Human evolution IN SPACE

[RyanW]

Originally Posted by Nosforontu

If your initial colonist were selected from Olympic Level Athletes, and the environment of the colony really requires very athletic/fit people to survive then your colony is probably going to have a fairly high preponderance of people with various Athletic Talents.

Note that, from a genetics point of view, "right to breed" is largely equivalent to "ability to survive." This is why many creatures have evolved such elaborate mating displays. It's probably as easy to screen your colonists to prevent those with undesirable traits (perhaps traits useful in initial colonists, but not later citizens) from procreating as it is to leave them behind, though not as socially acceptable.

A eugenics program backed up by real science (and with more practical goals than the mostly racist ones of the early 20th century) could modify the human species more quickly than the conventional natural selection method of shooting DNA at anything that survives to maturity. And be promptly wiped out by the virus nobody thought to retain resistance to 700 years ago. Or by reproductive freedom fighters.