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My guess is we will begin engineering humans within the next couple hundred years. Since we're largely circumventing natural selection, the only way to prevent a weakening/diseased population is to select out the unhealthy traits and select in the healthy ones.
When reproduction becomes an engineering, and hence conscious decision, that will greatly slow, if not reverse population growth. We'll have the opposite problem of overpopulation.
I expect things to play out that way because that's what humans do; engineer solutions to problems rather than let nature select for them.
My dad and I both have bad backs (probably genetic). My guess is I'd have died at 30 if we were in caveman times. I was incapacitated for 2 months and lost 25 pounds. Cavepeople don't have 25 pounds to spare.
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