Throughout our history, humans have routinely migrated to far-flung locations, crossing ice plains, lava fields, oceans, and mountains to set shop in a part of the world, cut off from others. Despite this, no new human species have evolved at least in the past 300,000 years.
[Scott Solomon, an evolutionary biologist at Rice University and author of the book Future Humans: Inside the Science of Our Continuing Evolution], explained: “One possible explanation [is] there wasn’t enough time for them to do that. They weren’t isolated long enough. Another possible answer is they were isolated, but not maybe completely isolated.”Another scenario (which is vaguely less dystopian) would be the prospect of colonizing other parts of the solar system and beyond. Humans are deeply intertwined on Earth and it’s hard to imagine a geographical factor that could divide humans into two populations exposed to vastly different evolutionary pressures. Even a continent splitting in two wouldn’t be much trouble for plane-faring, boat-building humans.
Related on the SLP
However, the colonization of other planets could be this catalyst.
