getting bigger physically isn't evolution at all, unless it increase human survival. animals only get bigger/taller if they have to reach for higher foot sources. i would say, human is changing genetically. maybe in the future, so much mutation would make everyone x-man. that would be awesome.
The more you know Knowledge is exponential, the more you know , the more you can learn, if by the invention of better experiment tools if nothing else. So I wouldn't say year 2000 man is smarter than year 0 man, we just have the advantage of the accumulation. We might be getting dumber as it becomes easier to survive without striving. I think the evolution of man is about our collective lives being influenced more by intellect and less by instinct. We evolve from animals to something...else. So up to this point, I would say no, not much. I don't know, there is some fairly world wide sense of humanitarianism than you may not have found between earlier people. Did Rome send rescue teams and food to Pompeii? But then again the current genocide level has got to match the years of the Hun. It seems like we have just been able to organize into larger tribes. It's good to live in the big tribe.
We are still changing biologically. May even be a bit faster because of all the pollution (some are mutagens). However, the selection pressure is definitely weaker. This may be good at the end because, for evolution, selectability, which increases with diversity, is as important as fitability.
So has nutrition. There have been agricultural innovations, health innovations, knowledge of nutritional information, etc. that has been changing right along with the avg. height of people. Add to that the example of N.Koreans who are full grown but only the same height as a 16 year old S. Korean. The big difference in only that generation is definitely nutrition vs. malnutrition.
It just takes a good long time, DD. Also, there is no selection pressure as hz10 referenced. Evolution works pretty quickly if, for whatever reason, only tall people have kids... but I think it's more like everyone but weirdos like me have kids. If all genetic lines get passed on, there's really not too much evolution... Well, I'm going to argue with myself. There are negative traits that can arise. 400 years ago, a guy with *terrible* eyesight would have had less of a good chance of procreating. Now he gets glasses and has eight four-eyed kids. So in that sense, humans are probably becoming less fit, on average. People with bad hearts, bad eyes, weak knees, etc... all would have been weeded out, say, in the world of 3000 years ago. Now they all get to have families and post on the internet and even pass on their genes. So, I guess I'm finally arguing for...
yeah i was just getting ready to post something about that before you did. on a side note about height...what the hell do they feed them in those scandanavian countries? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_height
