Look of the Future

Experts share their predictions for how evolution might affect the appearance of humans in 50,000 years' time

- ARISTOS GEORGIOU

MANY PEOPLE HOLD THE VIEW THAT EVOLU-tion in humans has come to a halt. But while modern medicine and technologies have changed the environment in which evolution operates, many scientists are in agreement that the phenomenon is still occurring.

This evolution may be less about survival and more about reproductive success in our current environment. Changes in gene frequencies because of factors like cultural preferences, geographic migration and even random events continue to shape the human genome.

But what might humans look like in 50,000 years' time? Such a question is clearly speculative in nature. Nevertheless, experts gave Newsweek their predictions for how evolution might affect the appearance of our species in the future.

“Evolution is part deterministic—there are rules for how systems evolve—and part random—mutations and environmental changes are primarily unpredictable,” Thomas Mailund, an associate professor of bioinformatics at Aarhus University in Denmark, told Newsweek.

“In some rare cases, we can observe evolution in action, but over a time span of tens or hundreds of years, it is mostly guesswork. We can make somewhat qualified guesses, but the predictive power is low, so think of it as thought experiments more than anything else.”

Something we can say with certainty is that 50,000 years is more than enough time for several evolutionary changes to occur, albeit on a relatively minor scale, according to Mailund.

“Truly dramatic changes require a longer time, of course. We are not going to grow wings or gills in less than millions of years, and 50,000 years ago we were anatomically modern humans.”

Jason Hodgson, an anthropologist and evolutionary geneticist at Anglia Ruskin University in the United Kingdom, told