The Auto-Evolution of the "Human" Species

John E stewart, 2019

Does the Big History of life on Earth disclose a trajectory that has been driven by selection? If so, will the trajectory continue to apply into the future? This paper argues that such a trajectory exists, and examines some of its key implications. The most important consequence is that humanity can use the trajectory to guide how it evolves and adapts into the future. This is because the trajectory identifies a sequence of adaptations that will be favoured by selection. If humanity intentionally evolves its social systems and psychological capacities so that they follow the trajectory, humanity can avoid negative selection and instead survive and thrive indefinitely into the future. This would enable humanity to make a positive contribution to the future evolution of life in the universe. But it turns out that immediate selection will not drive the evolution of life on Earth further along this trajectory. Instead, intentional action by humanity is necessary. It is as if the evolution of life on any planet is a developmental process that has a very unusual characteristic: evolution will continue to develop successfully beyond a certain point only if it produces a sentient organism that: (i) awakens to the possibility it is embedded in a developing process; (ii) realizes that this developing process will continue successfully only if it chooses to intentionally drive the process forward; and (iii) commits to doing whatever is necessary to achieve this. On this planet, humanity is that sentient organism. The existence of such a key evolutionary role for humanity is capable of providing humanity with meaning and purpose in a larger scheme of things. For individuals who commit to driving the process forward, the nature of the trajectory has immediate consequences for what they should do with their lives, here and now.

Evolution's Arrow argues that evolution is directional and progressive, and that this has major consequences for humanity. Without resort to teleology, the book demonstrates that evolution moves in the direction of producing cooperative organisations of greater scale and evolvability - evolution has organised molecular processes into cells, cells into organisms, and organisms into societies. The book founds this position on a new theory of the evolution of cooperation. It shows that self-interest at the level of the genes does not prevent cooperation from increasing as evolution unfolds. Evolution progresses by discovering ways to build cooperative organisations out of self-interested individuals. The book also shows that evolution itself has evolved. Evolution has progressively improved the ability of evolutionary mechanisms to discover effective adaptations. And it has produced new and better mechanisms. Evolution's Arrow uses this understanding of the direction of evolution to identify the next great steps in the evolution of life on earth - the steps that humanity must take if we are to continue to be successful in evolutionary terms. A key step for humanity is to increase the scale and evolvability of our societies, eventually forming a unified and cooperative society on the scale of the planet. We must also transform ourselves psychologically to become self-evolving organisms - organisms that are able to escape their biological and cultural past by adapting in whatever directions are necessary to achieve future evolutionary success.

How Evolution Shapes Our Lives: Essays on Biology and Society, 2016

Can we predict how humans will evolve? 2. Has human evolution stopped? 3. Future nonadaptive evolution 4. Future adaptive evolution 5. Eugenics and genetic engineering How humans will evolve in the future is highly speculative because the process of evolution depends critically on random processes such as mutation, recombination, and genetic drift, and because adaptive evolution is strongly influenced by changing environments. Because the human environment includes culture, which can change quickly, it is difficult to predict future environments and hence future adaptive evolution. Nevertheless, some predictions can be made based on a basic understanding of evolutionary mechanisms. GLOSSARY Eugenics. Programs designed to direct evolutionary changes in the human population by controlled breeding, selective abortions, and sterility operations. Gene Flow. Movement of individuals or gametes from the local population of birth to a different local population followed by successful reproduction. Gene Pool. The set of genetic variants collectively shared by a reproducing population.

This article shows that the most important challenge to ‘evolutionary theory’ is not in the biological sciences, but rather in the human-social sciences. By contrasting ‘human selection,’ or the category of ‘artifi cial selection’ that Darwin used, with ‘natural selection’ a gap between evolutionary theories is identifi ed. It is wrong to speak of ‘evolution’ with respect to human-social change. This is because evolution is a type of change, while change is not a type of evolution. Human-social change is not ‘evolution’ because agency, freewill, decision-making, purpose and teleology are involved. The concept of ‘extension’ is introduced as an example of non-evolutionary human-social change. The suggestion of a new era in communication about development and change is made according to a paradigm of intentional human-social extension.

One contribution of 17 to a discussion meeting issue 'Major transitions in human evolution'.

2007

The future evolution of humanity is a huge topic. There are a number of factors that will influence the future evolution of humanity, including how people view and deal with change in general; different models of the processes of evolution and change transforming our world, and different substantive stages of evolutionin physical, biological, cultural, technological, and consciousness areas -which it is argued all work through us as human beings and will influence our ongoing evolution. For more on the process and substance of evolution in different areas, see , which is a good companion piece to this article.

The New Evolutionary Age for Humanity -- A proposal for a new model of global governance and for solving global challenges. Imagine a perfect world. It would be the world of social harmony. Social harmony is not an artificial unification of humanity, nor a uniformity and monotonous equality of classless society— it is not unification or equalization. It is rather a social wealth—a peculiar composition of diversity, in which we find mutual complement and moral virtue. To address today’s global challenges is not enough to invent new institutions or to change the existing ones. The key to a positive world transformation does not lie in institutions but in ourselves. If people are corrupted, the best institutions will never work properly and the highest technological achievements will be used for our destruction. Therefore, in my proposal I include the question of virtue and of social harmony.

Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology, 2014

Philosophy of Science, 2013

The Evolutionary Manifesto shows that evolution is directional and demonstrates that this has major implications for humanity. The Manifesto reveals that humanity must align its social syatems and behaviour with the trajectory of evolution if we are to survive and thrive into the future. The Manifesto goes on to show that humanity has an essential role to play in the future evolution of life on this planet. It demonstrates that life on Earth has reached a critical stage in evolution’s trajectory. Up to now evolution has moved along its trajectory blindly and unconsciously. But if evolution on Earth is to continue to advance successfully in the future, the process will have to be driven intentionally and consciously by humanity. In this way, a proper understanding of evolution shows us how we can live a life that matters in a larger scheme of things. An evolutionary worldview answers the fundamental existential question that faces us all: “What should I do with my life?” The Manifesto outlines in broad terms what humanity must do to advance the evolutionary process—how we will intentionally have to re-make our political, social and economic systems, and how we will need to develop our cognition and consciousness. As such, the Manifesto presents a detailed case for evolutionary activism--coordinated action directed at advancing the evolutionary process intentionally.