The evolution of primates evolving into humans starting millions of years ago, but the process of evolution is not over.  Humans are continuing to evolve and now at an even faster rate than before due to larger populations and advances in medicine.  Evolutionary change in humans has been in the neocortex.  Briana Pobiner, an anthropologist at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, said, “The biggest evolutionary changes have occurred in the neocortex, the brain’s outer wrapping that processes abstract thinking, long-term planning, empathy and language.”  (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/)  Future humans could be very different from today depending on how we evolve and if we use cyborg technology combined with humans to push to humans biological limits beyond what it could naturally be.

Geoffrey Miller, a evolutionary psychologist at the University of New Mexico, thinks that humans will continue to evolve because as our technology improves and becomes more complex, we will need more intelligence to master it.  Miller also says that increased intelligence will result in higher earnings, social status, and sexual attractiveness within humans.  Using genetic selection technology could also allow for parents to decide which sperm and egg are used to get the exact physical and mental traits for their child that they want.  This technology can be controversial since some think that its close to playing God.  Also if the rich and powerful keep this technology to themselves it could create a large gap between the upper dominant class and the genetically oppressed lower-class.  Most likely this will not happen though since the owners will want to make their technology available to everybody so that they can make more money.

Humans in the future could also get to a point where technology and medicine become so advanced that humans could live forever.  Transhumanism is a philosophy that sees humans taking charge of their evolution and transcending their biological limitations with technology.  Nick Bostrom, director of the Future of Humanity Institute at the University of Oxford, said, “Transhumanism raises a spectacular array of possibilities, from supersoldiers and new breeds of athletes to immortal beings who, having had their brains scanned atom by atom, transfer their minds to computers.”  Not only would the possibility of living forever become a reality but people could also get “uploaded” into robots allowing humans to travel the speed of light far distances.

Here is a video of a transhumanist working currently to allow humans to upload their brains to computers and become immortal. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPKHHQFI-WM

The future of human evolution has many possibilities for us as a race.  There are many different ways and possibilities for us to evolve and it seems that it all depends on which technology becomes more advanced and readily available first.  Once this happens I think that people will start to use it, but I think that once people can become immortal with technology they will do so.  Although it may be controversial now with religion I think that with all the changes the future will bring that this will become generally pretty accepted.  And lets be real, how sweet would it be to live forever, be able to get uploaded all over the universe to a different robot body and be more intelligent?

Sources

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/19/human-evolution-over_n_5352297.html

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/11/091124-origin-of-species-150-darwin-human-evolution.html

http://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2011/10/04/humans-continue-to-evolve/