future evolution of humanity

Well, we exercise such power of the material world these days we are pretty much in charge of our own evolution. Frex, many fewer people died from causes related to bad eyesight ever since we invented glasses. This presents a possible problem becuase there is no longer selective pressure to remove that bug.In the reasonably short term (on the kind of scale we are discussing) IMO the shift will be out into space. It's clear the earth aint big enough for us, and if we stay we'll it and ourselves. Life expands to fill all available niches.There is a good probability that future 'evolution' will be very uneven. We've had some serious ideas about immortality treatments for at least 30 years now, I remember an estimate placing an effective one at circa 2040. But under prevailing economic circumstances, this will be exclusively the property of the wealthy.Lastly, if YEC's and similar anti-rationalists were driving the agenda, we would stay here and do nothing, until eventually a big enough rock comes along and wipes us all out. And then the universe will move on without us.

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"Imagine the devonian fish crawling onto land in little bubble helmets filled with water."

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Nice one. But I suspect, given our progress on genetics, that Homo Sapiens Stellaris might be on the cards.[This message has been edited by contracycle, 06-24-2003]

Thats quite possible. Although personally, I like to see technology as humanity "reinventing biology, backwards". As discussed on some of the Intelligent Design threads, the complexity of biology is such that, in fact, a Designer is impossible to imagine; hence, one might expect, the more "perfect" the machines we make the more they will resemble biology. In fact, I would go so far as to say that the distinction between biology and machinery is an artificial one - thet are merely points on distribution of complexity.