system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: Is humanity stunting our evolutionary development with all our modern conveniences and advancements?

I have just finished rereading the book "Ishmael: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit" which I first read in High School.  SPOILERS Towards the end, Ishmael talks about how the "takers" have removed themselves from the "Gods" and have therefore also taken themselves out of the evolutionary path forward. While the "leavers" are still with the "Gods" and are so still evolving because they constantly are being impacted by the natural world around them. I can understand that we highly influence our environment by being able to control many aspects of it, and I can also see how we may negate "natural selection" by allowing those of us who wouldn't normally be able to find a suitable mate or who wouldn't survive long enough to have the opportunity to procreate. I am particularly interested in the Webs ability to find partners for those individuals who may not normally find someone compatible with them, as well as our modern medicines and treatments allowing people to overcome an illness or other genetic condition which may have previously prevented them from producing offspring. Is this going to have a lasting impact on our evolution as a species? I apologize for my ignorance - but dammit Jim, I was a Chemistry Major, not an evolutionary biologist!

Edit: Grammar and sentence structure.
gpt
The problem here is that such a question contains a faulty premise.  Evolution is not progress towards a "better" state.  At least, not in any absolute sense.  Hell, evolution isn't really even "progress" since "progress" implies an end goal and evolution has no end goal.

Evolution is merely the process of an organism adapting to its environment in ways that make it more likely to survive in that environment.  If the environment changes (for any reason, including the organism's own actions), in ways that allow differing traits to be advantageous, then it's not a case of natural selection being "negated" but rather, simply, a case of natural selection continuing by responding to an altered environment.

There's definitely an effect, but to call that effect "negating natural selection" is only possible if one doesn't really understand what natural selection *is*.