Are Humans still evolving?
On biological terms, evolution is not progress but change. It may be claimed that evolution can be accomplished beyond natural selection. However, natural selection, as a term, can include all human activity. It is also accepted that all products of humanity are restricted by human physiology. This restriction should not be regarded as a deficiency but as a rather substantial feature of the natural system. So, we may be at the stage of asking the question whether evolution can be accomplished beyond the procedure of natural selection. Since ontogenetic change is not considered to be evolution, every genetic change we make on individual organisms will have to be tested through genetic interactions within nature in order to compete with primal beings. In contemporary biosystems, human physiology seems to be closer to being seen as an "open landscape of possibilities", which comes in addition to the fact that not all developmental pathways observed in nature presuppose an evolutionary necessity.
Are Humans inseparable from Nature?
What we may assume is that the superiority of
the "biological form" over "artificiality" was based on the separation of Man
from Nature. In the case where Nature includes all potentials, this separation
may be in dispute. As Langton suggested [4], what we call "nature", includes
humans, machines, as well as all products of human intelligence. Advancing even
further, as Langton would put it, "the body as it would be if it was not what
it is", suggests a fabricated human being. The term "Nature" embodies all further
evolutions; if all biosystems are considered as "variations" engaged in potential
evolutionary designs, bioinformatics could provide alternative ways of reconsidering
their homeostatic-reproduction mechanisms.