By the year 3000 AD, there will be just two kinds of human beings on the planet: a hugely evolved upper class, and a dim-witted, ugly underclass.
The former will be tall, slim, healthy, attractive, intelligent and creative; the latter class will be dim-witted, ugly, squat, goblin-like.
The driving force behind this split will be an increased pickiness about one's sexual partners -- the intelligent class will chose likeminded types to mate with, leaving the underclass to mate among themselves, thus increasingly perpetuating the split into two distinct groups.
The startling theory, as reported across media outlets including the BBC and the Daily Mail, is the work of renowned evolutionary theorist Oliver Curry, of the London School of Economics.
Curry, a research associate at the Center for Philosophy of Natural and Social Science at the LSE, says such an evolution will be accomplished in the span of the next 1000 years. At the end of that period, he predicts, the upper class will comprise giants, physically and intellectually, with members of this class nearing 7 feet in height, with life spans around the 120-year mark.
The most marked change, Currey suggests, will be in physical appearance. As the healthy, youthful upperclass increasingly mates within its members, men will begin to exhibit symmetrical facial features, look athletic, and have squarer jaws, deeper voices and bigger penises.
Women will develop lighter, smooth, hairless skin, large clear eyes, pert breasts, glossy hair, and even features, the BBC report quotes Currey as saying.
In the process, racial differences will be ironed out through increased interbreeding resulting in uniformity; brown will become the new white.
The evolutionary psychologist warns, however, that an ever increasing dependence on gadgetry will at the same time transform mankind into something resembling domesticated animals. Social and communication skills could be eroded, as also emotions such as love, trust, respect, sympathy.
An increased dependence on processed foods could result in weaker looking jaws; an over reliance on medicines will trigger weaker immune systems, ergo more frequent illnesses.
The BBC report points out that Currey's views have been foreshadowed in the 1895 science fiction classic The Time Machine, in which HG Wells speaks of a world with just two human species.
'While science and technology have the potential to create an ideal habitat for humanity over the next millennium, there is a possibility of a monumental genetic hangover over the subsequent millennia due to an over-reliance on technology reducing our natural capacity to resist disease, or our evolved ability to get along with each other,' the BBC quotes Curry as saying, on a programme for Bravo television channel.
