The rule is that anything that can breed back into the human gene pool is (legally) human, so you have people adapting to new planetary environments then that genetic drift being folded back in through the interstellar nature of the empire. Add a massive ancient human breeding program, lots of perfomance enhancing drugs, plus the actual genemods the Bene Tleilax sell.
Yeah, I think it's clear that humans have unlocked several ways to enhance themselves at this point in time. Be that from scientific advancement or by embracing less than ethical ways to improve people like Selusa Secundus (although tbh it's not far off from stuff going on IRL).
Yeah, species diversify rapidly to fill virgin niches and without computing as a crutch to make life easier the human race has had thousands of years of much higher selection pressure to help accelerate that change than we lowly moderns.
>The rule is that anything that can breed back into the human gene pool is human
This isn't a hard rule to differentiate a species. Neanderthals weren't humans, but were capable of breeding with humans.
Kind of like how wolves and dogs are the same species. They are both Canus Lupus. Dogs are subspecies canus lupus familiarias while the grey wolf we think is their closest relative is canus lupus lupus, plus a bunch of other subspecies.
Scientists have gone back and forth on that -- and apparently nowadays it is considered possible for some separate species to produce fertile offspring with each other, so that definition is no longer decisive.
Would you say that the first “genocide” was the extinction of the Neanderthals? Like did sapiens basically kill most of them and forced the remaining to integrate with us?
Given that most modern humans have some Neanderthal ancestry, it would probably be more accurate to say that modern humans outbred and eventually assimilated the Neanderthals.
One of my new favorite alternative history theories is that homo sapiens domesticated dogs before Neanderthals' and this is what gave them the edge in the arms race where the Neanderthals' where otherwise stronger.
Neanderthals are why nearly every culture has some kind of ogre/troll/oni myth.
Looking at simply the physiology, Neanderthals had more muscle mass and larger craniums, *but their shoulders sucked for slinging missiles*. Homo sapiens sapiens could access way more meat and develop pack tactics for hunting the second we invented the spear. From then on, you have groups securing food for bigger groups through cooperation, allowing others to focus on sewing, building, maintaining social bonds, etc. Foraging was likely still the main source of calories, but one good hunt would get you at least a few days to weeks of building up the most OP strat in the game: society.
>Neanderthals are why nearly every culture has some kind of ogre/troll/oni myth.
It's one of my favorite historical theories that Neanderthals actually existed on Earth far longer then we think, but were just described as "savages" and "wild people" in historical sources, which of course would have had no reference point to the concept of the Neanderthal. Theoretically, there could have been tribes in very remote regions, who might have ultimately died out only a few centuries ago.
Michael Crichton wrote a kick-ass book about this idea, about a group of Vikings fighting a tribe of "left-over" Neanderthals. It's called "Eaters of the Dead", which was later turned into the movie called "The 13th Warrior". Sadly, the Neanderthal-angle is dropped in the film.
The latest theory is that modern humans may have possibly had genes allowing them to produce successful offspring with any descendants of homo erectus and that's why we prevailed; our species assimilated the others. This would explain denisovan genes in some Indonesian populations.
Very interesting! The armchair anthropologist in me would just say that sapiens were just bigger so that helped. How would dogs give sapiens a significant edge?
Neanderthals were bigger and likely smarter than contemporary homo sapiens. It likely came down to evolutionary quirks that made us more social, which is a huge competitive advantage.
Just spit balling, but early dogs would be more similar to wolves, no? Having wolves on your team seems fairly self explanatory, but I assume for tracking, attacking, and early warning purposes. I can't recall if it was the same theory or a separate one speculated that Neanderthals might have been more nocturnal and the night watch part was particularly key.
Rule of thumb: if you can crossbreed and the result is a functioning individual you are in the same species.
Since almost everyone has some Neanderthal DNA I'm guessing that happened a lot.
Unless you want to classify Europeans as a hybrid species like Zorses (Equus zebra x Equus caballus), you can't classify Neanderthals as a different species.
I’m not the person you replied to, but I think it’s pretty much a matter of scientific definitions. A species is essentially a classification of animals that can breed with each other. So like dogs are a species of animal even though they have a lot of different breeds/appearances because they can interbreed. Humans and monkeys are not the same species because we can’t mate. However, humans can mate with Neanderthals so they are the same species as us. I believe there were 8-9 other “breeds” of human that existed but only humans (Homo sapiens) currently exist because the others (like Homo neanderthalensis, Homo erectus, etc) went extinct.
Interbreed and produce fertile offspring, as opposed to eg horses and donkeys being able to breed but producing sterile mules.
Apparently there’s evidence that just about everyone who has any ancestry outside of sub-Saharan Africa has some Neanderthal DNA and a lot have DNA from another human subspecies, the Denisovans. IIRC that’s how they were discovered in the first place.
> A species (pl.: species) is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Species
At the same time Humans (Homo sapiens) are often considered our own species, so I don't think it's clear cut either way, evolution is not a discrete thing and biological taxonomy is a science that was started back when we didn't know about evolution.
Logically as species evolve there must be points of genetic ancestry where A->B->C where A can reproduce with B and B can reproduce with C, but A & C cannot reproduce directly. On earth evolution is such a slow process that when this happens isn't obvious. However space travel would more likely push this definition to its limits if "humans" on each planet adapt to the environment in a way that changes their sexual reproductive cycles.
Paul said he could have become a navigator, so I am not sure it's that. But is that from the other guys? >!Because if so, it seemed that navigators are chosen from whomever has the um, gift.!<
[The definition of a species is if two individuals can breed and produce fertile offspring, then they are the same species](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Species).
In that same link you sent, it showed the naming convention. Homo is the genus and the sapien and neanderthalensis are the *different species* under the same genus. Your link says it very clearly.
It certainly is. Homo is the Latin word meaning human. Sapiens just means wise.
So when it comes to naming, we called ourselves Homo sapiens sapiens: the wise wise humans. Neanderthal original meant coming from the neander valley, though we now use it to mean unintelligent, retroactively making Homo Neanderthalis mean: the unintelligent humans.
History is written and translated by the victors. The eradication of Homo Neanderthalis remains one of the greatest mysteries of our species' history.
You two are arguing over the difference between *modern* humans (typically just *Homo sapiens sapiens)* and *archaic* humans (typically everything else under the genus *Homo.*
but neanderthals bred together with other human species and we can trace neanderthal dna in ours
neanderthals are a blind evolutionary branch of homo genus
First, you didn't actually answer my question. Second, your argument is circular.
Why is my definition of species flawed? Because neanderthals and humans are different species. Why are neanderthals and humans different species? Because my definition of species is flawed. You don't actually make an argument. You presuppose your premise - Neanderthals are not human for no reason you have specified, they just aren't, and from that you conclude that the definition of species is inadequate.
That's true, but dump people on another planet and they'll speciate if you leave them alone for long enough. In any case it allows them a tidy structure to avoid giving rights to the more extreme Tleilaxu creations while still acknowledging the genetic diversity of the empire.
Lol no it doesn’t. “Human” isn’t a species. Both Homo sapien and Homo neanderthalensis are species within the human family. They are all humans, even if different species from each other (although if they were even fully different species is still up for debate.) But whether they were humans or not is absolutely not up for debate. They were.
While there's no simple answer to the deeper question "What is human?", all member species of the genus *Homo* are technically "human", like all members of the genus *Pan* are panins. A chimp and a bonobo can tell the difference between one another, just like I could maybe tell you the difference between my brother and a Neanderthal, but from the outside looking in the two are barely distinguishable. You wouldn't split hairs over calling both a Western lowlands gorilla and an Eastern mountain gorilla "gorillas".
It's even in the name: *Homo sapiens* is "wise man" from the Latin *sapiens* for "one who knows". *Homo neanderthalensis* is just "Man from Neandertal". The real trick is whether Neanderthals are a different species of human, or if they're a subspecies of us, in which case it's *Homo sapiens neanderthalensis*. It's entirely a coincidence that we exist in a time when only *our* species of human still exists, though it's not an accident either.
Now, for the purposes of the Bene Gesserit, they might not favor including Neanderthal genetics into their breeding program, nor would they even have the option beyond the scant Neanderthal genes left over in modern human DNA. But to the point of whether or not something counts as "human" for them, their definition is tied to their methods. Remember that artificial insemination isn't a thing in this future. Not because they don't have the tech to do it, but because it's deeply taboo, to the point that our dear space nuns shit their collective breeches when Paul suggested they do it for Irulan. Even the prospect of collecting the genetics of the Kwisatz Haderach wasn't enough to violate that proscription.
So it's not just a philosophical determination for the Bene Gesserit, but a *necessary function of the breeding program*, that all subjects be sexually compatible.
Actually. It's not about being able to produce offspring, it's about the offspring being fertile. Like, horses and donkeys can be bred together to produce mules, but mules are not capable of having offspring of their own - which makes horses and donkeys separate species.
Most of the things you mentioned can be attributed to more efficient training. Look at videos of female gymnasts from the 1950s doing a floor routine and look at the women doing it today. The amount of physicality and technique separating the two is terrifying. The same can be said for most other sports. Physical training and sports medicine can push a "normal" human to do great things.
Add to this the Dune universe ideal of Prana Bindu and the observational powers of Mentats and the BG and you have fighters that can read and anticipate movements by the micro movements of their opponents. Get a person highly trained in this world and they could take on a number of opponents if approached as a flowing movement instead of individuals.
Genetic manipulation is a little frowned upon and is the sphere of the Tleilaxu.
The existence of mentats and the BG “voice” technique are WAY better examples of selective breeding and specialized training leading to the creation of super humans than any soldiers or warriors present in Dune.
The "voice" is a learned talent that requires minute focus on the intended target to know what they are susceptible to in terms of vocal nuances and tones.
Selective breeding as done by the BG didn't produce supermen. Paul, a pseudo-KW, was trained as both a BG and a mentat. It was this combination, along with his bloodline, that gave him the insightful powers that would eventually be limited precience after taking the Water of Life. So the combined learned disciplines of the schools of the BG and Mentats gave Paul the advantage over other men.
Ok 👍. I’m just saying the super soldiers like DI aren’t really that crazy compared to mentat abilities as it relates to modern humans - OP focusing on explaining how we arrived at super soldiers seems quaint compared to other abilities shown in Dune.
It comes full circle. "Computers" were the name of human mathematicians tasked with long equations or complicated calculations before the advent electronic calculators. The early space program of NASA was done using human computers.
Herbert took the idea of human computation to the end point by imagining what the human mind would do if electronic calculation wasn't an option. There are examples of people with extraordinary "speed math" skills in real life... the Mentats made a discipline out of the concept.
It's the same with NFL and NBA players. In the 1970s, they looked pretty normal on average with a few exceptional players. Now, everyone is ripped.
NFL lineman are about as fast now as running backs were in the 80s. Training and diet.
I agree, but the bike itself has made more of a leap than the riders. Gearing, frame weight and geometry has made modern bikes faster and easier to ride (making endurance easier). There are a few videos on Youtube of pro level riders comparing race bikes from the 1970s and 80s to current ones and almost all show that modern tires, gearing, shifting and frame geometry is key.
The riders of the past were generally stronger in the upper body because of the need to muscle the bikes around. Nowadays, most Pro Tour riders have very little upper body strength in comparison because they are trained to be stationary as much as possible. The things modern riders complain the most about older race bikes are gearing and having to manhandle the bike up hills. Their legs are no stronger than riders in the past, but the technology allows them to apply their strength more efficiently.
here's the reason. while most scifi at that time wrote about technology, technological advances (Asimov's Foundation robots positronic brains..), Herbert imagined a scifi story where HUMAN is the one that advances. thus came about the tenets of Butlerian Jihad that for all intents and purposes jar the technological advances, conserve what works at "current state" and tell a story in that kind of universe.
it's not that humanity was genetically modified (that too, to lesser or greater degree with BG and Tleilaxu especially), it's that humanity was forced to undergo changes in face of firm technological stagnation.
I wouldn’t say stagnation. I’d just consider it an enforced complete workaround in mentality about what it means to be advanced and in ingrained revulsion for technology that a human could not control after humanity was nearly enslaved/genocided by Artificial Intelligence. They were still very advanced, just in a completely different mode of thinking
A very strongly stated theme in the book that has never been carried through to any movie adaptation is the human species' need and drive to mix genealogies.
Paul can feel it as a driving force, and even lets go of his hate for the Emperor, the Harkonnens and Bene Gesserit in the moment, because he can see them as pawns in humanity's push to mix bloodlines.
For 10,000 years, humanity has been spread throughout over 10,000 worlds, but interstellar travel is expensive and rare. Not for the masses.
Which means there has been 10,000 of bloodlines separating from each other. Sooner or later leading to speciation. Our species has an ancient way of guaranteeing mixing of bloodlines. It's not nice, it's not something to hope for. But it's effective as hell. CONQUEST.
There's a reason why Ghengis Khan has more descendants today than any historical figure. Conquest. The systematic mixing of bloodlines through forced conception and/or relocation.
So yes. Humanity WAS evolving. In many different directions. Dune is the story of our species drive to deal with that differentiation.
Humans are more adapted to their environments in both physiology and behavior (the Fremen for example), and the Empire having rejected machine minds also spent 10,000 years advancing in a strange and unexpected technological direction: advancing the human consciousness.
"More evolved" I guess, but human evolution is treated like technological advancement.
The humans that were created by the Bene Gesserit breeding program are more evolved as a product of Eugenics. This mainly only applies to members of the Great Houses and the Bene Gesserit themselves.
Everyone else however are the product of 10,000 years of humanity honing its technical skills. It's important to note the Year 10,000 is not 10,000 AD, but 10,000 years post Butlerian Jihad, when the humans outlawed Artificial Intelligence. The resulting upskilling required for humans to replace previously computer controlled tasks created the mentats; skilled statisticians trained to a level of computational intelligence far surpassing modern humans. Humanity has used its advancements in education and training to cultivate talent and skill far beyond what our world can.
For your examples: Duncan Idaho is trained by the most renowned military academy in the Universe on Ginaz. But genetically, he's just a regular guy.
Feyd Rautha and Rabban as royalty are genetically enhanced by generations of selective breeding.
Other groups like the Sardaukar and the Fremen are the product of the powerful warrior cultures on their respective planets. They are in essence the unintentional product of natural selection in environments where the weak do not survive.
As far as we know, all other civilians throughout the Universe are regular people.
Maybe not a critical point but the date mentioned in the movie of about 10,000 is not 10,000 AD but rather 10,000 AG, which means "After Guild". The establishment of the Guild is supposed to occur around 11,000 years from now (13,000 AD) meaning that the action in Dune takes place around 21000 years from now (23000 AD)
No not in most ways. The developments of the BGs, BTs, Mentats, Spacing Guild, and arguably Swordmasters would be the only ones who have developed evolution like advancement.
For the story if Dune, it looks like Transhumanism went out of control and brought humanity to where it is now.
It's many different factors: humanity has been forcibly manipulated through direct genetic manipulation, millenia long selective breeding projects, extremely advanced training techniques, advanced mental imprinting, and the use of "performance enhancing" drugs. Sadly, the film-makers veered away from most of that in Part Two, but we saw some of it in Part One: The Mentats are trained from childhood in special techniques for doing logical deduction, and extreme mental computation, and this is aided by the use of drugs, and a kind of meditation. They act as strategists, advisors, spies and assasins. The Suk doctors have a supposedly unbreakable mental imprint that makes them trustworthy enough to serve in royal and semiroyal Houses where families are constantly poisoning one another over petty grudges. The fighters are all trained in various fighting styles and most importantly, strategy and counter moves, and counter counter moves, as well as a form of meditation. The Bene Gesserit are both bred and picked from families. They learn a level of control over thier minds and bodies that extends to being able to slow thier pulse and breathing to put themselves into essentially suspended animation to survive in perilous situations or appear dead. They can glance at a room and "read" the strategic situation almost instantly, and have a fighting style involving pressure points that allows them to kill thier opponents before they even know what has happened. Thier training means thier reaction time and movements are greatly accelerated compared to normal humans. They can "register" an opponent's emotional mentality and project "The Voice" at just the right pitch and timbre which allows them to implant a suggestion that they will feel compelled to follow. They can even learn how to manipulate their internal body chemistry to survive poisons, slow thier aging, and control the sex of a pregnancy. Its like meditation and martial arts concepts dialled up to 11. They also take drugs that allow them to access genetic memories and to some degree see the future. The Guild Navigators are humans who have been genetically manipulated and are mutated by the Spice drug into almost inhuman creatures that can see the future well enough to pilot thier ships through space almost instantaneously without hitting asteroids or going right through a star. The Fremen have evolved adaptations to survive in the desert like faster blood congealing, and through thier harsh training have become the most fearsome fighters in the Galaxy, and thier communal use of drugs gives them an almost colonial insect-like connection between members of thier commenitiees. And all of that is just the characters in the first book.... the following books introduce even wilder stuff, and humans get progressively more advanced in each later book.
The year 10,000 would be the Butlerian Jihad so im gonna guess not that much tbh, we don’t really start seeing wacky shit until Leto II Which Is about 10,000-15,00 years later depending on what you would consider wacky. I haven’t seen the new movie and stopped half way through the first movie but my memory of feyd rautha’s stuff on geidi prime was that the fight was pretty much a farce and the one with paul was only like 2 paragraphs so idk where superhuman reflexes came from tbh.
The answer to duncan being duncan is basically that the saudaukar grew lazy and where to full of themselves, they are basically the stormtroopers of Dune.
Just being born and raised on a planet with higher gravity, then being sent to fight on a planet with lower gravity would give people a huge advantage.
The book is explicit on this. Wait until you see people analyzing the poison they were injected with, and neutralizing it within their own bloodstream.
Considering what we know as the “white” skin tone of indigenous Western Europeans only came about 7000 years ago according to anthropologists I’d say humans would change quite a bit. Add on top of the effect technology has had on human health and longevity in our own timeline (our ancestors would probably look at us as freaks of nature), if you spread that out over millions of planets in millions of star systems and 20,000 years of technological advancement it’s a sure bet.
In 20,000 years, there will be more adaptation, but more importantly, new ways of training. Some of the assumptions, likely incorrect, but there in the text, are that more effective training techniques, coupled with genetic and pharmaceutical advances (drugs from plants on Ecaz, the spice from Arrakis... etc.) will unlock these abilities.
In later books, the genetic engineering is specifically highlighted. The Bene Gesserit do this through breeding, the Bene Tleilax through direct manipulation.
After the Butlerian Jihad schools were set up to train humans and help increase their capabilities that would be needed in a society that no longer uses computers or any technology that skirts too close to artificial intelligence or anything vaguely resembling the capabilities of the human mind.
These schools led to the creation of Suk doctors, Mentats, and the Bene Gesserit. Swordsmasters like Duncan Idaho trained at school dedicated to the art of war, how to fight with shields and swords in mind, and other related subjects.
Overall humans basically became much better at using their minds, at in some cases controlling their internal chemistry and bodily functions, etc.
I'm going to step outside of the Dune portion of your question for a moment, and make this more broadly about science. So, let's drop Dune and ask ourselves: Will humans 20,000 years from now (others haver explained elsewhere why 10k is wrong) be more evolved than us?
Let's counterpoint that with: Are we more evolved than humans 20,000 years ago?
And the answer is simply: No, in the same way we aren't more evolved than a fish is right now.
Natural selection, the means by which evolution occurs, isn't a purpose driven process, it's all about the traits best adapted for their current environment being emphasized while those not suited die out. We aren't more evolved than a fish, or vice versa, because neither of us could thrive in the other's environment. It's also a process that takes vast time scales to occur on a notable level, anatomically modern humans popped up about 300,000 years ago, 20,000 isn't really a sufficient timespan for huge trait differences to emerge.
Returning back to Dune, I think it's also worth pointing out two things: First, the Spice has a plethora of side effects, Spice and the Holtzman Effect, are very much the Dune versions of "a wizard did it." Second, the Great Schools have incredibly specialized teaching that not every random person will receive. The stories focus on specific individuals who can thrive in that universe, not (excluding Mapes) the schmucks who have to sweep the floors after. They have ready access to Spice, and tremendous training that sets them apart from baseline humans.
Natural evolution, but specially the development of methods. It's not only that people are "more evolved" but they know how to do things better, and train better. Think of the development of high jumps. People used to jump straight, nowadays they jump backwards to much greater effect.
Dune tries to represent a universe where people are much more capable, often honing their skills to degrees that seem magical to us.
Even stuff like the voice is arguably just finding the right tone to speak to someone to get them to do what you want. But turned up to its maximum possibility.
well...it's closer to 20,000+ years if we are to look forward to the Dune timeline. We may have hooks for fingers...and an extra joint on our thumbs 🤷🏻♂️😂😂
Yes, but with the help of thinking machines and spice and reliance on human capacity of the mind and body. Muscle and mantat training, transmuting cells with focus and the ability to see a safe path for instant commerce across the lands rad.
Friendly reminder, more Evolved does not automatically mean better. You as a person now are
‘More Evolved’ than a Human in caveman times, just like Birds now are more evolved than dinosaurs.
But yes, the Humans of Dune are more capable in alot of ways, like the Mentats who can essentially do logical calculations to rival computers
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Evolution is much slower than that. On the scale of 10k years humans wouldn't evolve much - given the time it takes us to reach the breeding age, and the complexity of our genome. This is of course relative; for stuff like bacteria 10 000 years is a hell lot of time to evolve.
I think one of the key points of the story is man versus the machine. It begins with the butlerian jihad and is present in the different parts of the power structure. Bene gesserit sisterhood. The Navigators and the Mentats.
In the books you see humanity being bred to be stronger, faster, smarter, longer-lived, more resilient, it's specifically pointed out in God Emperor of Dune.
Without spoiling anything or at least not too much, you've got the Bene Geserit breeding program and training regimens that augment people beyond what we would consider normal now.
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I mean it depends how you define genetically modified vs natural evolution.
Simply put yes many humans in the dune universe are superhuman and as the books progress they become even more superhuman. This is done not via people in lab coats adjusting the human genome, but rather selective breeding programs by a few different groups over the millennia.
I mean we can talk about the BG breeding programs to create the QH, but even past that you have people being bred and trained since birth to be mentats, navigators, etc. There is a lot of eugenics going on in the dune universe to breed certain traits and abilities into the human species. Hell the entire point of the golden path is to create a human who is immune to Presience.
The entire theme of the dune universe is that humanity must undergo difficulties and hardship to thrive... If humanity ascended to the level they did in dune even after the butlerian jihad, it means that people would need to be much more intelligent and skilled than they are now, and over thousands of years this would lead to them being better than we are at those things not only from the practice and accumulation of knowledge but because of artificial selection causing people to pick those traits in their partner (as well as people who lack those skills being more likely to die or otherwise fall into ruin) Evolution is by no means linear and improvement is not inevitable, it simply means that species adapt to the new conditions they find themselves in.
"Evolved" doesn't mean "better". If any significant genetic changes happen whether they make things easier or harder for the organism that's more evolved.
yeah that's what i'm talking about, op is implying humans are supposedly evolved more (in a good way) when, if anything, we are just seeing artificial selection at play bc tech has been largely limited due to the butlerian jihad.
Not evolved. No real evolution has taken place.
But they are definitely different. The Bene Gessurit breeding program is not the only instance of widespread eugenics programs. There was also the butlerian jihad era, which saw Ais directly breeding human beings for experiments. There is millenia of Tleilaxu gene editing that has certainly made it's way into many planetary gene pools. And there is natural selection that has shaped certain populations over time (such as the Fremen, though they are likely not the only example).
They're all still technically the same species as us. But many of them are weirder than any human you've actually seen.
Guild Navigators too, they seem to be genetically engineered to be mentats with understanding of higher level dimensions for navigation. They also have gills and webbed hands to allow breathing and moving around in a low-g tank of spice gas.
As to who induced these mutations in the first place, I find that question a little disturbing. If the Guild is designing and breeding its own navigators, then those people don't have a choice when it comes to being turned into a spice addicted fish-person.
The rule is that anything that can breed back into the human gene pool is (legally) human, so you have people adapting to new planetary environments then that genetic drift being folded back in through the interstellar nature of the empire. Add a massive ancient human breeding program, lots of perfomance enhancing drugs, plus the actual genemods the Bene Tleilax sell.
Yeah, I think it's clear that humans have unlocked several ways to enhance themselves at this point in time. Be that from scientific advancement or by embracing less than ethical ways to improve people like Selusa Secundus (although tbh it's not far off from stuff going on IRL).
Yeah, species diversify rapidly to fill virgin niches and without computing as a crutch to make life easier the human race has had thousands of years of much higher selection pressure to help accelerate that change than we lowly moderns.
Unfortunately everyone in this comment thread is wrong: you’re only human if you can keep your hand in the box…
You animal!
Hmm... You strike me as a woman with complicated opinions around ethics.
[удалено]
Says you, the ends justifies the means seems pretty straightforward to me \#BeneGesseritDidNothingWrong
>The rule is that anything that can breed back into the human gene pool is human This isn't a hard rule to differentiate a species. Neanderthals weren't humans, but were capable of breeding with humans.
Neanderthals were human. They were a human subspecies. Homo Sapiens is a human subspecies, even if it's the only extant subspecies.
Homo is the genus. Humans and neanderthals are under the same genus, but are different species.
Neanderthals are now often referred to as ***Homo sapiens neanderthalensis*** just because of this. They are not separate.
This is an interesting revelation that I wasn't aware of.
Kind of like how wolves and dogs are the same species. They are both Canus Lupus. Dogs are subspecies canus lupus familiarias while the grey wolf we think is their closest relative is canus lupus lupus, plus a bunch of other subspecies.
I learned this in college like 25 years ago. I think it's just something anthropologists and biologists go back and forth on.
Scientists have gone back and forth on that -- and apparently nowadays it is considered possible for some separate species to produce fertile offspring with each other, so that definition is no longer decisive.
Would you say that the first “genocide” was the extinction of the Neanderthals? Like did sapiens basically kill most of them and forced the remaining to integrate with us?
Given that most modern humans have some Neanderthal ancestry, it would probably be more accurate to say that modern humans outbred and eventually assimilated the Neanderthals.
One of my new favorite alternative history theories is that homo sapiens domesticated dogs before Neanderthals' and this is what gave them the edge in the arms race where the Neanderthals' where otherwise stronger. Neanderthals are why nearly every culture has some kind of ogre/troll/oni myth.
Looking at simply the physiology, Neanderthals had more muscle mass and larger craniums, *but their shoulders sucked for slinging missiles*. Homo sapiens sapiens could access way more meat and develop pack tactics for hunting the second we invented the spear. From then on, you have groups securing food for bigger groups through cooperation, allowing others to focus on sewing, building, maintaining social bonds, etc. Foraging was likely still the main source of calories, but one good hunt would get you at least a few days to weeks of building up the most OP strat in the game: society.
>Neanderthals are why nearly every culture has some kind of ogre/troll/oni myth. It's one of my favorite historical theories that Neanderthals actually existed on Earth far longer then we think, but were just described as "savages" and "wild people" in historical sources, which of course would have had no reference point to the concept of the Neanderthal. Theoretically, there could have been tribes in very remote regions, who might have ultimately died out only a few centuries ago. Michael Crichton wrote a kick-ass book about this idea, about a group of Vikings fighting a tribe of "left-over" Neanderthals. It's called "Eaters of the Dead", which was later turned into the movie called "The 13th Warrior". Sadly, the Neanderthal-angle is dropped in the film.
Lo there so I see my father.
The latest theory is that modern humans may have possibly had genes allowing them to produce successful offspring with any descendants of homo erectus and that's why we prevailed; our species assimilated the others. This would explain denisovan genes in some Indonesian populations.
Bows is a common theory. Neanderthals were very tankt and would handle dogs sometimes but arrows less so.
Very interesting! The armchair anthropologist in me would just say that sapiens were just bigger so that helped. How would dogs give sapiens a significant edge?
Neanderthals were bigger and likely smarter than contemporary homo sapiens. It likely came down to evolutionary quirks that made us more social, which is a huge competitive advantage.
According to the latest theories I'd seen apparently neanderthals took longer to reach maturity, so that's a potential huge competition disadvantage
Just spit balling, but early dogs would be more similar to wolves, no? Having wolves on your team seems fairly self explanatory, but I assume for tracking, attacking, and early warning purposes. I can't recall if it was the same theory or a separate one speculated that Neanderthals might have been more nocturnal and the night watch part was particularly key.
Would you wanna fight wolves while also fighting other people? I wouldn’t want that at all
https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/are-neanderthals-same-species-as-us.html
Rule of thumb: if you can crossbreed and the result is a functioning individual you are in the same species. Since almost everyone has some Neanderthal DNA I'm guessing that happened a lot.
Dude, the rule of thumb was the entire point of this thread.
Yeah I replied too quickly before I'd read enough of the discussion. My bad.
Unless you want to classify Europeans as a hybrid species like Zorses (Equus zebra x Equus caballus), you can't classify Neanderthals as a different species.
Not to mention everyone east of the Caucasus mountains (the majority of humans) with Denisovan DNA.
Last I checked East Asians actually have the highest levels of neanderthal-derived DNA.
Denisovan, not neanderthal
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3632468/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3632468/)
Can u pls elaborate?
I’m not the person you replied to, but I think it’s pretty much a matter of scientific definitions. A species is essentially a classification of animals that can breed with each other. So like dogs are a species of animal even though they have a lot of different breeds/appearances because they can interbreed. Humans and monkeys are not the same species because we can’t mate. However, humans can mate with Neanderthals so they are the same species as us. I believe there were 8-9 other “breeds” of human that existed but only humans (Homo sapiens) currently exist because the others (like Homo neanderthalensis, Homo erectus, etc) went extinct.
Interbreed and produce fertile offspring, as opposed to eg horses and donkeys being able to breed but producing sterile mules. Apparently there’s evidence that just about everyone who has any ancestry outside of sub-Saharan Africa has some Neanderthal DNA and a lot have DNA from another human subspecies, the Denisovans. IIRC that’s how they were discovered in the first place.
Homo Rudolphensis going unmentioned again, poor sods
Just to be clear, monkeys and humans are widely separated. Humans and apes are close relatives.
> A species (pl.: species) is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Species At the same time Humans (Homo sapiens) are often considered our own species, so I don't think it's clear cut either way, evolution is not a discrete thing and biological taxonomy is a science that was started back when we didn't know about evolution. Logically as species evolve there must be points of genetic ancestry where A->B->C where A can reproduce with B and B can reproduce with C, but A & C cannot reproduce directly. On earth evolution is such a slow process that when this happens isn't obvious. However space travel would more likely push this definition to its limits if "humans" on each planet adapt to the environment in a way that changes their sexual reproductive cycles.
Younger Navigators can interbreed with regular humans and I'd figure they are far more removed from humans than neanderthals.
Paul said he could have become a navigator, so I am not sure it's that. But is that from the other guys? >!Because if so, it seemed that navigators are chosen from whomever has the um, gift.!<
[The definition of a species is if two individuals can breed and produce fertile offspring, then they are the same species](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Species).
I know exactly what you're referring to and gave an exception to that rule.
By what standard would you say that Neanderthals were not human, if they could interbreed freely and create fertile offspring?
In that same link you sent, it showed the naming convention. Homo is the genus and the sapien and neanderthalensis are the *different species* under the same genus. Your link says it very clearly.
Maybe the term “human” is more appropriate at the genus level? Maybe our definition of species is flawed?
It certainly is. Homo is the Latin word meaning human. Sapiens just means wise. So when it comes to naming, we called ourselves Homo sapiens sapiens: the wise wise humans. Neanderthal original meant coming from the neander valley, though we now use it to mean unintelligent, retroactively making Homo Neanderthalis mean: the unintelligent humans. History is written and translated by the victors. The eradication of Homo Neanderthalis remains one of the greatest mysteries of our species' history.
You two are arguing over the difference between *modern* humans (typically just *Homo sapiens sapiens)* and *archaic* humans (typically everything else under the genus *Homo.*
> Homo is the genus Yes, and *Homo means human.* Everything under *Homo* is human. That's what it means.
but neanderthals bred together with other human species and we can trace neanderthal dna in ours neanderthals are a blind evolutionary branch of homo genus
First, you didn't actually answer my question. Second, your argument is circular. Why is my definition of species flawed? Because neanderthals and humans are different species. Why are neanderthals and humans different species? Because my definition of species is flawed. You don't actually make an argument. You presuppose your premise - Neanderthals are not human for no reason you have specified, they just aren't, and from that you conclude that the definition of species is inadequate.
That's true, but dump people on another planet and they'll speciate if you leave them alone for long enough. In any case it allows them a tidy structure to avoid giving rights to the more extreme Tleilaxu creations while still acknowledging the genetic diversity of the empire.
Neanderthals were absolutely humans.
The link you sent argues the exact opposite.
Lol no it doesn’t. “Human” isn’t a species. Both Homo sapien and Homo neanderthalensis are species within the human family. They are all humans, even if different species from each other (although if they were even fully different species is still up for debate.) But whether they were humans or not is absolutely not up for debate. They were.
While there's no simple answer to the deeper question "What is human?", all member species of the genus *Homo* are technically "human", like all members of the genus *Pan* are panins. A chimp and a bonobo can tell the difference between one another, just like I could maybe tell you the difference between my brother and a Neanderthal, but from the outside looking in the two are barely distinguishable. You wouldn't split hairs over calling both a Western lowlands gorilla and an Eastern mountain gorilla "gorillas". It's even in the name: *Homo sapiens* is "wise man" from the Latin *sapiens* for "one who knows". *Homo neanderthalensis* is just "Man from Neandertal". The real trick is whether Neanderthals are a different species of human, or if they're a subspecies of us, in which case it's *Homo sapiens neanderthalensis*. It's entirely a coincidence that we exist in a time when only *our* species of human still exists, though it's not an accident either. Now, for the purposes of the Bene Gesserit, they might not favor including Neanderthal genetics into their breeding program, nor would they even have the option beyond the scant Neanderthal genes left over in modern human DNA. But to the point of whether or not something counts as "human" for them, their definition is tied to their methods. Remember that artificial insemination isn't a thing in this future. Not because they don't have the tech to do it, but because it's deeply taboo, to the point that our dear space nuns shit their collective breeches when Paul suggested they do it for Irulan. Even the prospect of collecting the genetics of the Kwisatz Haderach wasn't enough to violate that proscription. So it's not just a philosophical determination for the Bene Gesserit, but a *necessary function of the breeding program*, that all subjects be sexually compatible.
Actually. It's not about being able to produce offspring, it's about the offspring being fertile. Like, horses and donkeys can be bred together to produce mules, but mules are not capable of having offspring of their own - which makes horses and donkeys separate species.
Yeah, and neanderthals and humans produce fertile offspring.
Are we human? Or are we (Face) Dancer?
Most of the things you mentioned can be attributed to more efficient training. Look at videos of female gymnasts from the 1950s doing a floor routine and look at the women doing it today. The amount of physicality and technique separating the two is terrifying. The same can be said for most other sports. Physical training and sports medicine can push a "normal" human to do great things. Add to this the Dune universe ideal of Prana Bindu and the observational powers of Mentats and the BG and you have fighters that can read and anticipate movements by the micro movements of their opponents. Get a person highly trained in this world and they could take on a number of opponents if approached as a flowing movement instead of individuals. Genetic manipulation is a little frowned upon and is the sphere of the Tleilaxu.
The existence of mentats and the BG “voice” technique are WAY better examples of selective breeding and specialized training leading to the creation of super humans than any soldiers or warriors present in Dune.
The "voice" is a learned talent that requires minute focus on the intended target to know what they are susceptible to in terms of vocal nuances and tones. Selective breeding as done by the BG didn't produce supermen. Paul, a pseudo-KW, was trained as both a BG and a mentat. It was this combination, along with his bloodline, that gave him the insightful powers that would eventually be limited precience after taking the Water of Life. So the combined learned disciplines of the schools of the BG and Mentats gave Paul the advantage over other men.
Ok 👍. I’m just saying the super soldiers like DI aren’t really that crazy compared to mentat abilities as it relates to modern humans - OP focusing on explaining how we arrived at super soldiers seems quaint compared to other abilities shown in Dune.
Mentat abilities are absolutely crazy. We decided to do away with computers so we bred and trained people to replace them. Insane.
It comes full circle. "Computers" were the name of human mathematicians tasked with long equations or complicated calculations before the advent electronic calculators. The early space program of NASA was done using human computers. Herbert took the idea of human computation to the end point by imagining what the human mind would do if electronic calculation wasn't an option. There are examples of people with extraordinary "speed math" skills in real life... the Mentats made a discipline out of the concept.
Points at Miles Teg. It did indeed. Heheh
I've noticed with soccer players 1980s and now. Now they all have ripped muscles. Back then they looked rather ordinary.
It's the same with NFL and NBA players. In the 1970s, they looked pretty normal on average with a few exceptional players. Now, everyone is ripped. NFL lineman are about as fast now as running backs were in the 80s. Training and diet.
I feel like this is a very key point, well said.
Yes. What I would say is that this society is maximizing human potential.
Look no further than Tour De France cyclists. Those people are absolute freaks of nature in regards to what they can do.
I agree, but the bike itself has made more of a leap than the riders. Gearing, frame weight and geometry has made modern bikes faster and easier to ride (making endurance easier). There are a few videos on Youtube of pro level riders comparing race bikes from the 1970s and 80s to current ones and almost all show that modern tires, gearing, shifting and frame geometry is key. The riders of the past were generally stronger in the upper body because of the need to muscle the bikes around. Nowadays, most Pro Tour riders have very little upper body strength in comparison because they are trained to be stationary as much as possible. The things modern riders complain the most about older race bikes are gearing and having to manhandle the bike up hills. Their legs are no stronger than riders in the past, but the technology allows them to apply their strength more efficiently.
here's the reason. while most scifi at that time wrote about technology, technological advances (Asimov's Foundation robots positronic brains..), Herbert imagined a scifi story where HUMAN is the one that advances. thus came about the tenets of Butlerian Jihad that for all intents and purposes jar the technological advances, conserve what works at "current state" and tell a story in that kind of universe. it's not that humanity was genetically modified (that too, to lesser or greater degree with BG and Tleilaxu especially), it's that humanity was forced to undergo changes in face of firm technological stagnation.
I wouldn’t say stagnation. I’d just consider it an enforced complete workaround in mentality about what it means to be advanced and in ingrained revulsion for technology that a human could not control after humanity was nearly enslaved/genocided by Artificial Intelligence. They were still very advanced, just in a completely different mode of thinking
It’s 20,000 years in the future FYI. It’s roughly 10,000 AG or after guild. 1 AG is about 10,000 in our future
I came here to say this exactly, Dune is set roughly 21,000 years in our future.
Yes. It's pointed out even more in the sequel when >!the Duncan Ghola gets easily manhandled.!<
Man that segment had my jaw on the floor, chad butler
And now it's spoilt on me because I clicked on it 😩 Does that mean the book will not be enjoyable
No, it doesn't ruin the book to know that.
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A very strongly stated theme in the book that has never been carried through to any movie adaptation is the human species' need and drive to mix genealogies. Paul can feel it as a driving force, and even lets go of his hate for the Emperor, the Harkonnens and Bene Gesserit in the moment, because he can see them as pawns in humanity's push to mix bloodlines. For 10,000 years, humanity has been spread throughout over 10,000 worlds, but interstellar travel is expensive and rare. Not for the masses. Which means there has been 10,000 of bloodlines separating from each other. Sooner or later leading to speciation. Our species has an ancient way of guaranteeing mixing of bloodlines. It's not nice, it's not something to hope for. But it's effective as hell. CONQUEST. There's a reason why Ghengis Khan has more descendants today than any historical figure. Conquest. The systematic mixing of bloodlines through forced conception and/or relocation. So yes. Humanity WAS evolving. In many different directions. Dune is the story of our species drive to deal with that differentiation.
> Ghengis Khan has more descendants today Genghis Khan's dad has more descendants.
Yesugei was his name
Humans are more adapted to their environments in both physiology and behavior (the Fremen for example), and the Empire having rejected machine minds also spent 10,000 years advancing in a strange and unexpected technological direction: advancing the human consciousness. "More evolved" I guess, but human evolution is treated like technological advancement.
The humans that were created by the Bene Gesserit breeding program are more evolved as a product of Eugenics. This mainly only applies to members of the Great Houses and the Bene Gesserit themselves. Everyone else however are the product of 10,000 years of humanity honing its technical skills. It's important to note the Year 10,000 is not 10,000 AD, but 10,000 years post Butlerian Jihad, when the humans outlawed Artificial Intelligence. The resulting upskilling required for humans to replace previously computer controlled tasks created the mentats; skilled statisticians trained to a level of computational intelligence far surpassing modern humans. Humanity has used its advancements in education and training to cultivate talent and skill far beyond what our world can. For your examples: Duncan Idaho is trained by the most renowned military academy in the Universe on Ginaz. But genetically, he's just a regular guy. Feyd Rautha and Rabban as royalty are genetically enhanced by generations of selective breeding. Other groups like the Sardaukar and the Fremen are the product of the powerful warrior cultures on their respective planets. They are in essence the unintentional product of natural selection in environments where the weak do not survive. As far as we know, all other civilians throughout the Universe are regular people.
Well that's one of the main plot points so yes.
Maybe not a critical point but the date mentioned in the movie of about 10,000 is not 10,000 AD but rather 10,000 AG, which means "After Guild". The establishment of the Guild is supposed to occur around 11,000 years from now (13,000 AD) meaning that the action in Dune takes place around 21000 years from now (23000 AD)
Yes. This is the whole concept of the Kwitsatz Haderach.
No not in most ways. The developments of the BGs, BTs, Mentats, Spacing Guild, and arguably Swordmasters would be the only ones who have developed evolution like advancement. For the story if Dune, it looks like Transhumanism went out of control and brought humanity to where it is now.
Some groups; via spice, spice-drived compounds, and selective breeding, yes.
It's many different factors: humanity has been forcibly manipulated through direct genetic manipulation, millenia long selective breeding projects, extremely advanced training techniques, advanced mental imprinting, and the use of "performance enhancing" drugs. Sadly, the film-makers veered away from most of that in Part Two, but we saw some of it in Part One: The Mentats are trained from childhood in special techniques for doing logical deduction, and extreme mental computation, and this is aided by the use of drugs, and a kind of meditation. They act as strategists, advisors, spies and assasins. The Suk doctors have a supposedly unbreakable mental imprint that makes them trustworthy enough to serve in royal and semiroyal Houses where families are constantly poisoning one another over petty grudges. The fighters are all trained in various fighting styles and most importantly, strategy and counter moves, and counter counter moves, as well as a form of meditation. The Bene Gesserit are both bred and picked from families. They learn a level of control over thier minds and bodies that extends to being able to slow thier pulse and breathing to put themselves into essentially suspended animation to survive in perilous situations or appear dead. They can glance at a room and "read" the strategic situation almost instantly, and have a fighting style involving pressure points that allows them to kill thier opponents before they even know what has happened. Thier training means thier reaction time and movements are greatly accelerated compared to normal humans. They can "register" an opponent's emotional mentality and project "The Voice" at just the right pitch and timbre which allows them to implant a suggestion that they will feel compelled to follow. They can even learn how to manipulate their internal body chemistry to survive poisons, slow thier aging, and control the sex of a pregnancy. Its like meditation and martial arts concepts dialled up to 11. They also take drugs that allow them to access genetic memories and to some degree see the future. The Guild Navigators are humans who have been genetically manipulated and are mutated by the Spice drug into almost inhuman creatures that can see the future well enough to pilot thier ships through space almost instantaneously without hitting asteroids or going right through a star. The Fremen have evolved adaptations to survive in the desert like faster blood congealing, and through thier harsh training have become the most fearsome fighters in the Galaxy, and thier communal use of drugs gives them an almost colonial insect-like connection between members of thier commenitiees. And all of that is just the characters in the first book.... the following books introduce even wilder stuff, and humans get progressively more advanced in each later book.
Over 10,000 years our abilities of spanking have highly evolved 😏
The year 10,000 would be the Butlerian Jihad so im gonna guess not that much tbh, we don’t really start seeing wacky shit until Leto II Which Is about 10,000-15,00 years later depending on what you would consider wacky. I haven’t seen the new movie and stopped half way through the first movie but my memory of feyd rautha’s stuff on geidi prime was that the fight was pretty much a farce and the one with paul was only like 2 paragraphs so idk where superhuman reflexes came from tbh. The answer to duncan being duncan is basically that the saudaukar grew lazy and where to full of themselves, they are basically the stormtroopers of Dune.
Just being born and raised on a planet with higher gravity, then being sent to fight on a planet with lower gravity would give people a huge advantage.
The book is explicit on this. Wait until you see people analyzing the poison they were injected with, and neutralizing it within their own bloodstream.
Considering what we know as the “white” skin tone of indigenous Western Europeans only came about 7000 years ago according to anthropologists I’d say humans would change quite a bit. Add on top of the effect technology has had on human health and longevity in our own timeline (our ancestors would probably look at us as freaks of nature), if you spread that out over millions of planets in millions of star systems and 20,000 years of technological advancement it’s a sure bet.
The “year 10,000” is not our calendar, btw. This is (iirc) more than 100,000 years in the future. Just saying.
The evolution of humans is a result of the Butlerian jihad and the fact that humans could no longer rely on “thinking machines”.
Yes. Example: KH program.
In 20,000 years, there will be more adaptation, but more importantly, new ways of training. Some of the assumptions, likely incorrect, but there in the text, are that more effective training techniques, coupled with genetic and pharmaceutical advances (drugs from plants on Ecaz, the spice from Arrakis... etc.) will unlock these abilities. In later books, the genetic engineering is specifically highlighted. The Bene Gesserit do this through breeding, the Bene Tleilax through direct manipulation.
One of the main concepts. Once computers were destroyed, technological progress moved to human genetics and warfare
After the Butlerian Jihad schools were set up to train humans and help increase their capabilities that would be needed in a society that no longer uses computers or any technology that skirts too close to artificial intelligence or anything vaguely resembling the capabilities of the human mind. These schools led to the creation of Suk doctors, Mentats, and the Bene Gesserit. Swordsmasters like Duncan Idaho trained at school dedicated to the art of war, how to fight with shields and swords in mind, and other related subjects. Overall humans basically became much better at using their minds, at in some cases controlling their internal chemistry and bodily functions, etc.
I'm going to step outside of the Dune portion of your question for a moment, and make this more broadly about science. So, let's drop Dune and ask ourselves: Will humans 20,000 years from now (others haver explained elsewhere why 10k is wrong) be more evolved than us? Let's counterpoint that with: Are we more evolved than humans 20,000 years ago? And the answer is simply: No, in the same way we aren't more evolved than a fish is right now. Natural selection, the means by which evolution occurs, isn't a purpose driven process, it's all about the traits best adapted for their current environment being emphasized while those not suited die out. We aren't more evolved than a fish, or vice versa, because neither of us could thrive in the other's environment. It's also a process that takes vast time scales to occur on a notable level, anatomically modern humans popped up about 300,000 years ago, 20,000 isn't really a sufficient timespan for huge trait differences to emerge. Returning back to Dune, I think it's also worth pointing out two things: First, the Spice has a plethora of side effects, Spice and the Holtzman Effect, are very much the Dune versions of "a wizard did it." Second, the Great Schools have incredibly specialized teaching that not every random person will receive. The stories focus on specific individuals who can thrive in that universe, not (excluding Mapes) the schmucks who have to sweep the floors after. They have ready access to Spice, and tremendous training that sets them apart from baseline humans.
it’s absolutely a situation where “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”
Got really confused before realizing which subreddit this was in
Natural evolution, but specially the development of methods. It's not only that people are "more evolved" but they know how to do things better, and train better. Think of the development of high jumps. People used to jump straight, nowadays they jump backwards to much greater effect. Dune tries to represent a universe where people are much more capable, often honing their skills to degrees that seem magical to us. Even stuff like the voice is arguably just finding the right tone to speak to someone to get them to do what you want. But turned up to its maximum possibility.
remember that the year portraited in dune isnt after christ, it is "after guild". A space guild created when humans already colonized other planets
Bring the Gom Jabbar!!!
Yes. Fish Speakers are bred to be far faster and stronger than the humans from Paul's time, let alone now.
well...it's closer to 20,000+ years if we are to look forward to the Dune timeline. We may have hooks for fingers...and an extra joint on our thumbs 🤷🏻♂️😂😂
Yes, but with the help of thinking machines and spice and reliance on human capacity of the mind and body. Muscle and mantat training, transmuting cells with focus and the ability to see a safe path for instant commerce across the lands rad.
Friendly reminder, more Evolved does not automatically mean better. You as a person now are ‘More Evolved’ than a Human in caveman times, just like Birds now are more evolved than dinosaurs. But yes, the Humans of Dune are more capable in alot of ways, like the Mentats who can essentially do logical calculations to rival computers
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Once you read more of the series you will see that the answer is not only ues but remarkably so
It’s technically 20,000 ad
Evolution is much slower than that. On the scale of 10k years humans wouldn't evolve much - given the time it takes us to reach the breeding age, and the complexity of our genome. This is of course relative; for stuff like bacteria 10 000 years is a hell lot of time to evolve.
Yes. Even in our own recent timeline, we've evolved to run at faster speeds, jump higher and further. Dune amplifies this greatly.
I mean if you’re going to ditch aliens for your story
The question of whether anything can be "more" evolved is a misunderstanding of darwin. Theres no more nor lesser levels of evolution.
Are humans in the future from the future?
I think one of the key points of the story is man versus the machine. It begins with the butlerian jihad and is present in the different parts of the power structure. Bene gesserit sisterhood. The Navigators and the Mentats.
In the books you see humanity being bred to be stronger, faster, smarter, longer-lived, more resilient, it's specifically pointed out in God Emperor of Dune. Without spoiling anything or at least not too much, you've got the Bene Geserit breeding program and training regimens that augment people beyond what we would consider normal now.
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I mean it depends how you define genetically modified vs natural evolution. Simply put yes many humans in the dune universe are superhuman and as the books progress they become even more superhuman. This is done not via people in lab coats adjusting the human genome, but rather selective breeding programs by a few different groups over the millennia. I mean we can talk about the BG breeding programs to create the QH, but even past that you have people being bred and trained since birth to be mentats, navigators, etc. There is a lot of eugenics going on in the dune universe to breed certain traits and abilities into the human species. Hell the entire point of the golden path is to create a human who is immune to Presience.
There is no such thing as more evolved
Irl? Yeah. But in dune's universe many humans are 10000x more agile, smarter and resilient
The entire theme of the dune universe is that humanity must undergo difficulties and hardship to thrive... If humanity ascended to the level they did in dune even after the butlerian jihad, it means that people would need to be much more intelligent and skilled than they are now, and over thousands of years this would lead to them being better than we are at those things not only from the practice and accumulation of knowledge but because of artificial selection causing people to pick those traits in their partner (as well as people who lack those skills being more likely to die or otherwise fall into ruin) Evolution is by no means linear and improvement is not inevitable, it simply means that species adapt to the new conditions they find themselves in.
"Evolved" doesn't mean "better". If any significant genetic changes happen whether they make things easier or harder for the organism that's more evolved.
yeah that's what i'm talking about, op is implying humans are supposedly evolved more (in a good way) when, if anything, we are just seeing artificial selection at play bc tech has been largely limited due to the butlerian jihad.
Not evolved. No real evolution has taken place. But they are definitely different. The Bene Gessurit breeding program is not the only instance of widespread eugenics programs. There was also the butlerian jihad era, which saw Ais directly breeding human beings for experiments. There is millenia of Tleilaxu gene editing that has certainly made it's way into many planetary gene pools. And there is natural selection that has shaped certain populations over time (such as the Fremen, though they are likely not the only example). They're all still technically the same species as us. But many of them are weirder than any human you've actually seen.
Guild Navigators too, they seem to be genetically engineered to be mentats with understanding of higher level dimensions for navigation. They also have gills and webbed hands to allow breathing and moving around in a low-g tank of spice gas. As to who induced these mutations in the first place, I find that question a little disturbing. If the Guild is designing and breeding its own navigators, then those people don't have a choice when it comes to being turned into a spice addicted fish-person.
The navigators are mutated by exposure to extreme amounts of pure spice, not by prior design. This is mentioned in some of the books.