• Question: If humanity moved into space, what would be the most likely evolutionary developments?

    Asked by rosie123 to Mark, Paul on 25 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Mark Roberts

      Mark Roberts answered on 25 Jun 2010:

      Being honest probably none! or maybe small ones to do with circulation etc.

      Evolutionary developments only occur when there is a selection pressure – ie a reason that if we don’t change we die. If we do move into space we are likely to build our ships and bases to look after our every need (oxygen water food etc) so we are unlikely to change much.

      The two thing I can think of this that potentially there is more radiation out in space so perhaps we become more radiation tolerant – the other thing would be zero gravity I guess. If our space ships don’t have gravity then different selection pressures will exist on our circulatory system so that might change / evolve to be better at pumping blood around in zero gravity.

    • Photo: Paul Roche

      Paul Roche answered on 25 Jun 2010:

      Well, if humans started living in low gravity places, like on the Moon (1/6th Earth gravity) or Mars (1/3 Earth gravity), that would eventually start to have an effect on our bodies. From what I’ve read, you expect humans to get taller, with less muscle mass – so slimmer people. If humans every lived in a high gravity place (e.g. on a plent that was more massive then the Earth), the opposite would occur, as humans would need to adapt to living with stringer gravitational pull – so we’d get shorter but more muscled, to allow us to move around.

      There could be all sorts of other effects depending on exactly the humans were – so maybe depending on whether they were around a cooler star than the Sun (so their eyes might become adapted to see infrared light) or a hotter one (where there would be more UV light).

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