It's something that can not be avoided, sadly. We humans like to believe we are the top of the evolutionary chain, however we only got this way because of the simple edict "Survival of the fittest." Since Humans have no real natural predators anymore, we no longer have the need to evolve and are now stagnant. So we'll slowly grow more stupid as time goes on to the reversion to middle ages or earlier and end up dying as a result of freak accidents that are caused by the complete lack of common sense we were supposed to be born with. Hopefully that will thin the herd enough for true growth to begin again, but not likely at this present time in history. Something like a World War would most likely do it.
