via genetically altering elfs, right?
Besides, if we are going to seize control over our own evolution, shouldn’t we be making ourselves more diminutive rather than taller? Think of the environment people! Shorter people means fewer resource raping of the planet and cooler temperatures!
