Hello Morlocks!

October 17, 2006 5:46 AM

Evolutionary theorist Dr Curry predicts humanity will "split in two". At the very least this should provide material for playground insults. At the top end, as Dr Curry says, we could be living in Wells' The Time Machine. Only without the time machine, sadly.
posted by imperium (70 comments total)

And yes, I saw the line "He carried out the report for men's satellite TV channel Bravo." But isn't that outweighed by the BBC reporting it? No? Oh, sorry.
posted by imperium at 5:47 AM on October 17, 2006

I predict that in 10,000 years time Evolutionary theorist Dr Curry will be dug up by a machine and then split in two.

The Big Idiot.
posted by seanyboy at 5:49 AM on October 17, 2006

Although this guy (or at least the reports on him) are useless, I have often idly wondered many times how much time or distance would have to come between far ends of humanity before those ends became unable to interbreed.
posted by sohcahtoa at 5:54 AM on October 17, 2006

Static analysis. Yes, biotech will progress to the point where humans can be "perfected" in whatever sense by genetic manipulation. And if that happened today, it would be a case of physically and mentally superior "haves" and inferior "have-nots". But isn't it likely that by the time the biotech fully arrives, we will have made some progress on the political-economy issues? Maybe it won't be such a "haves and have-nots" situation in the decades-ahead time that the theorist refers to. Maybe superior intellects will even help with social progress rather than increase injustice and exploitation.
posted by jam_pony at 5:56 AM on October 17, 2006

A LOT can happen in 1000 years. How about:

All biological humans will have their intelligence, creativity, and memory vastly enhanced by genetic engineering & implants. So that the far far more intelligent "child" AIs who visit the human zoo wont be quite sooo bored by their history leason.

I'm just say'n.
posted by jeffburdges at 5:56 AM on October 17, 2006

"Evolutionary theorist Oliver Curry of the London School of Economics expects a genetic upper class and a dim-witted underclass to emerge."

It appears that this has already started, with the founding population located here.

To wit (or perhaps, "dim wit"):


posted by scblackman at 5:59 AM on October 17, 2006

The descendants of the genetic upper class would be tall, slim, healthy, attractive, intelligent, and creative and a far cry from the "underclass" humans who would have evolved into dim-witted, ugly, squat goblin-like creatures.

Sounds like he's projecting, understanding the future in terms of British class theories of the 19th and 20th centuries: the healthy, tall, longer-lived patricians and upper middle class contrasted against troglodyte coal miners and navvies and sickly Cockneys.

(Eh, but wasn't that just what HG Wells was doing too?)

I'm a big believer in the influence of genes, but it's pretty amazing how having enough money to purchase a decent diet and improved hygiene, not to mention child labor laws, can "magically" transform the "goblin-like" lower classes into some semblance of attractiveness, or at least into Neil ("12 generations in a coal mine") Kinnock.
posted by orthogonality at 5:59 AM on October 17, 2006

Unless you consider genetic engineering evolution, this guy is way off. There's no reason to expect human beings to become at all taller, prettier, more athletic, etc, at least naturally. There are too many technological means to compensate for poor genetics.
posted by empath at 5:59 AM on October 17, 2006

I agree that humanity will divide into diffrent "classes" with genetic diffrences, but it'll be more about specialization.

As we learn more about child development & education, young people's *initial* career path will be more explicitly determined by their earlier education.

As we learn more about human genetics, parents will naturally try to match the genetic enhancments they choose with their plans for schooling.

But your not necessarily creating any underclass here.. if you first eliminate intellectual property.. genetic & teaching patents obviously lead to an underclass.
posted by jeffburdges at 6:08 AM on October 17, 2006

And "taller" is an amazingly stupid prediction, shows no unrstanding of the cardiovascular system.
posted by jeffburdges at 6:14 AM on October 17, 2006

See also Last and First Men
posted by MetaMonkey at 6:14 AM on October 17, 2006

Is this a Red State/Blue State thing?
posted by sourwookie at 6:24 AM on October 17, 2006 [1 favorite]

I, for one, welcome our new human overlords.

sorry, someone was going to do it.
posted by Bugg at 6:31 AM on October 17, 2006

I'm reminded of the predictions, popular in science magazines of the 50's, that men would evolve to have no hair because they all wore hats, and women would evolve to lose their fingernails because they all wore gloves.

Quaint, really, and a reminder that we human beings suck at being futurists.
posted by Pinback at 6:32 AM on October 17, 2006

No, no, no...the elites will be half-white and half-black, while the trogs will be half-black and half-white. Haven't you people learned ANYTHING?
posted by briank at 6:34 AM on October 17, 2006

This is wrong on so many levels. An economist saying we're going to decline due to a dependence on technology? Surely it will be lack of resources which ultimately fucks us over. Technlogy has always allowed us little hairless freaks to stay one step ahead.
posted by jimmythefish at 6:40 AM on October 17, 2006

I think the converse is true. The rich will become uglier and the poor more beautiful. The rich, being able to afford surgery, cosmetics and other artificial enhancements will take on the appearance of human blank canvases. Their faces will be heavy with the surplus ear, nose and lip tissue that they carry, waiting to be shaped by surgery.

Hmm...
posted by jiroczech at 6:41 AM on October 17, 2006

This is preposterous. I'm no expert, but I don't think this guy has even the remotest grasp of either genetics or sociology. For that matter, I don't think he's ever read The Time Machine, either. If he had, he'd be aware that the Eloi are slender, beautiful, graceful, and dumb as bricks. The Morlocks are the true rulers of the Earth.

I agree with the basic premise of two subspecies, but Wells had it right and Curry is a buffoon. I think we've been seeing the trends for centuries, as the wealthy and beautiful keep intermarrying and producing successively more worthless offspring. Paris Hilton is a proto-Eloi. I plan to be on the winning team, thank you very much.
posted by Faint of Butt at 6:41 AM on October 17, 2006 [1 favorite]

This is not really an issue because we can all afford Dove soap.
posted by srboisvert at 6:48 AM on October 17, 2006

The whole thing smells of racism and Eurocentricism. HG Wells was a Victorian.
posted by stbalbach at 7:01 AM on October 17, 2006

I suspect humanity will split many many times in the future (er, long time, many millions of years) into different kinds of intellect. The dangerous ones would be devastatingly beautiful, nearly clairvoyant with their intellect focused solely on seduction and reproduction. Of course, we have Bonobos now, we just don’t fuck ‘em. ...mostly. Intelligence is a pretty nifty (albeit new) adaptation. Seems to me that nearly all life on earth will have to adapt to it or spring from it. But we’ll always have the rats and squirrels schtick. Similar adaptations to behavior, but one is cute.
posted by Smedleyman at 7:06 AM on October 17, 2006

Surely it will be lack of resources which ultimately fucks us over.
posted by jimmythefish at 6:40 AM PST

Lack of Fresh Water? Lack of cheap oil to keep the green revolution going? GCC making some land dryer, other land underseawater, and move crops towards the poles (where the past ice ages stripped away good top soil and left sand?)

Or just a lack of cable TV?
posted by rough ashlar at 7:10 AM on October 17, 2006

The guy's methodology might be crap, but we are more and more able to be as choosy as we like about our partners, and find them anywhere. Since, generally, like attracts like (I know it's supposed to be "opposites attract" but that doesn't really pan out, as far as I know; ugly dumb troglodyte men don't really get together with brilliant slender tall elfin women) people are going to pair up in a way that will promote the features that they like, and so we will end up with some specialization of the species over time, I'm sure.

On top of that, successful people in our current world have more mobility, so the traits that make someone successful, generally - pure physical attractiveness, charisma, perceptivity, intelligence - will also be the traits that are reinforced by the exercise of this new ability to choose.

If you have a section of humanity that is selected by mobility & ability to choose among the entire rest of humanity, everyone else is forced to breed among themselves, and you get a division in the species.

It seems plausible, anyway, while there's a divide between the choice-ability of the two classes. Considering the rest of human history, we're pretty bad at being classless, and I don't see it going away any time soon, so, maybe we will see this bifurcation. 10,000 years probably isn't enough time to make it into official subspecies territory, but I could see it happening. Sometimes I wonder if it already happens in pockets.
posted by blacklite at 7:12 AM on October 17, 2006

100K years? I'd settle for humanity just making it out of the next 50. Geneic superhumans, Technical Singularity, Global Warming, Peak oil, etc. Look at the massive changes to the social order which have happened in industrial nations in the last 100 years. This prediction is just a way to scare us about the current divisions in our society between rich and poor. OH no we'd better get our act together and redistribute the wealth before we turn into an HG Wells dystopia!
posted by humanfont at 7:12 AM on October 17, 2006

I'd settle for humanity just making it out of the next 50. Geneic superhumans, Technical Singularity, Global Warming, Peak oil, etc.

I'd worry about the 'excluded classes' reactions to the above more than the above.

HG Wells dystopia

Every time I see an adult on a bicycle, I no longer despair for the future of the human race.
posted by rough ashlar at 7:17 AM on October 17, 2006

Or just a lack of cable TV?

I've maintained my square jaw and relatively tall stature with regular TV, but HDTV is going to turn me and me ancestors into lil' Danny DeVitos.
posted by jimmythefish at 7:22 AM on October 17, 2006

...er...descendants. it's early...
posted by jimmythefish at 7:24 AM on October 17, 2006

I'm no expert on evolutionary futurism, but this man clearly has no idea what he's talking about.

blacklite: the traits that make someone successful, generally - pure physical attractiveness, charisma, perceptivity, intelligence...

What makes you think these have anything to do with how "successful" somebody is? Why didn't you list greed, obsessiveness, and arrogance? Those really seem to be more important from my point of view.

That's the problem with these kinds of "thought experiments." They rely really heavily on armchair notions of how society works. Beyond that, concerning evolution, "success" as the term is commonly used has nothing to do with evolution. It's "success" in the sense of making babies that grow up to make babies. And if you want to just take this slice of history and extrapolate forward 100,000 years, well, it looks like we'll all be African.
posted by dsword at 7:34 AM on October 17, 2006

Sorry, this is the more appropriate link:

List of countries by population growth rate
posted by dsword at 7:36 AM on October 17, 2006

ugly dumb troglodyte men don't really get together with brilliant slender tall elfin women..



O RLY?
posted by imperium at 7:38 AM on October 17, 2006

Physical appearance, driven by indicators of health, youth and fertility, will improve, he says, while men will exhibit symmetrical facial features, look athletic, and have squarer jaws, deeper voices and bigger penises

Good. Now I won't have to respond to those helpful emails I get everyday asking if I would L1K3 A BIG3R P3N1S NOW W1TH0UT V1AGRA.
posted by ninjew at 7:46 AM on October 17, 2006

10,000 years probably isn't enough time to make it into official subspecies territory, but I could see it happening. Sometimes I wonder if it already happens in pockets.

wikipedia on inbreeding in humans (Royalty, nobility and The Rothschilds).

See I would draw the opposite conclusion - if there is a small pocket of people all interbreeding, wouldn't they suffer an evolutionary disadvantage and end up like an island species? Though I guess they'd have the best plastic surgeons, so they'd be artifically lengthed and so forth - but again that would be an evolutionary disadvantage, since there genetic attractiveness (or lack thereof) is so easily masked by wealth.

Though I guess some magic genetic technology could negate all that.
posted by MetaMonkey at 7:49 AM on October 17, 2006

But wait, I'm so confused. I thought people were getting shorter. How can we simultaneously get taller, slimmer and more graceful and shorter, fatter and generally dumpier?
posted by mygothlaundry at 8:02 AM on October 17, 2006

Why didn't you list greed, obsessiveness, and arrogance?

I defined "successful" as, generally, having the ability to find potential mates outside of one's local area and go to them and make babies with them. Most MetaFilter users would fall into that category. The majority of internet users in general, probably. I don't think being obsessive helps. Arrogance in an upper class goes without saying, doesn't it? And greed, well, I don't think it changes much.

The more successful-by-my-definition you are, the greater your pool of potential mates, because you have more resources to locate them and change your (or their) physical location, and you have the traits necessary to seduce them. Money isn't the entire thing, even though it's a lot of it.

I think one of the hardest things about this whole concept is how invisble the underclass is in the daily lives of most people. In this sort of eloi/morlock dichotomy, you (whoever reading this, not just dsword) and I are very probably in the same category as Paris Hilton, whether you like it or not. It's not just "hey there are a lot of Africans", it's the new way that a group of people can turn themselves into a section of humanity that only breeds with itself, voluntarily. It is like the British aristocracy, but nodded and smiled about instead of made explicit.

When was the last time you dated a poor immigrant from a non-English-speaking country who was entirely ignorant of the Internet? A handful of you may have, but I suspect the vast majority of everyone who reads this have never and will never.

Maybe it's just that living in the US makes me cranky.

On preview, MetaMonkey: the "island species" effect only comes into play in small populations. Since we're talking about a huge swath of society -- even if it was only as small as 1% of the world population, that's 60+ million, which is quite enough to not worry too much about weakening through interbreeding.
posted by blacklite at 8:08 AM on October 17, 2006 [1 favorite]

Dear Axme: How can I ensure that, when the human race differentiates into two subspecies, I end up in the tall, superior, large-penised group? Please respond, this is time-sensitive.
posted by Krrrlson at 8:20 AM on October 17, 2006

If Curry knew anything, he'd realise there would be two groups. One, being the human populance, and the other being genetically-modified furries. Given the unique characteristics of the hybrid metahuman DNA, the humans would naturally hunt the furries for food, in a quasi-cannnabilistic spree.
posted by Smart Dalek at 8:42 AM on October 17, 2006 [1 favorite]

My husband:

Tall..........................................check
Thin..........................................check
Athletic looking.........................check
Intelligent.................................check
Handsome................................check
Big penis..................................check
Thick hair.................................check
Beautiful, aristocratic hands....check
Aristocratic backround.............errrr

He comes from generations of the poorest of the poor in America-- Appalachian hillbilly Scots-Irish.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 9:26 AM on October 17, 2006

imperium much as I love your inline, Andrew Neil is many things, but dumb he ain't!
posted by dmt at 9:26 AM on October 17, 2006

Alpha children wear grey. They work much harder than we do, because they're so frightfully clever. I'm really awfully glad I'm a Beta, because I don't work so hard. And then we are much better than the Gammas and Deltas. Gammas are stupid. They all wear green, and Delta children wear khaki. Oh no, I don't want to play with Delta children. And Epsilons are still worse. They're too stupid to be able to read or write. Besides they wear black, which is such a beastly colour. I'm so glad I'm a Beta.
posted by Plutor at 9:29 AM on October 17, 2006

"Racial differences will be ironed out by interbreeding, producing a uniform race of coffee-coloured people."

At least that's a good idea. From my practical experience, I think Americans won't get over "the 'race' issue" without making it moot -- so we can concentrate on more important matters like Crips vs. Bloods.
posted by davy at 9:50 AM on October 17, 2006

Yeah, men select for beauty and women select for intelligence/perpiscuity, and evolution selects for female attractiveness and male ruthlessness. This is why in the future all women will be lean, beautiful, of variable intelligence, and men will be fat, enormously wealthy, and of variable handsomeness.

SecretLifeofGravy, the Scots-Irish are historically noted for being too sexy for their own good.
posted by shownomercy at 9:54 AM on October 17, 2006

So (to derail), by dsword's link, the cost of living should be cheap in Port of Spain?
posted by davy at 9:56 AM on October 17, 2006

That chick in the drawing? I'd do 'er.
posted by No Robots at 9:56 AM on October 17, 2006

"the Scots-Irish are historically noted for being too sexy"

Scots-Irish women. By and large Scots-Irish men are homely fuckwits like Paisley and me. (Trick question: NI Catholics favor green and Protestants orange; what color do fuckwits wear?)
posted by davy at 10:02 AM on October 17, 2006

Davy, is this truly so homely? Compared to some other politicians, i'd say he's a pretty fit specimen.
posted by shownomercy at 10:46 AM on October 17, 2006

When was the last time you dated a poor immigrant from a non-English-speaking country who was entirely ignorant of the Internet? A handful of you may have, but I suspect the vast majority of everyone who reads this have never and will never.

That's funny. A friend of mine recently went overseas and experienced what it was like to be mistaken for "a domestic" (she's Canadian-born Phillipino). Extremely well-educated and intelligent, reasonably (self-made) wealthy, very talented, charming, and attractive. But from the same genetic stock as those "domestics", a mere one generation back. So I'm not sure how "ignorance of the internet" factors in when you're talking about genetics, but I guarantee that there are a whole lot of willing mates for this woman in the middle class at least.

Why is it that you think that "poor immigrants" with marked cultural differences stay that way? You did say immigrants. I'm 3 generations removed from the same. My sig other is 5. That's peanuts, evolution-wise. Social evolution is much faster than the genetic kind.
posted by dreamsign at 10:46 AM on October 17, 2006

Uh oh. My wife is smarter and more attractive than I am, AND shorter than I am by about nine inches. Now how will I know what group to sign my children up with?
posted by davejay at 11:44 AM on October 17, 2006

The following borrows from previous comments I am to lazy to quote.

The difference in appearance between the upper class and lower class humans have a lot more with diet, hygiene and access to technology than with genetics. For example, I frequently see the US born, bred and fed children of poor Mexican immigrants being taller, stronger and more attractive than their parents, looking a lot more like affluent Mexicans.

Add plastic surgery, hormone treatments and prosthetics, and any man can 'exhibit symmetrical facial features, look athletic, and have squarer jaws, deeper voices and bigger penises', as any woman can 'develop lighter, smooth, hairless skin, large clear eyes, pert breasts, glossy hair, and even features', if they have enough money and access to technology.

Maybe the author gets his clues from this?

The point he is missing, is that up until now, these improvements can not be transmitted to the next generation (excluding maybe healthier babies being born from better fed mothers?), and no one can guarantee that the rich of today will be the rich of tomorrow (Incas anyone?). Successful humans are the ones that reproduce the most.

It gets interesting when genetic engineering enters the picture. If you can modify your genes in such a way that the changes you make on yourself transmit to your descendants, the more money you invest in your genes now, the better chances your offspring will have, even if they are born poor. Smart people, I guess, will invest in better immune systems, ability to digest cellulose, UV radiation resistant skin, longer life, etc... the dumb ones will invest in lighter skin and bigger boobs.

The upper class will be short, dark, landfill digesting, virus resistant, fire breathing bad asses.

The part I like most, is that unless you invest in anti cross breeding measures, whomever your descendants mate with, will transmit some of the improvement you paid for to their descendants.

Sorry for the length, I even forgot to rant on engineering the mind (race of supercooperative but ultraxenophobic geniuses)
posted by Dataphage at 12:36 PM on October 17, 2006

Natives settled in America 16'000 years ago. That span of time of near complete isolation was not long enough to cause speciation.

Nowdays we have ocean cruisers and planes. We have way too many ways of quickly travelling the entire globe. Speciation cannot happen here anymore. Nobody can hide anywhere.

We will have to go to Mars.
posted by gmarceau at 12:38 PM on October 17, 2006

"ugly dumb troglodyte men don't really get together with brilliant slender tall elfin women.."

I take it you've never seen the average Hollywood mogul/producer/screenwriter, then.

Tho, the "brilliant" part about the women is probably a wide variable there. "Clever" is probably more accurate.
posted by zoogleplex at 12:48 PM on October 17, 2006

Are we not men?
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 12:52 PM on October 17, 2006

For now, but in 100,000 years all bets are off.
posted by InfidelZombie at 1:43 PM on October 17, 2006

Because rich people never make bad choices as to whom they should fuck. Not evar.
posted by bardic at 1:59 PM on October 17, 2006

So, does this mean I shouldn't publish my recipe for "Eloi Con Carne?"
posted by FormlessOne at 2:38 PM on October 17, 2006

Oh, and this guy's an idiot.

Clearly, now that we're in the days after Ford, we're going to be artificially fitted into a caste system devised by a clever and efficient combination of selective eugenics & brute-force assembly line manipulation into a culturally static world. You won't get a choice, but you will get the recreational drug of choice and a dearth of culture.

And now, I'm off to pop my soma.
posted by FormlessOne at 2:44 PM on October 17, 2006

Oh, and this guy's an idiot.

Clearly, now that we're in the days after Ford, we're going to be artificially fitted into a caste system, our positions determined by a clever and efficient combination of selective eugenics & brute-force assembly line manipulation into a culturally static world. You won't get a choice, but you will get the recreational drug of choice and a dearth of culture.

And now, I'm off to pop my soma.
posted by FormlessOne at 2:44 PM on October 17, 2006

Well, that was neat. ;) My first double post. Sorry about that. Soma's hitting hard, apparently.
posted by FormlessOne at 2:45 PM on October 17, 2006

Geography, has only ceased to be a gigantic barrier to travel in the last 100 years or so. That kept human populations far more isolated than they are today. If the human race was likely to diverge, surely it would already have happened?

Some have used genetic evidence to estimate that the youngest common ancestor for the whole human race lived less than 10,000 years ago. Clearly, even a smidgeon of breeding between people from far-flung places is enough to keep the gene pool pretty thoroughly mixed, and to keep the entire human race fairly closely related.

I have a hard time believing that we'll ever get the sort of total genetic isolation, based on class of all things, necessary to cause the human race to diverge. It's just against human nature. Class distinctions have, at many times in human history, been far stronger than they are now, and yet there has never been a shortage of bastards, royal and otherwise.
posted by Western Infidels at 2:50 PM on October 17, 2006

I think that "Man After Man" is more interesting idle speculation.
posted by me & my monkey at 2:53 PM on October 17, 2006

People seem to forget how Europeans were able to mate with Americans after thousands of years of separation.

What a crock of shit.
posted by furtive at 3:41 PM on October 17, 2006

WTF Oliver Curry??
This is unsubstatiated, wanktastic evolutionary speculation at its worst. Not least because it doesn't even bother trying to account for tradeoffs in physiology and sexual selection.
If only scientists weren't *rewarded* for being sensationalistic.
posted by Arthur "Two Sheds" Jackson at 3:52 PM on October 17, 2006

Arthur, I offer a partial apology for starting the thread. I rewarded him, but in mitigation I also invited others to mock him.
posted by imperium at 4:25 PM on October 17, 2006

Quaint, really, and a reminder that we human beings suck at being futurists.
posted by Pinback at 10:32 AM AST on October 17 [+] [!]

I don't know, with all this emphasis on competition and darwinian struggle? I think we make excellent futurists.
posted by es_de_bah at 5:32 PM on October 17, 2006

Oh imperium, I didn't mean you. I just get depressed sometimes, how otherwise intelligent scientists and philosophers (such as Oliver Curry) appear to be led from the straight and narrow by the prospect of garnering attention for themselves. The system is not arranged to optimize truth. :/
posted by Arthur "Two Sheds" Jackson at 6:42 PM on October 17, 2006

This will not happen as long as alcohol exists.

WE MUST BAN ALCOHOL FOR EVOLUTION!
posted by Sparx at 7:06 PM on October 17, 2006

Exactly. Speciation won't happen because while people may prefer to *marry* "appropriate" mates in terms of class, education, looks, they will frequently (particularly when they are young or drunk, particularly men) *fuck* anything once, particularly in our pornified culture. And sometimes those "extra pair copulations" will result in pregnancies.

Some believe that the Neanderthals weren't killed off by modern humans, but rather sexually assimilated.

Of course, if we do successfully segregrate into ultrarich and ultrapoor who never have any contact with each other somehow...
posted by Maias at 7:35 PM on October 17, 2006

this is incredibly stupid...
posted by Kifer85 at 11:44 PM on October 17, 2006

Curry's whole CV reeks of this kind of hubris:

He is currently working on turning some of the predictions that evolutionary theory makes about human moral and political psychology into tractable experiments, and putting them to the test.

Maybe, for his first experiment, he'll see if he can get wasted enough to try banging some east-end, troll-like immigrant.
posted by No Robots at 8:21 AM on October 18, 2006

"The upper class will be short, dark, landfill digesting, virus resistant, fire breathing bad asses."

Hey, then I'm ALREADY upper class! W00t!
posted by davy at 11:05 AM on October 20, 2006

Remember too that canids are still not fully speciated: a bulldog and a coyote can breed and produce fertile offspring. Perhaps he meant not species but "breeds" or (gasp) "races"?
posted by davy at 1:11 PM on October 20, 2006