When H. G. Wells predicted a future world inhabited by two strata of humans – cave-dwelling cannibals and an above-ground smorgasbord population – he intended it as unsubtle political critique.

The Morlocks in his 1895 novel The Time Machine were the former working class, finally reduced to animals. The simpering Eloi were one-time elites, turn into a movable feast through their own laziness.

As it turns out, Wells needn't have bothered with allegory. Maybe it works better as pop science. Some experts believe that in time, the upper and lower classes may part evolutionary ways, developing new physical characteristics, social taboos and eventually become two different species altogether.

The hairy roots of hominids begin about seven million years ago. From what we know – and we almost surely don't know it all – there have been nine species changes between that point and the current evolutionary pinnacle, homo sapiens.

That's pretty slow change. But Harry Harpending, an evolutionary biologist, has convincingly argued that the pressures of civilization have spurred our development. He and colleague John Hawkes suggest that human evolution over the last 10,000 years is happening more than 100 times faster than at any other time in those millions of years that went before.

Harpending, who teaches at the University of Utah, grew up in the rural U.S. northeast. "Appalachian poachers," is how he describes his people.

"I grew up in a small town. I knew everyone. I don't know if my kid has ever interacted with anyone with an IQ below 100, or someone poor. He's never even met anyone from the other side," says Harpending. "I think there's increasing genetic as well as cultural polarization in this society, especially between the right and left halves of the bell curve."

Harpending believes evolutionary forces have been pushing Haves away from Have Nots for a dozen generations. Smart or wealthy people once married within their local sphere, and couldn't always be choosy. Public education and ease of travel have changed that. Smart or wealthy people now marry (and procreate) with intellectual and status equals they meet at university, or in professional jobs.

That's a hundred years or so – a blip in genetic terms. But forces for change are in play and set to get a boost. Mate choices are the fuel. Bio-tech and genetic engineering are the accelerant. The average global life span doubled in the last century. Some researchers and futurists believe that could be extended to 120 or 130 years or longer in relatively short order.





ONCE SCIENCE BEGINS outpacing nature, we have no idea where we might collectively end up. Wherever that is, the first test subjects will be those who can afford elective, expensive efforts at prolonging life.

"We're the first species to have economic forces that will drive biological forces," says University of Washington paleontologist Peter Ward, referring to access to high-end medicine and gene manipulation. "In just a few generations, you have this extremely wealthy elite who, I guarantee, will never breed with commoners. That's where you get genetic drift."

Harpending believes that the outward signs of this change could conceivably become apparent in as little as five centuries.

"You could have different breeds of humans, like dog breeds," he said. "What if, say, small chins became the fashion? Or being thin as a rail. We have that one now. That sort of thing could get amplified if they turned into status markers."

"Everybody wants to be handsome, beautiful, tall, athletic and smart," Ward summarizes. He believes that changes will be induced by medicine, and then become permanent.

"People will enhance themselves not just for this lifetime, but for all time," he says. "We're talking about a race of supermen. . . . It's the rest of us that are the Morlocks."

Ward has suggested that "geographic and social segregation" are required for a full genetic shift. Those previous nine species changes in hominid history began when one group separated itself from the herd, setting the stage for a slow change based on fitness in altered conditions.

Ward, a man not given to small ideas, has proposed that space colonization could speed things along by factors.

"I think there's more and more genetic isolation. Could it lead to (species) branching? Of course it could," said Harpending. "But it's going to take 500,000 years."

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In The Time Machine, the unnamed title character encounters the Morlocks and Eloi 800,000 years into the future. Wells correctly predicted World War II, wifi and the telephone answering machine. Could be this is another thing he got right.

But if you're worrying about a future where your great-great-grandkids live underground while your idiot cousin's descendents rule as eight-foot-tall super beings, Ward has soothing words. He's working on a study of prehistoric water levels during periods of high atmospheric carbon. He's not hopeful.

"Maybe, just maybe, we (the human race) are off the hook on climate change," Ward says breezily. "But, y'know, in all likelihood, we're totally screwed anyway."