• Question: can humans ever evolve into reptiles

    Asked by Henrietta to Aimee, Gemma, Hussain, Robert, Ross on 16 Nov 2015.
    • Photo: Ross King

      Ross King answered on 16 Nov 2015:

      The short answer is that I don’t think so and also I hope not! Personally, I think humans have pretty much stopped doing a lot of evolving. Evolution is really controlled by the environment you live in (is it too hot/cold? is it wet/dry? do I have predators? am I going to get sick?) and humans are now clever enough that they can pretty much control the environment they live in. So, now, we don’t get anywhere near as sick as we used to. This means that our bodies don’t need to battle against nasty bugs or viruses and so we don’t need to evolve new ways to cope with them.

      We might evolve in a few different ways over the next thousands of years, but I don’t think we’ll look too different (certainly not like a reptile! 😛 ) – I think maybe we’ll become less hairy, as we don’t have much need for fur anymore 🙂

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