Are we at an evolutionary dead end?

[tharkûn]

Amish. They're the fastest growing in terms of birth rate .
I stand corrected. Who would have known, the creationist technophobes are the favored children in evolutionary theory

[SWPIGWANG]

oh well, at least chix would look better in the future

[beyond hope]

technology has become our evolution: rather than our bodies having to adapt to new conditions, we invent devices to do that for us.

[TrailerParkJawa]

But our medical sciences are certainly not perfect - we may still evolve a protection against cancer, for instance, at least juv-onset varieties.

Cancer tends to kill older people who have already reproduced. It plays a very small role in selection.

For a gene trait to become dominate it needs to offer a reproductive advantage over those who do not have that gene.

[InnerBrat]

But our medical sciences are certainly not perfect - we may still evolve a protection against cancer, for instance, at least juv-onset varieties.

Cancer tends to kill older people who have already reproduced. It plays a very small role in selection.

For a gene trait to become dominate it needs to offer a reproductive advantage over those who do not have that gene.

That's why I said juvenile-onset varieties.
Anyway, people are haveing children later and later nowadays, helped by inprovements in medecine, so diseases that previously wouldn't affect a perosn's fitness, now might kick in before they actually do reproduces.
Not dying before you reproduce is a reprodustive advantage

[Evil Sadistic Bastard]

That's why I said juvenile-onset varieties.
Anyway, people are haveing children later and later nowadays, helped by inprovements in medecine, so diseases that previously wouldn't affect a perosn's fitness, now might kick in before they actually do reproduces.
Not dying before you reproduce is a reprodustive advantage

It would seem we ARE screwing ourselves, by keeping the people carrying the disadvantageous traits alive to breed. But then again, probably not. It's hard to get turned on by a person hooked up to a respirator.

[lgot]

well, Technology is not our evolution, not in the biological sense, it does changed the human species but show the human species changing the other.

We are not screwing because there is no such thing a disadvantageous traits. There is traits that have use to different sittuations therefore different adaptations.
We achived such level of population and stability, a big protection that we can allow to have those who can die of a flu among us. Why ? Because the (this is a example) flu is hardly making any preasure to our survival. The Cheetah can not do the same and to them the flu is worry. The disease take little hand in the selection of humans because they are almost irrelevant since we can deal with a lot of them without endanger the humankind. (Of course, we still have a lot of disease to learn about, to adapt and survive but the notion that we are getting weaker with the medicine help because the "low-resistent" do not die anymore is silly. If they not die, they are not important to the survival conditions we live today, therefore we do not get weaker).

[beyond hope]

Keep in mind that some "disadvantageous" traits serve more of a purpose than you might think, too. Take sickle-cell anemia: having two genes for it gives you the full-blown disease, which can kill you if you exert yourself. However, having one gene for the error in protein coding that causes it confers resistance to malaria. This is why it's such a prevalent trait in regions like South America and Africa where malaria is endemic. It's entirely possible that other genetic problems actually serve some survival purpose as well.