About: Evolutionary Stasis   Sponge Permalink

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So, you have a dystopian epic set millions or billions of years in the future. It's safe to assume that there are still humans, and possibly other organic life forms, still reproducing. One would think that, even if natural selection has ceased to be a factor because of a static environment, mutation and genetic drift would still be factors. Even the proponents of Designer Babies rarely intend to micromanage everything. (Genetic drift will happen in the parts that aren't.) And even cloning gets mutations. And if any other species has survived, then they should be affected by evolution, too.

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  • Evolutionary Stasis
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  • So, you have a dystopian epic set millions or billions of years in the future. It's safe to assume that there are still humans, and possibly other organic life forms, still reproducing. One would think that, even if natural selection has ceased to be a factor because of a static environment, mutation and genetic drift would still be factors. Even the proponents of Designer Babies rarely intend to micromanage everything. (Genetic drift will happen in the parts that aren't.) And even cloning gets mutations. And if any other species has survived, then they should be affected by evolution, too.
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  • So, you have a dystopian epic set millions or billions of years in the future. It's safe to assume that there are still humans, and possibly other organic life forms, still reproducing. One would think that, even if natural selection has ceased to be a factor because of a static environment, mutation and genetic drift would still be factors. Even the proponents of Designer Babies rarely intend to micromanage everything. (Genetic drift will happen in the parts that aren't.) And even cloning gets mutations. And if any other species has survived, then they should be affected by evolution, too. But writers tend to ignore any possible evolution unless it's directly related to the plot. It may be on purpose, to save the trouble of imagining new species; World Building is a major distraction from writing, after all. And it's commonly believed that humans as we know them are more relatable than barely recognizable humanoid beasts who don't even resemble any other known species. (The ones that do resemble known species generally have undergone an Anthropomorphic Shift, which generally did not happen naturally...) A nonhuman human might as well be an alien... Or maybe the writers Did Not Do the Research. Even if the fact that there will be genetic changes is possible to research, the nature of the changes would be a good deal harder. See also Medieval Stasis. Examples of Evolutionary Stasis include:
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