Experts Debunk Claims: Will Future Humans Really Have Smaller Noses and Bigger Eyes?

The Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf writes that people will have smaller noses and bigger eyes in the future. But that’s not true, experts say.

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In the Dutch newspaper The Telegraph we read that people in the future would have smaller noses and bigger eyes. This could be due to current technological developments that cause us to use our eyes more intensively. Our nose, on the other hand, would get smaller. Is that correct?

“That statement is misleading on both sides,” said Professor Maarten Larmuseau, a geneticist and evolutionary biologist at KU Leuven. “Evolution doesn’t just change to some technological developments. It has to relate to survive through natural selection, and reproduce through sexual selection.’

Larmuseau gives the example of the Bajau, a people from Southeast Asia who have lived from underwater hunting for centuries. “Research shows that this group has a larger spleen in general. This allows them to stay underwater longer. The fact that genetic variation has spread is the result of natural selection. People with larger hooks could stay underwater longer. They could catch more, get richer and better they could keep their children alive. As they had more children, this genetic modification spread. They are the ‘winners’ of natural selection.’ But that process is slow, Larmuseau emphasizes. ‘A change like this takes centuries, and even then it affects a very small population.’

“Evolution happens when a specific genetic change occurs that gives you a survival or reproductive advantage within your living environment,” says emeritus professor of evolutionary and behavioral biology Mark Nelissen (Antwerp). “It is true that we have gone through certain changes in our evolution. Just think we don’t have a tail anymore. At a certain point it became useless and eventually we lost it. There was no advantage without a tail. But the nose is not only used for smelling, but also mainly for breathing, so it is still important.’

Is it even possible to predict what mankind will be like in the coming centuries?

“No,” said Larmuseau. “We don’t even know everything about our evolution in the past. What we do know is that people have adapted to different living conditions over time. During that time, we haven’t changed much in terms of physical features such as the size of our eyes and nose.’ Furthermore, Larmuseau emphasizes, it is not true that we are changing towards an ideal situation. “It’s impossible to know what genetic traits will spread in the future. Evolution is blind. So we still can’t predict what our distant descendants will be like,” Larmuseau concludes.