Researchers Say Human Brain is Still Evolving

Oleg Alexandrov writes "Two genes involved in determining the size of the human brain have undergone substantial evolution in the last 60,000 years, researchers say, suggesting that the brain is still undergoing rapid evolution. The discovery adds further weight to the view that human evolution is still a work in progress, since previous instances of recent genetic change have come to light in genes that defend against disease and confer the ability to digest milk in adulthood."

Comments

It's remarkable how wrong this is

[nokilli]

First off, it's hard to see *any* species as being in anything other than a state of evolution. To suggest otherwise implies a superficial understand of what evolution is about.

That being said, it's conceivable that we're at the point where the human brain is the exception to the above. After all, what has been the driving force behind the evolution of the brain? Big-brained people surviving and succeeding in reproduction where little-brained people fail.

This isn't really happening anymore. Yes, smart people still trump over stupid people in most aspects of life, but stupid people still reproduce. Civilization has removed the engine through which drives the evolution of the species.

I can't believe how often highly educated people will pontificate on this subject, and get it wrong. Yes, usually the media is to blame -- science reporting is notoriously bad -- but that does not appear to be the case here.

Ironic that they should be so wrong on this of all subjects.
--
You didn't know.

Re:It's remarkable how wrong this is

[CDMA_Demo]

First off, it's hard to see *any* species as being in anything other than a state of evolution. To suggest otherwise implies a superficial understand of what evolution is about.

I beg to differ. With the current state of affairs in several countries and the way people in the east are connected to what the west does, I propose that we consider not only the human brain, but the human species itself as an exception. We are undergoing convolution instead of evolution. Besides, human evolution is not a safe subject in some countries anymore...

Re:It's remarkable how wrong this is

[John Hawks]

Well, it sure might look that way, but these genes strongly suggest that something related to cognition was under strong selection throughout history.

One of the two genes, ASPM, appears to have come under selection only 5800 years ago; but it is now at around 20 percent, with a frequency of near 50 percent in some Near Eastern populations. Whatever this allele does, it had a selective advantage of more than 5 percent. They don't know it necessarily makes people smarter, but it's hard to think what else it might be.

That's really the neat part; that it shows that this idea of "survival of the dumbest" is apparently not what has been happening. Instead, there is every reason to think we have been getting smarter.

The submission doesn't mention the most problematic part: These alleles are high frequency in some populations, but absent or low frequency in others -- suggesting there may be adaptive differences in the brain among human populations. From my weblog post:

Geneticists are increasingly finding genetic variants that affect behavior. Several of these variants are now known to vary in frequency in different human populations. These alleles are two; the 7r allele of the dopamine receptor D4 (DRD4) gene is another that influences ADD/ADHD susceptibility (Harpending and Cochran 2002). The selective structure underlying DRD4 variation may be frequency-dependent, with different alleles correlating with alternative behavioral strategies that pose greater or lesser advantages in some populations. It is not clear whether such a mechanism is true of ASPM and Microcephalin; the selected alleles have risen to such high frequencies in some populations that it seems they are not mere alternatives; they are unilaterally advantageous -- at least where they have become common already.

--John

Re:It's remarkable how wrong this is

[SQL Error]

One of the two genes, ASPM, appears to have come under selection only 5800 years ago; but it is now at around 20 percent, with a frequency of near 50 percent in some Near Eastern populations. Whatever this allele does, it had a selective advantage of more than 5 percent.

It's the morning coffee gene!

Re:It's remarkable how wrong this is

[nokilli]

They don't know it necessarily makes people smarter, but it's hard to think what else it might be.

Deference to authority perhaps? The gene that enables groupthink, which, today seems to be sending us into the abyss but thousands of years ago meant the difference between one tribe surviving another?

The whole business with the alleles and DRD4, I don't know anything about that. I just found the way that the conclusion was stated here to be clumsy. Rather than talk about the brain still evolving, a more accurate headline might be "Path of human brain's evolution identified".

The coverage evolution has received of late has been spooky. I'm seeing all kinds of signs that the MSM is trying to accommodate "intelligent design", an agenda that is served by implying that human evolution was thought to have stopped somehow.

Now that I'm looking at it again, maybe it is another case of bad reporting.

Re:It's remarkable how wrong this is

[Cruithne]

The solution to this problem is obvious.... only let the people with an IQ above X have sex :D

If you mod me down or reply negatively, you lose sex priveledges too :D

Re:It's remarkable how wrong this is

[dumeinst]

You think it's funny, but there ought to be some standard for parenthood. While regulating people's right to reproduce may not sit very well with some (myself included), I can't help thinking that a lot of social ills might be benefited.

Re:It's remarkable how wrong this is

[uncoveror]

Cute little joke, but eugenics is a debunked pseudo-science. It did not produce supermen or a master race in 19th century America, or The Third Reich. Two idiots can produce a genius child. Two geniuses can produce an idiot child. Two parents born blind can produce sighted children. An athlete and a model, seemingly superior breeding stock, frequently have children with horrible birth defects.

Re:It's remarkable how wrong this is

[Tony Hoyle]

If I was world dictator I'd have enforced sterilisation at birth and parent licenses allocated after rigorous testing.

That's probably why I should never be allowed any power...

Re:It's remarkable how wrong this is

[JeffSh]

Eugenics was only a single generation (or perhaps 2 generations) of testing. breeding favorable traits (or any trait) requires many many generations.

to see this, just look at dog breeds.

the same could easily be done with humans, certainly.

Re:It's remarkable how wrong this is

[Cruithne]

"An athlete and a model, seemingly superior breeding stock, frequently have children with horrible birth defects."

I like how that's totally a fact you can back up with data from the local library's copy of "kids of athletes and models - 2005 edition".

But seriously, although eugenics does not sit well with me or anyone most likely, and while your logic is correct - two idiots can breed a genius, I would wager statistics would prove that people with higher educations breed people who contribute more to society, and it probably helps to be more "well off", too.

Before I get flamed to death, I am definitely not advocating birth control in this sense (or eugenics) - the key is in the education, which brings with it the wealth.

To me its always been a shame that one of the most promising tools for improving society gets the shaft over and over again... Not to get offtopic, but its a shame that probably more than half the teachers in our institutions should not be teachers, and that the ones who should teach out of a desire to teach and make a difference (rather than for the small compensation) - most everyone has that really good teacher they remember that really made a difference.

To be a teacher should require as much education as it does to become a Doctor - possibly more, and they should be paid more, too. The day we see that is the day we see some real advances in society.

Re:It's remarkable how wrong this is

[aussie_a]

An athlete and a model, seemingly superior breeding stock, frequently have children with horrible birth defects.

Which goes to show they aren't superior breeding stock. It was probably the bulemia and drugs that caused the problems.

Re:It's remarkable how wrong this is

[magarity]

there ought to be some standard for parenthood
 
While I'm glad I'm an Alpha, I clearly see the need for Gammas and Deltas. And for them to be in greater numbers than the Alphas and Betas. That reminds me; trash truck comes tomorrow AM...

Re:It's remarkable how wrong this is

[king-manic]

You think it's funny, but there ought to be some standard for parenthood. While regulating people's right to reproduce may not sit very well with some (myself included), I can't help thinking that a lot of social ills might be benefited.

That just another selecting factor, but who is to say any ones criteria is better for our long term fitness? Being a genius isn't exactly good for your health, a lot of them die young, a lot of them turn out to be gay, insanity is common as well. Because being a Genius is a mutant allele and occurs often in lines with a bad corrective mechanism (high mutation rate). 1/2 of all geniuses are left handed while only 1/3 of the rest of us our, supporting the idea that it occurs in lines more prone to mutations. While havign a genius around once in a while is good (einstien) having us all be genius would be bad (if we were all alan turings, the human race woudl end because we would all be gay).

The best thing for human fitness is to have a diverse rance of genotypes/phenotypes and let the future do the selecting, that way we aren't backing the wrong horse.

Lets say the germans won WWII and there was a massive selective factor for blonde hair blue eyes caucasians, now fast forward 3000 years and we're all blonde and blue eyed and suddenly by some absurd twist of fate a alien species arive that only eats thigns with blonde hair and blue eyes. now we're fucked. Absurd yes, but variations on this is what causes exstinction. Over specialize, lack diversity, and you invite disaster. Generalize or diversify and while you aren't using your resources 100% efficiently (supporting those with lower fitness) you have a better ability to flow aroudn changes in selective factors.

Re:It's remarkable how wrong this is

[Anonymous Coward]

How is that "helping the human race"? What standard are we being held to? Is a small population of self-sufficient people the ideal situation? If you'd have us kill off or ignore the dumbest/weakest people, call that what it is - selfishness (not that there's anything wrong with that) - and don't pretend you have the best interests of humanity in mind.

The only objective measure for the success of the human race is its population. The socialist governemnt is best by that measure.

Re:It's remarkable how wrong this is

[saskboy]

"If you mod me down or reply negatively, you lose sex priveledges too :D"

You and I are reading Slashdot. It's safe to assume that no one reading this sentence has sex priveledges as it is.

Re:It's remarkable how wrong this is

[Afrosheen]

What I'd like to know is if Hitler's eugenics program had the desired result. I mean, it's 50 years later, there should be some generational samples you can take to judge the effectiveness.

  Also, he implemented a super soldier program, where the best soldiers (by physical characteristic measurements and IQ tests) were 'encouraged' to breed with very suitable females. I can't remember what the whorehouses were called but they had a special name. At any rate, there were plenty of births as a result, and I'm sure they're documented.

Re:It's remarkable how wrong this is

[ShadyG]

Whatever this allele does, it had a selective advantage of more than 5 percent. They don't know it necessarily makes people smarter, but it's hard to think what else it might be.

That's because you don't have it.

Re:It's remarkable how wrong this is

[ShieldW0lf]

You're mistaken. When there is a threat, we mutate. That's what's happening now, we're mutating and developing a more diverse genetic base. When a really nasty disease comes along, that diverse genetic base gives us a wider range of options to fight it.

The genetic diversity we're accumulating will help ensure that when the inevitable "culling of the weak" comes in some form or another, there are a few people who are strong in the right sort of way to carry on.

Considering the intermixing between cultures that occurs in modern society, as a species we're better off with as much genetic diversity as we can get until we manage to get off planet and remove the risk of a single superbug wiping us all out.

By the way, you're sorely misguided about the whole "stupid people breeding out of control" issue too. The problem isn't the stupid people breeding too much, it's the so-called "smart" people not breeding enough. We're on our way to a societal collapse because of it.

Re:It's remarkable how wrong this is

[Moofie]

Uh, but they never get anything done. That's the problem.

But hey...you tell yourself whatever stories you like. The Flying Spaghetti Monster told me it was cool.

Re:It's remarkable how wrong this is

[jd]

Alphas are stable, but are easily blocked so literally can't get out of a paper bag. Betas are too highly charged for my taste and gammas have an electromagnetic personality.

Oh, you were talking about people! Well, @ comes before alpha, in ASCII, so I'm going to be @.

Re:It's remarkable how wrong this is

[abandonment]

I hardly consider modern society as a 'normal' state of evolution.

Whether you have more money or not has absolutely nothing to do with whether your 'genes' are hardy enough to survive, propogate and evolve.

The state of modern society has in fact thrown out thousands of years of evolution in favour of 'creationism', and the 'golden law' - ie those with the most toys wins.

This has nothing to do with evolution, it has everything to do with the rich feeding the rich and the rich doing everything in their power to stay rich.

Look at how much 'old money' runs the world (in the US and abroad). You think that these same people, if given the same upbringing, financial situation and social status (ie 'socialist states') are somehow 'better' than those raised in capitalist 'everyone for themselves' environments?

I hardly think so.

The Bush family dynasty is the prime example of how this theory fails miserably.

When you have generation after generation of idiot propogating and continuing their 'dynasty', you inevitably result in the idiots rising to the top - hence gwb II 'the sequel' - and the rest of the old money families that think they know best and flounder around trying to play 'risk' and destroy the world...

Re:It's remarkable how wrong this is

[koekepeer]

diversity means strength as a whole. it's completely stupid to want all people to be "ubermensch".

if i had time to write a long reply, i'd argue that it is in fact the presence of the "weaker" that allows for a humankind which is strong and adaptive as a whole.

to put it simply: if we were all rocket scientists, the world would be quite a messy place :-)

Re:It's remarkable how wrong this is

[justin12345]

Socialism has nothing to do with it.

I live in Brooklyn, and a nasty part of it none the less. Long story as to why I moved here...

I'm not too worried about survival (I'll be leaving this winter; moving into a .5 million dollar home in Baltimore. Plus, NYC has a very low murder rate compared to most American cites.)...

Still as far as selection goes, my neighbor is clearly the victor. Ultimately his family will in the long term have a much greater chance of survival then mine, based on shear numbers alone. He works as a janitor (kinda), makes maybe 25k-30k, but has 9 kids by three different women (8 really, the 9th is expected in December). I OTOH have none (granted he is 4 years older then me... he is 29 and unmarried, had his first child at the age of 17).

Chances are, most if not all of his children will survive to reproductive age. Its also likely that few will attend college (though this really is speculative, I'm just basing it off of the fact none of their parents or grand-parents did, AFAIK).

Chances are that I will have few or no children: My girlfriend is on the pill and another prescription medication which further limits her fertility because it would require an abortion if she were to become pregnant within a year of taking it (the medication causes severe birth defects).

Even if we do wind up reproducing, I really doubt I will have more then 2 or 3 children. My neighbor OTOH, whom definitely has a lower quality education (intelligence is too subjective to judge) has definitely been far more prolific then I will ever be, though I had and probably will have a far greater quality of life.

Ironically, because we have access to excellent health care (much more so then my neighbor) we are able to choose sterility. That is not the case for my neighbor, whom cannot/will-not control reproduction (as he has complained in his own words during our infrequent conversations).

There is no welfare involved here. All parents mentioned here work and support themselves and their children (to the best of my knowledge).

Re:It's remarkable how wrong this is

[TheRaven64]

The main problem with Hitler's programme from an evolutionary standpoint (completely ignoring the human rights aspects) was that it selected the wrong things. How, exactly, are blue eyes and blond hair advantageous to survival? As someone born with both, I would quite like to know. Meanwhile, he persecuted the Jews, even though this included many of his top scientists (who left and worked for the allies). Had he focussed on intelligence, he would almost certainly have retained enough talent to develop the atom bomb before the end of WW2. The down side is that he would not have come to power in the first place, because his election strategy revolved around blaming the Jews for everything.

Perhaps the moral of this is that there should be an intelligence test for voting...

Actually, I would like to see each voter have to complete a short multiple-choice test on the opinions of the candidate for whom they are voting, and discounting all votes from people who get less than 70% - if you don't know what your representative stands for, then you have no business electing them to represent you.

Re:It's remarkable how wrong this is

[Anonymous Coward]

While I'm glad I'm an Alpha, I clearly see the need for Gammas and Deltas. And for them to be in greater numbers than the Alphas and Betas. That reminds me; trash truck comes tomorrow AM...

I don't want to be an Alpha; they work too hard on boring jobs all day! I'm so glad I'm a Beta! My clothes are much nicer, and prettier colours! I'm so glad I'm a Beta! All my friends are Betas, not like those nasty Gammas and Deltas. I'm so glad I'm a Beta!

Re:It's remarkable how wrong this is

[MyLongNickName]

while others will be smart enough to keep their beliefs to themselves.

What is funny is you don't realize you just put yourself down.

Re:It's remarkable how wrong this is

[Distinguished Hero]

Um... socialism keeps your janitor neighbour's 9 kids (raised by single mothers) alive. Without socialism, a lot of them would die, or they wouldn't even be born to begin with (the female body does not get pregnant if it does not have a certain level of nurishment). Without socialism, those successful or caring enough to care for their children would have their children survive, and those like your neighbour would have no children left.

Doesn't it seem kind of sick to you that the biggest selective pressure nowadays is being too stupid to know how to put a condom on, too insensitive to care, or too lazy to actually do it?

Re:It's remarkable how wrong this is

[CFTM]

Actually, I'd argue there is an advantage to survival; having fair skin light eyes and light hair causes people to immediately treat you differently. I never noticed it until I lost weight but depending upon how you look people will treat you quite a bit differently, even as a male. I realize that weight is a contributing factor here but the closer you fall to the subconcious societal ideal, the more immediate respect you are given.

If you want some ancedotal evidence, look at Hollywood; generally considered to be the most attractive people. A large portion have light colored eyes...

Duh?

[Dimensio]

Evolution is not attempting to attain a certain "goal" at which it stops. Evolution is simply the result of certain genetic traits being selected based upon environmental pressures. It shouldn't be too surprising that evolution still occurs in humans so long as there is a situation where some genetic traits are more likely to be passed on through reproduction than others.

I guess this could be news to people who don't actually understand evolution -- which, given the popularity of pseudoscience like "Intelligent Design" and non-science like "Creation Science" -- probably is quite a bit. Unfortunately, experience shows that they don't really care to learn anything about evolution anyway, so chances are they'll do little but mock the findings without even trying to understand them.

Re:Duh?

[brianf711]

Actually, evolution is more complicated than just natural selection.

There are 5 conditions where Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium does not apply and thus evolution is occuring.

While natural selection is one of these, the others include non-random mating, mutations, genetic drift (small populations may be more sensitive to random events) and migration (gene flow).

Since all of these events are occuring at some degree, the short response to the article is of course evolution is occurring, as you pointed out, but not just because of natural selection. What is interesting, and I didn't read the article so bear with me, is whether there is a correlation with "intelligence" and surviving offspring. This is where natural selection would favor or disfavor intelligence. Perhaps more intelligent people have fewer children, but are able to raise them and get them access to medicine and other factors that could enhance their survival, but maybe this isn't the case as well.

Re:Duh?

[gad_zuki!]

> Evolution is simply the result of certain genetic traits being selected based upon environmental pressures.

The scope of this article is over 60,000 years, the headline suggests the brain is "still" evolving. When you consider modern medicine and modern living the most basic mechanics of evolution (natural selection) aren't nearly as powerful as they were in hunter/gatherer societies.

So, it is news, and whats even more misleading is that the suggestion that evolution is happening due to environmental factors now. What factors exactly? Modern life is about preserving life no matter what and previously people who would have died due to a weak immune system, mental illness, etc are happily (or miserably) reproducing and passing their genes. Seems like evolution is in action but when the environment gives mixed signals, whose to say where its "going."

Re:take that you intelligent desing thoricists

[higuy48]

I was pondering whether or not to totally theadjack this topic, but it seems you have made the decision for me.

This won't stop them. This is mircoevolution. What they're claiming is that we couldn't have possibly speciated from very simple cells and organisms to what we are today. They are disputing macroevolution.

Counter-evidence...

[FyRE666]

Researchers Say Human Brain is Still Evolving

I guess these guys have never browsed Slashdot at -1 then... And how do they explain George Bush, Beanie Babies and the Crazy Frog? And where did they get a 60,000 year old brain from to find these genes - Joan Rivers' skull? No no no, none of this is adding up...

Re:Counter-evidence...

[Tim]

And how do they explain George Bush, Beanie Babies and the Crazy Frog?

Evolution optimizes for survival, nothing else. And unfortunately, in this country, there is a strong selective pressure against intelligence.

Sarcasm and "bling" on the other hand....

Re:Counter-evidence...

[macdaddy357]

It would be great if the human brain would evolve in such a way that it would be repulsive to zombies, and they wouldn't want to eat out brains any more.

Sounds promising....

[sigmaseven]

Any chance of speeding up the process before the 2008 elections?

/in Kansas, so it might not even apply, anyhow

Re:take that you intelligent desing thoricists

[richdun]

...now if only natural selection would remove those who type too fast to think or spell check.

This is news?

[HisMother]

Every living thing is evolving. No creatures alive are genetically identical to ones living 60,000 years ago. At that time there were wooly mammoths, and saber-tooth tigers running around.

I suppose you could argue that this is useful ammo against the ID folks, but it's really only the Flying Spaghetti Monster acolytes and other True Believers who have the hubris to believe Homo Sapiens Sapiens is the pinnacle of creation, out of the box.

The human brain...

[myowntrueself]

is an organ for cooling the blood.

We actually think with our stomachs.

Obviously the cooling needs of the human body are still increasing over time. Probably linked to global warming.

Re:The human brain...

[Jace of Fuse!]

We actually think with our stomachs.

Nope. Getting warm though. Little lower...

Milk

[Lord Kano]

I both lost and regained the ability to digest milk as an adult.

When I was 25 I went for about 4 months withough ingesting any milk products. When I tried again, I couldn't digest them.

When I was 29 I began to occasionally consume milk products and after a few months I was able to digest it again.

I had no idea that there was anything genetic about the production of the lactase enzyme into adulthood.

LK

Re:Milk

[erroneus]

Sounds like a case of "you don't use it, you lose it." That said, there are some people who could never have it.

Consider that natures way of weening many animals is for the young to eventually lose the ability to utilize its mother's milk which requires it to seek nutrition elsewhere.

It's interesting to consider what driving evolutionary force produced this successful gene though... does anyone know how long humans have been consuming the milk of other animals?

Re:Milk

[Jodka]

I both lost and regained the ability to digest milk as an adult.

This is more likely due to changes in your intestinal flora over time than evolving at the age of 29 a gene for adult production of lactase.

Re:Milk

[markass530]

I had a friend who couldn't ingest milk products, so we snuck some cheese in a big sandwhich, he destroyed the subway bathroom.

Nitpick

[Dimensio]

Every living thing is evolving.

Living things don't evolve. Populations of living things either evolve, remain stagnant (which is very , very rare) or die out.

Now, wait a second...

[rasafras]

The world has changed a lot, and I mean a lot, in the past millenium (even 2-300 years). The selective pressures that were around previously, causing the stupid to die, are no longer present. In fact, there is very little selective pressure in today's society, where the number of offspring you have is rarely related to prosperity or the like. The death rate is so low that I can hardly imagine selective forces having a large effect on evolution. Random mutation still occurs, of course, and perhaps over the next millenium one society will evolve to be smarter and will destroy the other with superior technology, but I seriously doubt this. I'm one of those people that considers human evolution to be nearly frozen. Soon to be supplanted by willful manipulation, of course (ethics debate about this some other time).

Re:Now, wait a second...

[Nefarious Wheel]

It's very clear that we're selecting for the ability to produce money, read the correct magazines, and our inability to spot prophylactics in the wild. And drive cars with large integral flat surfaces.

Re:Now, wait a second...

[Anonymous Coward]

I suppose you don't know about the racial makeup of Brazil...

Re:Now, wait a second...

[craXORjack]

In fact, there is very little selective pressure in today's society, where the number of offspring you have is rarely related to prosperity or the like.

While I agree that human engineering will likely eclipse natural selection in the near future, I have to say that from my observations, at least of modern industrialized society, that the number of offspring is still related to prosperity. However the relation is probably backward from what you were thinking. It seems that the poorest (and least educated so maybe that is the deciding factor) members of our society are the ones having children at the youngest ages and having more children over their lifetime.

Re:Now, wait a second...

[king-manic]

For the human species to really evolve, the 4 major gene types (Caucasian, Asian, Aborigine, Afro-African) must mix as much as possible. The supremme being would technically have all the dominent genes out of each pool.

Dominant != good. Dominant means it tends to happen with hetrogenious parents. Dont' confuse the two. My Alpha thalasemia is dominant but in areas without malaria it's a bad trait.

Re:Now, wait a second...

[hywel_ap_ieuan]

there is very little selective pressure in today's society....I'm one of those people that considers human evolution to be nearly frozen.

Relaxed selection speeds up evolution. Mutations that are mildly deleterious can stay in the gene pool and participate in the genetic mix'n'match. Eventually you get much more genetic variation than you do under heavy selection.

Further, evolution is sloooowwww by human standards. It goes in generations, lots of them. Nothing short of a catastrophic selection event - think Black Plague, only worse and worldwide - is going to have a significant influence on the relative frequency of specific genes in just a few generations. We're only a couple of hundred generations from the Late Bronze Age. So don't try to extrapolate from conditions in your own neighborhood during your lifetime to actual evolution of our species. It's silly.

Gene distribution

[Fox_1]

Dr. Lahn said there may be a dozen or so genes that affect the size of the brain, each making a small difference yet one that can be acted on by natural selection. "It's likely that different populations would have a different make-up of these genes, so it may all come out in the wash," he said. In other words, East Asians and Africans probably have other brain enhancing alleles, not yet discovered, that have spread to high frequency in their populations.

Another geneticist, David Goldstein of Duke University, said the new results were interesting but that "it is a real stretch to argue for example that microcephalin is under selection and that that selection must be related to brain size or cognitive function."

Basically this study shows that the 2 genes they studied are distributed with different frequencies in different populations, but occur more often in these populations now then 60,000 years ago. Anything else is just theory and speculation.

Re:Gene distribution

[Michael Woodhams]

There are statistical tests for the "under selection" part. here's the first summary I found. It changes the frequencies of nearby neutral mutations which get to "ride the coat-tails" of the advantageous mutation.

The "related to brain size/function" is somewhat speculative, in that the gene could have additional unknown functions.

That the mutation makes us smarter is much more speculative. (Indeed, I don't think the paper's authors went this far.) It could, for example, make us 0.1% less smart, but reduce the brain's metabolic cost by 0.5%.

(Note: I've only read the linked article, not the scientific paper.)

Evolving or devolving?

[gamer4Life]

In this society, the people who have the most chance to procreate are the jocks, the Hollywood stars, musicians, etc.. while on the opposite spectrum we have the intelligent nerds.

Does this mean that we will evolve into beings that are better at hand-eye co-ordination, faking emotions, and playing music, while ignoring pure intellect?

Obviously...

[tyman]

Of course our brains are evolving. Evolution doesn't just stop at the present. Eventually everyone writing on slashdot will be viewed as "monkeys" and religious fanatics of the future will proclaim that they did not evolve from these neanderthals.

Depends on how much spaghetti you eat

[ScentCone]

Also, I understand that if you wear an eyepatch, that strengthens the optic nerve on one side of your brain. It is proof of His Noodly Will.

Stands to reason

[Bogtha]

Society has changed immensely over the past few thousand years. Evolutionary pressure has changed because the skills required to reproduce successfully are different. Being a good hunter is no longer a core skill. Being able to read and write is.

I wonder to what extent the difference in population growth for various countries will influence this. At the moment, first-world countries have much lower reproductive rates than third-world countries, but if the HIV epidemic continues, that situation could reverse itself.

Interesting

[MattW]

I wonder how long it would take us to devolve via natural selection. Since there is an inverse relationship between education level and child rearing, then if one assumes more intelligent people tend to have higher educations and that higher intelligence when breeding contributes to intellectual evolution, then we may well be devolving because stupid people disproportionately reproduce. Of course, we'll probably genetically engineer our own brainpower up before too long, and solve that problem while opening up a whole new can of worms.

Re:Interesting

[king-manic]

I wonder how long it would take us to devolve via natural selection. Since there is an inverse relationship between education level and child rearing, then if one assumes more intelligent people tend to have higher educations and that higher intelligence when breeding contributes to intellectual evolution, then we may well be devolving because stupid people disproportionately reproduce. Of course, we'll probably genetically engineer our own brainpower up before too long, and solve that problem while opening up a whole new can of worms.

This is untrue, more intelligent people have fewer children, but these children almost always survive to reproductive age. It's simply a diffeerent strategy. one economic echulon (my spelling sucks) goes for a many children, few survivors method. whiel another goes for few children, but immense resources put into each.

Re:Theory or God??

[CurlyG]

Yes, I think you *should* consult a real scientist, and ask them what "theory" means in a scentific context, and then get them to explain to you the difference between a theory and a hypothesis, as you clearly haven't the faintest idea what you're blathering about.

You're welcome.

"Smart Jews"

[Tablizer]

A related and interesting article on "Smart Jews"

http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm? story_id=4032638

It seems that discrimination in Europe may have led to higher intelligence.

Re:"Smart Jews"

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

It's more likely that the requirement for most jewish boys to read hebrew at the age of 13(bar mitzvah?) lead to their increased empoloyment in clerical jobs, as most if not all were taught to read and write in their native language as well.

This was at a time when most people could not read or write. Hence the average jewish male was much more eligable for employment in a clerical position than the average male in the population as a whole.

The higher salaries conferred in clerical positions leads in turn to suppossedly higher "intelligence", due to the increased ability to afford higher education. You'll find most "intelligencia" come from relatively wealthy backgrounds.

Economic factors, not genes, have lead to the results the article describes.

Re:Human evolution has STOPPED!

[John Hawks]

Sure, some of the things that used to kill a lot of people don't so much anymore. People even survive and have kids with CF today.

But selection requires only an incremental increase in reproduction. In a big population like ours, this increase can be as small as tenths or hundredths of a percent. This is so small that practically we will never measure it. Yet in a few thousand generations, this tiny reproductive effect will completely transform a population -- even a population of billions.

That's the problem with predicting the future -- what will be important then, we can't observe happening today. But there is plenty of reason to think that things are happening now. From my weblog:

Today, with 6 billion humans, every one-off mutation from the human consensus genome sequence occurs in dozens of people. Many multiple-off mutations occur in some people. In a larger population, selection is more potent, because genetic drift is weaker. This means that the advantageous variants of the next fifty millennia are already appearing in the world today, and may inevitably be selected. The global population is exploring the entire mutational space, many times over, and novel mutations are no longer likely to disappear so rapidly due to genetic drift. Any near variants that confer an advantage are already on the way to fixation. Many of these may lose their advantage once biomedical technology catches up to them. But others will be more subtle, more difficult to market in pharmaceutical form, and these will slowly, steadily increase.

So if you want to have an effect, get out there and reproduce! --John

Re:Can someone explain...

[ozmanjusri]

what is significant about the ability to drink milk during adulthood?

Most of the world's population can't digest lactose (milk sugar) after the age of about 4. The ability to digest lactose appears to have evolved along with dairy farming. Those parts of the world which did not practice dairy farming remain lactose intolerant.
http://www.scienceinafrica.co.za/2002/june/lactose .htm

Re:Obviously

[MikeFM]

There has never been any reason to think that just because a trait evolves into much of the population that it will reach all of the population. Your videos are probably of the population missing these, and other genes, that increase mental ability.

The intelligent are now protecting the stupid in much the same way mankind has protected cattle. The stupid tend to breed with other stupid while the intelligent tend to breed with other intelligent people. At some point this should lead to a split in the species as the two groups evolve in different directions. Still it'd take quite a change to make the two groups incompatible for mating so you'll likely see the occasional mix.

Stupid people tend to breed faster than intelligent people but they also tend to live less healthy lifes which probably increases their mortality rate. I'd still imagine stupid people produce more children that live long enough to themselves reproduce than intelligent people though. To bad this topic is taboo because it'd be pretty interesting to study.

In the meantime - geeks unite and breed! Don't let the moron inherit the Earth! The fewer children you have the more likely they'll be wage slaves to stupid people. Fight back - have sex (with yourself doesn't count)!

Learn the nature of science.

[Dimensio]

Now that is a loaded statement.

No, it isn't.

Evolution is nothing but a theory.

Creationists say this like it means that it's somehow on shaky ground. It isn't. "Theory" is the highest level that any explanation reaches in science. There is no higher label. The dismissing of evolution as "nothing but a theory" only demonstrates that the one making the dismissal is fundamentally ignorant of scientific terminology.

Ask any REAL biologist (like those with Ph.D.'s or those who work in colleges), and they will admit evolution is a theory.

And theories never get any higher in rank.

It is not fact.

"Facts" are simply statements about single observations, nothing more. "Facts" really don't mean anything in the long run in science.

It is not a scientific law.

And it never will be. Despite the ignorant rantings of creationists, theories do not ever become laws. Theories and laws are two different types of statements. Laws are general statements about collections of previous observations by which future observations are predicted. Theories are an attempt to explain the underlying causes of the observation. Example: the "Law of gravity" is a model of the resultant force caused by gravitational attraction between two masses. The theory of gravity -- more commonly known as "relativity theory" -- is an attempt to explain why that force occurs.

Laws are no more certain than theories. Theores do not "graduate" into laws. Laws can just as easily be falsified -- in fact, the "Law of Gravity" as we know it from Newton is false. Saying that "evolution is a theory, not a law" as if this casts some doubt on the validity of evolution again only demonstrates that you are fundamentally ignorant of how science works.

The cool thing Intelligent Design is we know God made us.

No, Intelligent Design postulates -- based upon faulty premises -- that certain features in biological systems are too "complex" to have come about through evolution, and therefore must have been "designed" by some unnamed designer. "God" doesn't enter into "Intelligent Design" as it is presented by the shysters who try to shove it into school cirriculums.

That you think that it directly refers to a god -- especially the God that you happen to worship -- only further demonstrates that ID is nothing but a sham to try to sneak religion into schools.

As for "know", I'm sorry but claiming that you "know" something isn't valid justification for scientific consideration. If you have no evidence, then you have no case.

Think about how the world was made. Science has a theory called "Big Bang". It is a theory which states that in the start the mass was so dense, it exploded and everything flew away randomly, making stars and planets, and life.

The Big Bang doesn't cover abiogenesis. Please actually learn the science behind it before attempting to discuss it.

For any people who know statistics, what is the probability of that happening? How many times would I have to flip a quarter and get heads in a row? 100,000,000,000 times? 100,000,000,000,000 times?

You know the statistical likelyhood? Please present the math. Show all of your work. If you can't then you don't have a case. Please avoid the fallacy of pointing to the "likelyhood" of the universe appearing in its exact configuration as it is and pretending that the universe couldn't have just as easily supported life had it come about in a somewhat different configuration unless you can demonstrate that it is the case.

You would have a better chance at taking a watch, hitting it with a hammer until it was broken into 1000 peices, and then putting it in a bag, shaking the bag, and having the watch come back together out of the random movements.

False analogy, demonstrating a fundamental ignorance of cosmology. Try to understand why physicists say what they say about universal origins before thinking that

Re:Learn the nature of science.

[Dimensio]

Now, since we don't have a time machine, we CANNOT falsify historical evolution.

But we can. Find a series of precambrian rabbit fossils, and everything we've constructed regarding the history of life comes tumbling down. A transposon found in whales and cows but not in hippos? That's a real problem with the way things are set up now.

Re:Learn the nature of science.

[koekepeer]

"Calling the principle of evolution a theory is simply wrong. It's a basic biological fact, as far past theory as Newton's Laws."

don't get me wrong, i support evolution theory. but it's far from fact. in fact, the notion of facts and truths don't have a place in science. science is not a new religion (although many people treat it that way).

it's the same as saying that you are an atheist. to think you can have a proof of the non-existence of a God means conforming to the same system as religious people, thus being completely non-scientific, and actually ridiculing your own "rational" argumentation.

give me agnosticism any day. the 7 years i worked as a scientist taught me something very important: scientists are bigger doubters than perceived by the outside world. read some Russel - there's a short essay on why he became an agnostic, and some really good books like "religion and science" that enlighten this subject considerably.

Re:Learn the nature of science.

[Decaff]

Now, since we don't have a time machine, we CANNOT falsify historical evolution. It's just a theory, and absent a time machine we won't ever be able to test it.

Of course you can test it. You can make predictions about the way things could have evolved and what intermediate forms may have been present. You can then look for such forms in fossils. For example, there have been several theories about the lineage of whales, and fossil finds have helped test these theories.

In this sense evolution is a lot like cosmology. We can't go back to the early stages of the universe, but we can predict what should be there then look at distant (effectively 'fossil') light with telescopes.

Re:Learn the nature of science.

[xerxesdaphat]

It's a basic biological fact, as far past theory as Newton's Laws. (We're also slowly approaching the time when we should call Relativity a law. It's not there yet, but it will be eventually.)

Man. Did you even read the above post? He said, theories don't graduate into laws... they are completely different things. Please actually RTFP before replying.

Re:Learn the nature of science.

[johnnyb]

"But we can. Find a series of precambrian rabbit fossils, and everything we've constructed regarding the history of life comes tumbling down."

Not necessarily. One could easily propose a secondary hypothesis for how they arrived there. For example, in several thousand years, archaeologists will be able to say that they have found dinosaur bones mixed with human bones.

Historical inquiry always has this kind of "fudge factor". In fact, there are spots where the fossils are out-of-order. The reason given is some sort of geological displacement. That's all well and good, except that at a few of the spots the only evidence for the displacement is that the fossils are out-of-order. That doesn't mean that it's incorrect, just that it's ultimately untestable because noone can know if the secondary hypotheses are correct, or how many of them there needs to be to look at the evidence in the correct light.

Also, you failed to point out that multiple theories can predict the same placements. In those cases, there is no way to tell between two theories. You can keep to one because it's the way its been done, but ultimately you can't test the historical theories to tell which one is true.

Re:Learn the nature of science.

[CausticPuppy]

Now, since we don't have a time machine, we CANNOT falsify historical evolution.

Sure we can.
Just one example off the top of my head...

Evolutionary theory states that wings and forearms evolved from the same structure in vertebrates. Therefore, evolution predicts that no vertebrate fossil will possess separate forearms AND wings (something like pegasus). This is a reasonable prediction because we already have plenty of INvertebrates that have forearms + wings (flying insects for example).

This hypothesis could be falsified by counterexample, i.e. the discovery of a vertebrate fossil that has separate forearms and wings.

When I gaze into my fishtank...

[randumspin]

Creatures from Another world? The past? The present?

Why yes. Take a look over there. Its the horseshoe crab, one of natures "living fossils". Even if you don't have a saltwater reef aquarium, you may notices roaches in your friends apartment...perhaps a sign that he doesn't clean up well enough or perhaps a sign that life will persist.

Evolution occurs as long as it is beneficial, to the organism in question or to its general environment. The oceans haven't presented enough of a change from way back when for the horseshoe crab and many other species to modify its design. Similarly, cockroaches are pretty good at finding corners and crevices to hide in and scavange, thus they have not needed change their modus operandi or physical design.

Humans are in an entirely different environment. In fact it is said that we are the only species which controls and modifies their environment. As such, it is a natural conclusion that as long as the environment and conditions are variable, evolution will continue to progress...always looking for that perfect design for life that maximizes its ability to persist.

This isn't stopping evolution...

[Dimensio]

...this is just changing the selection pressures. Ultimately, advances in medical technology alter the environment in such a way that it is less hostile to the reprodutive success to a given genetic range.

Hoist by your own petard

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

You're as wrong as the people you criticize

Civilization has removed the engine through which drives the evolution of the species.

What engine has been removed? There is still a differential rate of reproduction between different groups and so natural selection is carrying on exactly like it has always done. You say the engine has been removed because you have a preconceived notion that certain traits should be selected for (eg. not being stupid) and when you see that those are not the traits associated with a higher differential rate of reproduction you dismiss it as not being evolution. Sometimes I wonder if anyone out there has actually bothered to try understanding evolution.

Re:Hoist by your own petard

[AJWM]

Natural selection must not only mean that the possession of some combination of attributes confers both survival and the opportunity to procreate, the absence of those attributes must mean the opposite.

No, it's virtually never that clear cut. There'll be some attribute(s) that confer a marginal increase or decrease in the likelihood of individuals to reproduce, or not. It's not all or nothing. Over a hundred generations, though, even a 1% marginal difference adds up to a significant population shift.

Re:Hoist by your own petard

[deaddrunk]

Judging by current trends, spherical.

Re:Theory or God??

[Wavicle]

evolution is a theory. It is not fact. It is not a scientific law.

Theory and fact are not exclusive. Stating something is a theory and is not a fact implies that the theory is wrong. Scientific laws are just "convenience" wrappers for theories. The things we call "laws" are theories just the same. They are still subject to the same rigor as theory.

The cool thing Intelligent Design is we know God made us.

And that is why you are NOT a science. Because you "know." You've moved from theory to statement of fact.

For any people who know statistics, what is the probability of that happening?

The probability of the event cannot be determined because we lack understanding of the state space.

How many times would I have to flip a quarter and get heads in a row? 100,000,000,000 times? 100,000,000,000,000 times?

The probability of getting N heads in a row is 1/(2^N). But that is irrelevant to the discussion.

You would have a better chance at taking a watch, hitting it with a hammer until it was broken into 1000 peices, and then putting it in a bag, shaking the bag, and having the watch come back together out of the random movements.

And you've calculated the probability of this how?

God made life. It is called a soul.

That it is incorrect. Life was bestowed upon the earth when the Flying Spaghetti Monster extended His noodly appendage and brought forth a midget in full pirate regalia.

Evolution ain't what it used to be

[msaver]

Ever since the invention of agriculture, humans quit evolving like the rest of the creatures on earth. The question is now is "who reproduces?" instead of "who lives through the night?"

"Survival of the fittest" doesn't apply to humans -- obesity kills a lot of people. You don't have to be fit (in any sense of the word) to survive. Who's reproducing more: smart people or idiots? I'd bet on the idiots (smart people think a little more about the implications of having [another] child). If the average intelligence of the human race is dropping (ever so slighly), how can we call that evolution?

Evolution seems to lead to diversity, and as a race humans are becoming (IMO) less and less diverse. The concept of evolution is intimately tied to diversity -- humans have quit evolving... we're done.

So a little variation here or there is natural... it's all statistics anyway. I guess any article that mentions evolution makes it on /. these days :/

Re:Theory or God??

[JanneM]

given the popularity of pseudoscience like "Intelligent Design"

Now that is a loaded statement.

Yes it is.

It doesn't go nearly far enough.

"Pseudoscience" implies that its proponents, cranky or not, at least sincerely believes in it. That is too charitable for "intelligent design".

"intelligent design" is a meticulously planned, focus-group designed, carefully executed fraud.

It is created only to deceive. It's intended purpose is not to explain anything, but only to diminish the public credibility of any real scientific explanatory model of life or the origin of our world.

What was selected?

[John Hawks]

One of my friends thinks a good candidate for selection would be avoidance of cities, since these were cholera-ridden population sinks for most of history. Maybe so.

Really the reason to think that cognition is involved is that these same genes were selected repeatedly in primate and human evolution:

Both genes underwent repeated adaptive subtitutions in the primate lineages leading to humans: these changes in Microcephalin were concentrated in the ancient hominoid ancestors of humans and chimpanzees; ASPM fixed a new adaptive substitution on average every 300,000 or so years since the human-chimpanzee common ancestor. Disease-causing alleles of both genes are associated with forms of microcephaly. The normal functions of neither have been characterized, although their effects in microcephaly would indicate that one important function is in early neural growth and differentiation. Thus, it is reasonable to think that they may have been involved in the evolution of brain size and structure in humans and other primates.

I suppose it's possible they make you dumber. But then further experiments should show one way or the other.

--John

Re:Theory or God??

[Dimensio]

So you say that for anyone to have a discussion of evolution they must use your conventions of naming? I say bullshit.

And I say that if you're going to use the term "theory" to mean something other than what scientists mean and then claim that the theory of evolution is on shaky grounds because it is a "theory" by your definition then you're not arguing based upon facts, but upon dishonest semantics.

Which isn't surprising. I've observed that creationists are, in general, shameless liars. You're either one of them, or you're trolling. Your posts are more over the top than most creationists, but I do know that people have seriously expressed the insane and willfully ignorant sentiments that you preach in all seriousness, so it's hard to tell.

Re:Theory or God??

[Draveed]

A hypothesis is any idiots guess. A theory is the guess of a person with many letters behind their name.

And that is why you are stupid.

Will this result in evolution or branching?

[tji]

As others mentioned, half of the evolution process is missing.. there is no selection of better traits. Everyone lives, thrives, and reproduces regardless of their genetic adaptations (or quality).

So, we still have the genetic randomization going on, resulting in differences in humans. But, then what happens? All the strains of humans just keep going.

Does this result in the spectrum of humans spreading increasingly wider, so eventually subjects at two extremes barely resemble the same species?

Will any noticeable branching happen? In previous evolution, one group survived and thrived, replacing members without an adaptation. Now, since the others still survive, and the difference between the weak and strong won't result in a dramatic difference in results for either group. Probably not anything recognizable outside the normal differences between tall & short, thin & fat, smart & dumb.

Evolution is making our society dumber(er)?

[harry63]

I have often thought about this late at night when I can't sleep. Sometimes I believe our society is getting dumber because according to the "guidelines" of the survival of the fittest the less intelligent and successful people in our society are the ones reproducing (successful being represented by both income and advancement in field). I consider myself upper-middle class and my wife and I have no intentions of having kids. Our friends at the same SES also have no intentions of having kids and I have read many reports that show that this is a popular trend. It is the people of middle to lower class with lower IQs and less successful that are the ones that are having four and five children.

It often seems like the people who are really changing ou society are the ones that are deciding not to have kids.

One more thing...

[Dimensio]

Stop equivocating evolution with atheism. Evolution is not atheism. It is fundamentally dishonest to suggest as much.

WE HAVE STOPPED EVOLUTION!

[adolfojp]

There can be no evolution without natural selection. We have tampered with natural selection.

Technology has given people with hereditary conditions like diabetes and nearsightedness the same chance to pass its genes to the next generation.

We are a weaker race because of it. Not that I am complaining ;-)

Cheers,
Adolfo

Re:Theory or God??

[ScentCone]

So you say that for anyone to have a discussion of evolution they must use your conventions of naming?

Just don't expect to persuade anybody to see your point of view if you refuse to base your conversation on a common usage of specific scientific terms. If you refuse to actually crack open a dictionary and get up to speed on what the word "theory" means (hey, click here for a definition - it's free!), then the first job you'll face is to get people who do use a functional, consistent vocabulary to abandon it and use a new, made-up definition that suits your agenda.

You will learn more about evolution in the Bible than any PH.D. granting institution can teach you

Huh. Well, that's just not even slightly true on the face of it, so you're going to have to work on that from another angle.

How do you explain miricles?

Well, I don't know. Perhaps you mean "miracles." Luckily, though, I don't need to explain them, since they don't actually happen. On the other hand, there's the more common daily usage of that term, which equates roughly to "amazingly lucky" or "rare" or "long odds," etc. As in "It's a miracle that I won the lottery. Of course, it's simple probability, really."

How do you explain the works of Mother Theresa?

Well, she got up each morning and did things for people. And she was persuasive enough to get people to give her money so she could do more of it the next day. Are you saying that she did magic? That when she scrambled eggs for poor people, there were more plates served than could be accounted for by the eggs she bought? You don't need any magical thinking or mysticism to explain the day to day behavior of someone who decided that the only way to find meaning in her personal life was to be a servant. That was her call, and she worked the celebrity status she earned to raise more cash to do more of it. Miracle? No.

How do you explain it when modern medicine says a person will die, that there is nothing else that can be done, but a priest comes and the person wakes up?

A mistake. A prediction based on incomplete information. How do you explain it when a million people pray for Mother Theresa not to die, and she dies anyway? How do you explain it when someone survives a bus crash that kills a bunch of other people, and they say that Jesus was looking out for them? Did Jesus hate the other people on the bus? How do you explain it when churches get struck by lightning and burn down? How do you explain it when innocent little children are born into an agony of birth defects? Is God trying to teach those kids a lesson? Nice guy! For someone who is All Powerful and Loves His Children, he sure has a cruel sense of humor!

Or, how about this notion: it's all made up! It's a semi-comforting myth that's caught on with a lot of people for a variety of cultural reasons, and preys upon the intellectual cowardice that's built into most of us (mostly, the denial of death that we all hang onto, at least most of the time, because it would be hard to function day-to-day if we really stopped to think about how pointless the whole thing might seem, what with the fact that we're all going to die). Priests are just people in a uniform that shows they've made a career out of perpetuating the myth. It's actually pretty embarasssing - a lot of them are smart, and good communicators. They've just bought into the fantasy because it makes people temporarily feel good, and they've lost the will to make meaning in their lives, deferring instead to a canned religious product that's easier to serve up and sell.

Re:Theory or God??

[Wavicle]

Besides, you FSM types are not interested in alternative theories. Teach the controversy, I say!

There is no controversy. Pastafarianism is a fact, supported by the vast numbers of True Believers. A false creator could never hope to sway such a large audience. False religions, such as the cult of the Invisible Pink Unicorn, simply cannot stand against the light of the truth as shown to us by Him and His noodly appendage.

I've often wondered...

[M3number3]

What exactly the role of modern medicine and civilization will eventually have on the overall evolution humans. Others have speculated about aspects of this, but my curiosity revolves around whether or not we (as a species) are preventing our own evolution by treating genetic diseases. Evolution is always triggered by a genetic change - with changes which make the species stronger carrying on and those which weaken the species eventually being eliminated. So what happens when a child is born with a genetic "defect" which, for lack of a better term, we simply don't understand. Do we treat that child, do we actively affect his/her ability to develop and thus prevent the eventual forking of the human species? This is somewhat thought provoking because I don't think any of us are smart enough to know the answer. The flip side of this argument, of course, is what to do when we are able to purposely engineer a superior branch of the human species. I'm not talking about changing eye or hair color, but rather our ability to create a "super human". Lastly, many folks believe that while human evolution may have slowed, it will likely make its presence known in a more significant way once we establish colonies in space. Imagine not the 1st or 2nd generations conceived and born in zero or reduced gravity (such as that in a space station, deep space craft, or even on Mars), but rather the 100th or even 1000th generation. Surely at some point these "humans" will have evovled traits which enhance their ability to survive and thrive in this new environment. Interesting stuff for sure.

Missing acidolphilis and other friendly bacteria

[rufusdufus]

It is highly likely that what you actually experienced was missing "friendly bacteria" or pro-biotics that help humans digest milk. Milk products usually contain a these in small amounts; this explains why you were able to digest milk again after consuming it for a while, you had built up good colonies in your digestive tract.
Lots of people have stomach, mouth, and fungus problems of various natures which they try to treat with symptoms with pepto-bismal and other over the counter drugs when they would do much better to go out an eat yogurt every day for a week. Yogurt is high in friendly bacteria and will fix many symptoms you may have had for years.
One big cause of losing your friendly bacteria is taking anti-biotics. Some people take anti-biotics and struggle with intestinal and fungus problems for years because their friendlies have been wiped out by the anti-biotics. Doctors rarely prescribe yogurt with anti-biotic, but next time ask your doctor if taking pro-biotics is a good idea, and he will probably say yes. Why they don't bring it up on thier own has always been a mystery to me.

Re:Theory or God??

[rossifer]

So you say that for anyone to have a discussion of evolution they must use your conventions of naming? I say bullshit.

If you decide to make up your own definition for a word and then claim that scientists must also using your definition when they use the same word... I can think of a better place to put your "bullshit" label.

Theory already has a specific meaning when used by scientists. In this case, the various theories of evolution provide our current best explanations for the many-times-over observed fact of evolution (the fact that the frequency of alleles in a population changes over time).

You will learn more about evolution in the Bible than any PH.D. granting institution can teach you. And you will live a better life.

The first statement is patently false. Charitably, the Bible discusses the who and why of creation, but is woefully lacking any substantive discussion of how or when (which is what the theories and facts of evolution are all about). The second statement is irrelevant, since most graduate institutions don't explicitly attempt to improve how people live their lives (there is hope that by improving the quality/quantity of what people know, lives will improve, but it's implicit).

You should read "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" by Edwards.

Not a month ago, another Christian was yelling at me for saying that Christianity still use fear-based arguments to spread the word (and Christian morality). He said that I was ignorant and that those type of people were just a part of the ugly history of Christianity. Where were you to defend my assertion then?

I always get a chuckle when I think that according to the worldview of people like you, all us godless heathens must be just wallowing in sin and misery because we don't have a man in the sky to tell us what's right and what's wrong. A really useful ethics will be a lot more useful than any "list of rules" morality like you're going to find in your books. Some Christians will understand and agree with what I'm saying, but I don't expect it to make any sense to you (you may also say they weren't really Christians anyway :)

How do you explain miricles?

Which miracles?

How do you explain the works of Mother Theresa?

As the personal effort of a well-intentioned but poorly informed woman. (perhaps not so poorly informed, since she came to the West for her own medical treatments rather than be treated in the hospitals that she created... hmmm...).

How do you explain it when modern medicine says a person will die, that there is nothing else that can be done, but a priest comes and the person wakes up?

In the real world, we should often discuss probabilities instead of certainties, but if, based on a doctor's experience, a patient has a vanishingly small chance of survival, he'll conclude the patient is a goner and move on to the next guy. But vanishingly small probabilities are still non-zero and some people will pull through by sheer force of will (a.k.a. placebo effect, which is not a brush-off, but a really important set of biophysical effects that your body can do to itself).

Have a great day!
Ross

Re:Can someone explain...

[mattjb0010]

Most of the world's population can't digest lactose (milk sugar) after the age of about 4. The ability to digest lactose appears to have evolved along with dairy farming. Those parts of the world which did not practice dairy farming remain lactose intolerant.

There are similar patterns with respect to alcohol metabolism, based on whether populations boiled water or used diluted alcohol in order to kill bacteria. This also occurs for other drugs, such as warfarin (a common anticoagulant drug).

How do they know?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Two genes involved in determining the size of the human brain have undergone substantial evolution in the last 60,000 years...."

Whenever I read claims like this, I always wonder, "how do they know?". I'd have to question even if the claim were only 100 years. I have doubts that we have records of the genes in question for the last 100 years, and I'm fairly sure we haven't been watching these genes for the last 60,000 years. :)

I would assumed that any specific genetic data (aside from that which can be inferred from physical observations) would have been long lost to us. In this case, it seems one must be willing to make the somewhat undesirable claim that we can know that these two genes are the only two genes that control the size of the brain, and have always been the only two genes that control the size of the brain. I could accept that assumption were the claim 100 years, but 60,000 seems a bit much to take on faith.

It seems to me that this article boils down to "Change happened somewhere somehow!" and that doesn't seem particularly insightful. Anyone have more knowledge about how their claim can be observed and verified?

Re:Theory or God??

[Wavicle]

How do you explain it when modern medicine says a person will die, that there is nothing else that can be done, but a priest comes and the person wakes up?

Oh this straw man again... Okay, tell you what: have a priest bring a brain dead individual back to full function and I'll bite. There has never been a documented case of a brain dead person coming back to any mental function. So you get that done then come back.

If you really want to know, it goes something like this: Doctors generally predict based on their experience, and very simple statistics will show that their sample set is not very good. Further investigation will show that if a doctor expects a person with a particular condition to die, then those who do die will be remembered as reaffirming his hypothesis and those who do not will be forgotten as being non-events.

This has been researched many times. Doctors are skilled artisans of medicine and surgery but, with very rare exception, they do not practice science and subject all their diagnoses and prognoses to scientific rigor. They use personal experience and anecdote, and those are quite fallible.

I believe you missed the point of the grandparent

[thecampbeln]

For about the last 100 years(-ish, in the western world at least), the engine that drives the evolutionary process in the human population has been (all but) removed by way of social programs, improved medical techniques, invitro fertilization (natural selection... anyone?), you name it. That's not to say I'm advocating doing away with these things, but anything that allows for the production of offspring by individuals that otherwise would not have had the ability or made it to the age to reproduce *naturally*, is "dumbing down" our collective human gene pool.

If nature wouldn't have allowed certain individuals to reproduce, and yet modern medicine/technology/whatever have, their "faulty" genes are allowed to continue past their naturally selected "use by date", so to speak. How in the hell is this not a bad thing for the population as a whole? By definition, natural selection has been removed and therefore evolution has ceased. Sure, the population is "evolving" (read: reproducing) but with a near 100% reproduction rate amongst those individuals who *choose* to reproduce (again, no evolution here), it is not "evolving" in the Darwinian sense. Only those with severe medical or physical problems are no longer "able" to reproduce, but again this does not evolution make (IMHO).

Re:Missing acidolphilis and other friendly bacteri

[line.at.infinity]

Why would bacteria have anything to do with the human production of lactase enzymes or lack thereof?

No kidding...

[Hosiah]

I had a suspicion that the human brain was still evolving the whole time...when I noticed that it was obviously considered by nature to be optional equipment on some people.

But seriously, we have room to grow for a reason that we never had before: Caesarean births. Now that we have the technology, the circumference of the human skull is no longer constrained to the diameter of the birth canal. Note how earlier people valued wide-hipped women for their child-producing ability, and how today, popular culture values only women with skeletal stork's bodies...a subconcious acknowledgement that natural birth is no longer a factor in evolutionary development.

Re:I believe you missed the point of the grandpare

[David Off]

> Only those with severe medical or physical problems are no longer "able" to reproduce

not forgetting /. readers of course :-)

Re:I believe you missed the point of the grandpare

[LittleBigLui]

the engine that drives the evolutionary process in the human population has been (all but) removed by way of social programs, improved medical techniques, invitro fertilization (natural selection... anyone?), you name it

No. Those things changed what would be regarded as "fitness" in that context but didn't somehow magically suspend evolution.

If nature wouldn't have allowed certain individuals to reproduce, and yet modern medicine/technology/whatever have, their "faulty" genes are allowed to continue past their naturally selected "use by date"

If nature wouldn't have allowed certain individuals to survive attacks by wild animals, and yet throwing rocks and waving burning sticks at those animals have, their "faulty" genes are allowed to continue past their naturally selected "use by date".

How in the hell is this not a bad thing for the population as a whole?

Because there's no need for perfect physical health anymore? Seriously, how long would have Stephen Hawking survived in the - say - fifteenth century? Are you sure that mankind would be better off without him?

Seriously, just because you disagree with the laws of nature about what excatly "fitness" means doesn't make nature's definition wrong and yours right. "Fitness" means adaption to the environment, and the environment has changed, as has "fitness".

42% of USians surveyed don't believe in evolution

[DrSkwid]

Life on Earth has :

Existed in its present form since the dawn of time : 42%
Evolved over time : 48%
        Guided by a supremem being : 18%
        Guided by natural selection : 26%
        Don't know : 4%
Don't know : 10%

http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?Repor tID=254

Results for this survey are based on telephone interviews conducted under the direction of Princeton Survey Research Associates International among a nationwide sample of 2,000 adults, 18 years of age or older, from July 7-17, 2005. For results based on the total sample, one can say with 95% confidence that the error attributable to sampling is plus or minus 2.5 percentage points. For results based on Form 1 (N=1,000) or Form 2 (N=1,000) only, the error attributable to sampling is plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

I agree

[Ogemaniac]

You are absolutely right...smart people are not breeding enough in the first world. Birthrates are now below replacement levels in every advanced country, with the US being in the least-bad position. In other nations, such as Japan, the lack of children is becoming a serious political issue. It will eventually be a problem in the US as well.

In order to sustain our population (which seems a reasonable target) we need to have about 2.1 children per woman. In the US, lower class people are doing just about that. It is the top half of the income distribution that is failing to do its duty by replacing itself in the next generation.

I have seen some estimates that we could lose as much as one point of IQ per generation due to differential numbers of children and mother's age at birth - a pretty scary thought if you ask me.

Unless some amazing new technology comes to save the day, in the next few years we are seriously going to have to consider more government manipulation of birthrates, or our society and culture could disappear.

Nope.

[aussersterne]

Ever have sex with someone of the opposite gender? Were you attracted to them? For whatever reason? And they you?

Yes?

Congratulations, you just participated in the ongoing process of natural selection. You yourself have applied selective pressure in favor of whatever it was that attracted you to him/her, regardless of what the nature of the attraction was or whether you can even spell it out.

Multiply by six billion and you have the human race... evolving.

Re:I believe you missed the point of the grandpare

[Ihlosi]

My definition of "fitness" is the ability to procreate without the help of technology - medical or otherwise (KY is, of course excluded).

In that case, your definition of "fitness" is obsolete. In fact, it has been obsolete since humanity started using tools. Had your definition of fitness not become obsolete that long ago, well, we wouldn't be having this discussion on the internet.

I am simply supporting the idea that evolution has, for all intents and purposes, stopped in the human population due to these factors.

No, it has not. First of all, evolution is _slow_ compared to human lifetimes. How can you tell that a process has completely stopped that has time constants in the thousands of years ?

Also, these factors did not stop evolution at all. They merely modified the criteria used in the selection process. A very common fallacy of "critics" of evolution is that the criteria for selection stay the same. If this were the case, well, where are the dinosaurs ? They were wiped off the planet by a change in the selection criteria which they suddenly did not fulfill anymore ... whoops.

Re: Misconceptions about atheism and agnosticism

[Anonymous Coward]

it's the same as saying that you are an atheist. to think you can have a proof of the non-existence of a God means conforming to the same system as religious people, thus being completely non-scientific, and actually ridiculing your own "rational" argumentation.

Atheism is not the belief that a god does not exist nor does it require any proof of the non-existence of a god. Atheism is the lack of belief in the existence of a god or gods. A-thiesm means 'without theism' and nothing more. Atheism is not the positive belief "Gods do not exist". Atheism is not the opposite of Theism.

Agnosticism is more of a statement about the limits of human knowledge than a stantement about the existence of a god. Agnosticism is the belief that humans can never have knowledge of the existence or nonexistence of gods. Agnosticism is not a middle ground between theism and atheism. More importantly, agnosticism and atheism are not mutually exclusive. All true agnostics are atheists and so was Bertrand Russell.

In "Is There a God?" Russel writes:
"Many orthodox people speak as though it were the business of sceptics to disprove received dogmas rather than of dogmatists to prove them. This is, of course, a mistake. If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time.
-- Bertrand Russell, "Is There a God?"

As a scientist you are not required to prove that pink unicorns do not exist. A scientist does not believe in pink unicorns because there is not enough evidence or proof to justify that belief. Scientists that require a higher level of proof for religion than they require for science are making a mistake.

I was told that the Chinese said they would bury me by the Western Lake and build a shrine to my memory. I have some slight regret that this did not happen, as I might have become a god, which would have been very chic for an atheist.
-- Bertrand Russell, The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell (1967-1969)

Re:Theory or God??

[zpok]

[quote]
"intelligent design" is a meticulously planned, focus-group designed, carefully executed fraud.

It is created only to deceive. It's intended purpose is not to explain anything, but only to diminish the public credibility of any real scientific explanatory model of life or the origin of our world.
[/quote]

OK, broadly the same could be said about religion in general and most political statements.

But that doesn't mean people don't BELIEVE it.

My sister just can't believe we're somehow sharing traits with apes, while to me that's maybe our most redeeming quality ;-)

Some kind of religious bigot?

[AndroidCat]

The cool thing Intelligent Design is we know God made us.

I say it was the Flying Spaghetti Monster and my religious faith is just as valid as yours!

Re:I believe you missed the point of the grandpare

[Ihlosi]

1) Exactly what human tools have been around since "that long ago" that help you sticking (or receiving) a penis in the vagina?

The tools that allow individuals to actually get that far along the way of reproduction.

Fire. Helps to avoid freezing off important parts during cold winter nights. Also helps to keep your offspring from freezing solid during those nights, and helps to keeps the tigers away that want to snack on you, your partner and your offspring.

Clothing. See above. Can also help to influence potential mating partner's preference towards the wearer.

Jewelry/other adornments. See latter point of clothing.

Weapons. See the part about tigers above. Also help to impress potential partners, keep rivals away and provide food to you, your partner and your offspring.

Blankets. Ever tried to have sex outside during the cold season without one ?

Houses. Better version of blankets for that purpose.

Reducing "fitness" to the short time from intercourse to conception is quite shortsighted (to the point of blindness). Whoever can reproduce and ensure the survival of the offspring is "fit". Regardless of the tools used in the process. If someone can't do this even with currently available tools, well, in that case they should come up with better tool or they'll end up "unfit".

Re:I (don't) agree

[chuckT]

Is there not a major assumption being made here - that smart people are wealthier than poor people?

I think of myself as pretty smart, but I know a lot of dumb people who earn more than I do. Wealth (and by implication survival in the modern world - although that is another questionable assumption) is far more a matter of luck and inheritance (wealth or status, not genes) than intelligence.

In fact, I suspect that there are far more important qualities, relating to the ability to focus on specific activities or goals that are relevant to an individuals wealth generating ability.

In any event, I would completely reject your implication that we kill off the poor because they are polluting the human gene pool. Your argument is based on false assumptions, could itself potentially remove useful variety from the gene pool, and goes against every compassionate human instinct I possess.

I don't like it.

Sorry.

At this point, I think we should invoke Godwin's law , and shut up.

* puke *

[ThinWhiteDuke]

I agree. This whole civilization thing is way overrated. The mere concept of helping each other for no immediate personal profit reeks of communism. Let's abolish all of this crap and adopt an efficient win-or-die model. Well, the wolves have been doing this for eons, and they are obviously a much better evolutionary success than us humans.

Look, what you wrote is wrong on so many ways... Factually, morally, economically, you name it. People like you consider that misery is a feature of the system rather than a bug. You have wilfully renounced what has always driven human development.

You, sir, are evil.

Re:I (don't) agree

[Anonymous Coward]

Rather than killing the idiots off, how about we get government intervention then? Shock troops leaping through the window whenever a jock traumatizes some nerd by shoving them in the locker. Tax credits for your daughter taking a nerd to the prom instead of the football hero (exceptions of course being made in cases where the football players aren't just jocks), and so on ;)

Re:42% of USians surveyed don't believe in evoluti

[nagora]

It seems to me wholly compatible with Christianity to trust science (our extended senses) to analyze the nature of material reality.

Only superficially. Ultimately, science is about questioning and religion is about dogma (or "faith" if you prefer) and in the final analysis that means they are totally opposed to each other.

A nice lie like Chirstianity is still a lie; we're better off not knowing than living with that.

TWW

Re:I believe you missed the point of the grandpare

[DerWulf]

My definition of "fitness" is the ability to procreate without the help of technology -
This is wrong. Think about it, selection serves the 'purpose' of creating organisms best suited to the enviroment that challenges them. In no way has fitness any relation to procreation. It's just a correlation that fucking more used to equal being successfully adapted (enough food a) for the fucking and b) for keeping the kids alive). In the natural state, it just happens that the ability to procreate is a prequesite to having your genes selected for. At this point, the fitness of those genes meaning the prowness to survive in a given enviroment doesn't even enter in the equation.

As an krass example: Take human A, living in a culture that prohibts birth control, who is also a lousy farmer. Loaded with testerstron, he soon has 10 kids. Because he sucks so bad at farming one year his harvest failes. His family dies from starvation, because he also is'nt a savy saver. Human B is a sucessful farmer. He has little sexdrive and thus only has one kid. His harvests never fail, and if they do, he'd have saved enough to bring his family through the rough times.
It's obvious what just has been selected for: The ability to keep the family alive. B is an evolutionary success story because he was skilled and utilized long term planning not because he was able to out-procreate someone else.

Re:I believe you missed the point of the grandpare

[Ihlosi]

We obviously differ on the definition of "natural".

Maybe. In the context of "selection", to me that's anything not caused by FSMs, IPUs or similar entities. Evolution does not really care about the origin of the selection, though, just that the selection exists.

But the fact remains, in that case that individual is able to pass along his/her traits of severe diabetes which is not a desirable trait to carry. 'Cause should that particular "tool" (insulin) become unavailable for even a short amount of time... Darwin gets ya and your offspring should they carry the same trait. And that, in my opinion is a "weakness" of that individual, genetically speaking.

That is one of the problems with evolution - it has a long memory, but close to zero foresight.

And while dependence on certain substances or tools might look undesirable, look at how many of those dependencies humans already have: a certain range of gravity, pressure, oxygen, a certain temperature range, suitable food, etc. Darwin will get ya if you suddenly take any of those away, too. Happened to the dinosaurs.

Re: Theory or God??

[johnnyb]

Actually, hypotheses and theories are quite disconnected, as are theories and laws.

A hypothesis is a testable prediction. A theory is a hypothesis-generating model. A law is a mathematical description.

For example:

Hypothesis: If I throw an object X with a force of Y at a vector of Z, it will land at point Q.

Theory: Gravity is caused by the warping of space by mass

Law: F=G*(m1*m2/r^2)

Note that even with dramatic changes to the _theory_ of gravity, the Law is relatively stable -- it is simply a mathematical description.

Thus, creationists and evolutionists are both wrong when one says "evolution is just a theory, it's basically a guess" and the other says "evolution is a proven fact, just like the 'theory of gravity'". Theories are merely hypothesis-producing mechanisms, and are judged by their usefulness of producing testable hypotheses.

Re: Theory or God??

[johnnyb]

"I wouldn't even call it a conjecture. It's apologetics, almost certainly conceived and propagated dishonestly."

Who in the ID community is being dishonest?

"It's possible that someone could offer "intelligent design" as a conjectural explanation for some poorly understood phenomenon"

Actually, most people offer up "intelligent design" for well-understood phenomena. Would you say that the works of Mozart are not intelligently designed? Or perhaps that the Apache server was not intelligently designed? ID simply says that we can analyze design mathematically, and use the results of that to determine if a given physical system is likely the result of an intelligent agent. In fact, this process is already implicit in Archaeology and in SETI. It's just that biologists don't like it being applied to their neck of the woods.

"They're trying to convince the courts that creationists have sound scientific reasons for their beliefs."

This is incorrect. ID does not want either ID or creationism taught in science classes. In fact, most creationist organizations don't want creationism as a mandatory topic. And all groups I am aware of agree that evolution should be fully taught to students.

LSD is NOT a mutagen/teratogen...

[Ellis D. Tripp]

Regardless of what they might spew in DARE classes...

http://www.erowid.org/chemicals/lsd/lsd_writings4. shtml
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_229.html
http://www.levity.com/aciddreams/samples/chromosom e.html
http://www.serendipity.li/dmt/chromosomes.htm

I have never seen those statistics directly

[Ogemaniac]

but the correlation between intelligence and wealth is around .7. The correlation between parents' and a child's intelligence is about the same. Therefore, you should see a quite robust correlation between the wealth and intelligence - even before you consider the positive effects on learning that a good family would typically provide.

Re:It's remarkable how wrong....no, we are wrong.

[cuteface]

I think we have been making a wrong assumption here all this time. Who said evoluntionary intelligence has anything to do with performing well in IQ tests? Maybe Mother Nature or God just don't like highly cerebral humans. Why?

Firstly, just as they are capable of great benefits to society, they are also capable of great harm, like intelligent criminals? Secondly, smart people can vastly impact the eco-system and not always for the best, how about short-sighted scientists? Lastly, maybe folks with lower IQ can relate better to others, empathize with the masses....becoz they in the majority! So they are easier to get along....same frequency perhaps.

So the next time, someone praised you for being intelligent and well-off....just bear these in mind.....seriously, it may not be a good thing in my not-so-honorable opinion ;P

Re:We're talking averages here.

[chuckT]

Er, I wasn't trying to use a deviation to disprove the trend, I was merely reporting an observation.

And while I am quite willing to look at studies that do prove the point, I will remain highly sceptical that poor=dumb. It is far more likely that rich = better(educated/nourished/supported/housed)= performs well on IQ tests, and *that*, surely is the point to be disproved.

You may already have read The Mismeasure of Man by Stephen Jay Gould, which discusses many of these points far better than I could ever hope to.

I mentioned Godwin's law because as soon as you start discussions about there being a genetic basis to societal differences, you are one step away from discussing eugenics and National Socialism. I mentioned it, not because I did not want to seem a fool (I'm not quite sure why that would be, actually), but because that discussion looked like an inevitable next step. I was right, too, take a look further down.

Now, saying "smart people make more money than *dumb* people", well *that* makes me look like a fool who should check what he writes more carefully ;-)

Re:I Think I Missed Something Here

[Ihlosi]

Can one seriously argue that lactose tolerance (or intolerance) increases survival of humans in areas that produce (or don't produce) bovine milk?

Maybe the gene now no longer serves its intended function (which is why it can get replaced with its "faulty" version that allows adult mammals to tolerate lactose).

Having the gene in the first place makes perfect sense to anyone who know a bit about mammalian reproduction physiology. Nursing inhibits ovulation in the female. Forcing the offspring to stop nursing allows for more reproductive cycles. Developing lactose intolerance in early life is a pretty sure way to accomplish that.

Thererefore: Yes, one can perfectly well argue that the lactose intolerance gene makes sense. All that's required is some basic physiology. Just because you can't argue doesn't mean anyone else can't.

Duh!

[ZeroConcept]

Christian researchers corrected:

"Researchers Say Human Brain is Still being intelligently designed."

College doesn't equal intelligence!

[kabocox]

I hate to break it to all my fellow slashdotters, but a BS, MS, or PHD doesn't make you more intelligent than a HS dropout that works as an McDonald's Manager making 30-40K and has 4-5 kids.

Evolution is a process. It doesn't freaking select anything! ID may freaking select something. You have to prove an enity of actually meddling with humanity though to bring up ID though. We could invent some AI that lives in nano-bio-virsus that we inject into everyone and it subtly could control us or aliens could be meddling with us. When God decides to let the basic rules decide it is evolution.

I'd be curious about how humanity has evolved in the last 3000 years. Attendance at educational environments beyond HS or middle school do not show that US humans have evolved to be smarter than those that don't have that educational system in place.

What it does show is that those in attendance to any educational environments beyond HS produce vastly reduced numbers of offspring than those that didn't attend these environments. Attendance at an educational institution has no relation to an individual's intelligence.

What would be interesting is seeing a graphs of occupation and/or income vs number of childern. Hint: those that have less than 2 children are being selected against. Heck, put one up showing different religions vs number of childern or even number of toliets vs number of childern that would trully show a family stress level.

Evolution doesn't even care about numbers though. As long as we muddle through and reproduce and survive that's all that is needed.

Re:It's remarkable how wrong....no, we are wrong.

[tooth]

Ever notice in an anthill, only a small percentage of the bees actually reproduce.

Errr, no, never.

Re:I believe you missed the point of the grandpare

[DerWulf]

Then, liberals and international socialists in your goverment hear about this ...

Woah! How did this get here? I mean, I'm a libertarian so obviously debate politics a lot but there really is no need to drag it into a debate on this topic. The rest of the post is exactly my sentiment. Problem is: the OP thinks that procreation should only occure in the natural way. In my opinion, the natural way is version alpha 0.01. We could do better, but thats an other topic all together. Point stands: doesn't matter how you do it, if you do it, you win at evolution :)

Re:I believe you missed the point of the grandpare

[Gulthek]

Dammit, evolution is a REACTION not a progression. That'll teach me to post without coffee. But did you read the read of my post which clearly argues the other point (which I intended to make)?

Did you not read about sickle-cell anemia and malaria?

You have a fundamental misunderstanding of evolution. "Flaws" according to evolution are mismatches between environment and species. While we can modify the environment to some extent, it still acts on us and we become the "perfect" species to suit it. We can't not!

But if we start to impose an artifical "natural" environment to further progress toward a more perfect being then we are only setting ourselves down an artifical evolutionary path.

Imagine the species as one human, in a room with hundreds of doors. Each door leads toward a particular evolutionary development. (Keeping it simple, obviously this would be more like an interconnected labyrinth.) The more diversity we have, the more doors we have. If WE choose to fuck with evolution by selecting for things that WE consider more perfect (smarter, stronger, less disease in our understanding) then WE start to walk through doors and close off areas that may be necessary someday.

It is in our best interest to keep as many doors as possible.

Now YOU are perfectly able (indeed, heavily encouraged by nature) to practice genetic selection of your mate for your own progeny. But no one is capable of predicting what genetic variances that the species will need in the millions of years to come.

Inequitable distribution of resources

[MichaelPenne]

Inequitable distribution of resources might explain part of the problem. Are the folks in the trailer part with 12 kids stupid or did they just lack access to educational resources (or grow up in a subculture where education was not a priority)?

Folks that appear dumb to highly educated DINCs might actually be quite intelligent, but using their intelligence differently (like trying to figure out how to feed, clothe, and raise 12 kids while still sticking around for their lives).

Or they may have substance abuse problems due to genetics and/or environment, it's certainly clear that intelligent people may have other problems that keep them from appearing successful in the mainstream culture.

It certainly is clear that the rewards of mainstream culture come easier to those who limit the number of children they have, however I don't think it is clear that mainstream cultural rewards correlate reliably with raw intelligence at this time.

E.g. 'smart' vs 'stupid' is not an objective measure of genetic intelligence, rather it contains a large component of culture: they are stupid because they are different vs. they are stupid because they lack processing power & RAM.

Human Selective Pressures

[Chemosky]

This post brings back a memory of the most ignorant statement I've ever heard a college professor make. The professor asked the question of the class (a history class), "Have humans undergone evolution?" He answered his own question, "No". I was completely dumbfounded and sat with my mouth agape trying to comprehend what just happened. Not one person in the class even batted an eyelash to this statement. I was in too much shock to start a debate. Bringing this post on-topic, I think about what selective pressures have been influencing the human species. First off, some assumptions:

• Evolution may be defined as a change in the frequency and types of genes in the human population through natural selection.
• The human races (caucasian, austronesian, khoisan, pygmy, black) have genetic diversity both between races and within races.*

Ok, based on the above assumptions here are some thoughts:

• Races developed genetic differences over time due to populations adapting to the resources and their endemic environment.
• Genocide: cutting out a large chunk of a population (may be based on race) in a short time, i.e. U.S. genocide of native americans.
• Disease: Social virii such as AIDS, that some portion of a population may have genetic resistance to. Or proximity to herds of domesticated animals, exposing populations to mutated animal diseases, eventually developing treatment or possibly genetic resistance, e.g. europeans infecting native american populations with diseases the europeans developed treatment for.

These seem to be macro or large scale pressures, what about some minor, subtle selective pressures? BTW, IANASD (I am not a Social Darwinist). It may not be PC these days to talk about genetic differences between races, realistically, there are differences, and it's ok to want to know what brought about those differences, from a scientific point of view.

*Human races taken from Guns, Germs, and Steel

Re:The medium is the message..

[GagnierA]

It's an obvious theory to me that the brain (and other aspects of human nature) would still be evolving. One of the principle codes of evolution and paleoanthropology is that things are constantly changing, and with the presentation of individual facts and findings that humans have evolved from "lesser equiped" sapiens such as the neandertal for example.

To understand evolution, you have to know how it works. Any mutation must be applied to a DNA coding that already exists. It can not be applied to coding that does not exist. Is this a silly statement? Not at all. It leads to the way that evolution changes an organism. Mutations are always applied to the existing DNA coding. Evolution makes something new out of something that already exists. If a bear becomes distressed in a given environment, it does not sprout wings and fly. Instead, such things as longer legs or claws will be tested. Also, evolution often does not fix the thing that causes a problem, it patches the problem by doing something unrelated. If an organism suffers a mutation that shortens its life so that it has difficulty rearing its children to childbearing age, that mutation will start being culled from the gene pool. Before that mutation has been completely removed from the gene pool, another mutation may occur which shortens the gestation period or child development period. If this shortens the child caring requirements enough so that the shortened life is no longer a problem, then both mutations would be acceptable as permanent residents in the gene pool.

One must remember that every cell in the human body can perform any function. Two copies of the entire genome are in every cell. A cell that is in the liver chooses to do that function. The cells in bone or in the brain choose to do those functions. When a mutation happens, it is either to the inner function of a cell, or to the size and shape of the overall cell structure (such as a skull, heart, etc.).

Using language as an example to promote the idea of human brain evolution is a good example for the common layman, but it doesn't even begin to touch on the basis and main concepts of the topic; however, that's beside the point.

Moreover, it's common knowledge within the medical feild (and other related sectors) that behaviour IS, in fact, coded....just not genetically. Behaviour has never been a characteristic for genetics, it's more of an entity in it's own right (but still obviously stored in the brain). It's strongly believed and heavily documented that every aspect of a person's life is profoundly affected in the early stages of childhood going into their early teens. For example, if a female is raised in an environment with an abusive father (or father-figure), later in life she'll subconsciously be attracted to the "bad boy" type and will unintentionally repeat that abusive cycle with her children. On the same note, if that same child is raised in a loving, healthy, and positively stimulating environment she'll be more likely to live a successful and fulfilling life.

Moreover, that's not to say that all hope is lost for the first life scenario outlined above. There are many services available to those people who recognize that they have a problem that needs to be fixed (such as AlaTeen and other such 12 step programs) in order for them to survive. The sooner the problem is recognized, the better.

In conclusion, I would just like to state that life on our planet has been evolving and improvising itself over millions of years. Just because the human race has gained the capacity to recognize many of these patterns, that doesn't mean that everything involved with the process will suddenly stop dead in it's tracks...and remember, man is not an intelligent being. He is, instead, an instinctive being with intelligence.

By typing and thinking about this topic, I've come to realize that there are an endless amount of tangents (and even perpendiculars for that matter) that can be brought to the table...but alas, despite the fact that I haven't said everything I wanted and intended to say, I'm going to wrap this up now.