Human Genes Still Evolving

MediumFormat writes "The New York Times is running an article that discusses the continuing evolution of human genes. From the article: 'The genes that show this evolutionary change include some responsible for the senses of taste and smell, digestion, bone structure, skin color and brain function.' Darwin Awards aside, what made people think that evolution stopped with the modern era?"

Comments

Original paper

[lovebyte]

The PLOS biology article is available to everyone via Open Access.

Re:Original paper

[Austerity Empowers]

I don't think we need the original paper, I learned this in high school biology. Evolution never stops, there is no perfectly evolved thing. The question is whether our current evolution pattern is actually in our best interest, or if the dumb are outbreeding the smart (and on the side, are such things genetics based, or social).

Some people feel that "forward" evolution has stopped. It's messy to define "forward", and messier to figure out if it has stopped.

First Post

[Anonymous Coward]

We'll it would have been if it wasn't for this damned webbing between my fingers.

bleh, bone structure.

[ashot]

its not that its stopped, its that 5,000 years is an insignificant spec of time.

Re:bleh, bone structure.

[afaik_ianal]

I don't think it's completely insignificant, given that according to TFA, Asian and European genes started to specialise about 6600 years ago. (Did I interpret that correctly?)

I'd say it is highly likely that evolution has slowed down over the past couple of hundred years. As we learn to treat more and more genetic diseases, less pressure is placed on removing those genes. I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing.

Strangely, if you ask people which genes you expect to be more successful, people will normally say intelligence. But look around you. I don't mean to be a flamebaiter, but the people having lots of babies are not the "intelligent" people. Normally, people from "less intelligent" families, who are more intelligent than their peers, are seen to be "breaking the cycle". They seem to go on to have many less children than their less intelligent brethren. I'm just saying what I think appears to be the case here; I don't have any hard data to back it up.

If you follow that through, mankind is likely to get less healthy, and less intelligent.

Re:bleh, bone structure.

[mooingyak]

The trend has usually been more wealth/education == fewer children (in the last century at least). Natural intelligence doesn't really factor in.

First link I found on the subject via google.

Re:bleh, bone structure.

[AndersOSU]

Strangely, if you ask people which genes you expect to be more successful, people will normally say intelligence.

People might say that intelligence ought to be a successful gene, but by your own argument people are idiots...

On a related note Social-Darwinism is something that is best regarded extremely cautiously, if not ignored all together. Based on thousands of years of civilization it doesn't seem that socially undesirable people have a particularly hard time procreating. People lacking intelligence fall squarely into that camp. Now we just have to wait a couple of hundred years to see if widespread use of contraceptives will change this. My thought is that it won't.

Back to intelligence and evolution, I am not an evolutionary biologist, but is seems unlikely that intelligence maps 1:1 with genetics. Even if it did intelligence is something that is very hard to quantify. The intelligence required to solve differential equations would not be a survival trait in Sub-Saharan Africa, while the intelligence required to find the best fishing spot is not a survival trait in the U.S.

Anytime you start talking about intelligence it is crucial to recognize the tremendous role that environment has on the individual. Even if I granted that IQ tests were able to measure intelligence, (I don't,) I could not argue that two equally intelligent people from different cultures would have the same score. Now try to define culture, and try to explain to me how the U.S., or any first world country, is a contiguous culture.

Wow, that got ranty, but in short intelligence is at best loosely tied to genetics, and arguments of intelligence and evolution, if followed to their logical conclusion, lead directly to eugenics and racism.

Re:bleh, bone structure.

[malsdavis]

"Anytime you start talking about intelligence it is crucial to recognize the tremendous role that environment has on the individual. Even if I granted that IQ tests were able to measure intelligence, (I don't,) I could not argue that two equally intelligent people from different cultures would have the same score."

I think this is the problem. Contrary to popular opinion, there is no universal "intelligence" co-efficient which can be higher in one person and lower in another, due to genetic or otherwise. Intelligence can be sub-divided into X number of categories (common examples being: Common-Sense, Creativity and Analytical Ability) but it is still far more complex than easily measurable characteristics like each person's genetic value for hair-color, height or metabolism etc.

Evolution stopped?

[NitsujTPU]

Darwin Awards aside, what made people think that evolution stopped with the modern era?

Applying natural selection as a template, lets look at what it really is. Natural selection is the phenomena of being removed from the gene pool prior to reproduction. Anything else that happens will allow your genes to carry on, which is how evolution works. People probably assumed that evolution stopped because they assume that most people manage to successfully reproduce prior to their death.

Re:Evolution stopped?

[Florian H.]

Natural selection is the phenomena of being removed from the gene pool prior to reproduction.

Actually, no. Natural selection is about having comparatively more offspring than competing selection units. To die early is a hard limiting factor in that game, but not the only factor. Living long enough to take care for your grandchildren while your (now adult) kids are out hunting probably has a major influence on your overall reproductive success, too.

Re:Evolution stopped?

[famebait]

Applying natural selection as a template, lets look at what it really is. Natural selection is the phenomena of being removed from the gene pool prior to reproduction. Anything else that happens will allow your genes to carry on, which is how evolution works.

This is a gross simplification. Sure, being killed off before reproducing is a very strong and effective form of evolutionary pressure, but not the only one. Reproductive success is also very important. Not just whether you reproduce at all: In species with sexual reproducion (where genes/traits relatively quickly can spread across through a population without the source being the sole ancestor), simply facilitating slightly more offspring that survive to reproduce will also eventually make a trait rise to prominence. This can be achieved in many ways, the most obvious ones being increased reproduction or superior nurture.

A lot of things seen in nature (and also some seemingly conflicting drives in human behavior) only make sense in the light of sexual selection, survival boosting between related individuals, and other complex and conflicting ways that can help a gene succesfully proliferate.

Civilisation vs Evolution

[permaculture]

Evolution involves the death of weaker individuals before they can breed. With soap (the yardstick of civilisation), surgery, rescue helicopters, dentistry, wheelchairs etc, weaker individuals aren't killed off so easily before they can breed.

Re:Civilisation vs Evolution

[StrawberryFrog]

You cannot stop natural selection, you can only change the selection criteria.

Small children are naturally scared of spiders, snakes and the like. This is no longer such an important criterion, so it is likely to wither.

For example, as the advertisments in London keep reminding us, colisions with cars is a a major killer of children and teens. Hopefully we'll eventually breed for kids that don't run out into the bloody road without looking.

And finally, your argument that "weaker individuals aren't killed off" by traditional perils like disease and conflict simply fails to apply in the third world, where the majority of the human race lives. Give them a few more generations, and they will be superior to your soft white first-world ass.

Re:Civilisation vs Evolution

[Riktov]

And finally, your argument that "weaker individuals aren't killed off" by traditional perils like disease and conflict simply fails to apply in the third world, where the majority of the human race lives. Give them a few more generations, and they will be superior to your soft white first-world ass.

Third-worlders already are evolutionarily "superior" to white first-worlders -- by their selection criteria, i.e. the genetic makeup of a "white first-worlder" is likely to be disadvantageous when placed in the third-world environment. And vice versa. This almost goes by definition. Each adapted to their own environment, and it's meaningless to say that one is superior to another unless they are in the same environment.

Re:Civilisation vs Evolution

[nickco3]

Evolution involves the death of weaker individuals before they can breed. With soap (the yardstick of civilisation), surgery, rescue helicopters, dentistry, wheelchairs etc, weaker individuals aren't killed off so easily before they can breed.

This is a common misconception, evolution is not really about killing off the "weak" before they breed. Evolution involves two factors: changes to the genetic structure over time, and spreading those new genes as far as possible in the environment they inhabit.

The rate at which new changes are introduced is called the mutation rate and is independent of any level of civilisation we have acheived so far.

The second factor is spreading those new genes as far possible, that they be successful. But what determines a "successful" gene? The environment it finds itself in. When you move from a primitive environment to a civilised one the rules of the game change. A genetic hindrance in one environment may be neutral or beneficial in the other. For example, in it's original West African environment the gene that causes sickle-cell anemia is a beneficial one, offering a level of protection against malaria. In the people with this gene that were moved to the US, it just became a hindrance. In the absence of regular malaria epidemics the incidence of the sickle-cell gene has been observed slowly falling.

Favoured genes are not just about being stronger. Some genetic traits are highly successful because they are more sexually appealing to potential mates. The peacock's tail and the blue-eyed, blonde-haired northern European are both examples of this.

So evolution is alive and well, even for civilised beings. The mutation rate is constant and we are still adapting to our (civilised) environment.

Re:Civilisation vs Evolution

[StrawberryFrog]

That may or may not be the case. The experiment to determine it would be to raise first-world children in the third world, and vice versa. A possible outcome is that the things that the first world children have that are no handicap in the first world (e.g. poor eyesight, correctable defects) are major handicaps in the third world, and the traits that third world children have (e.g. disease resistance) are no handicap at all in the first world.

This provides a criterion, notwithstanding that it is subjective, whereby you can say that the third-world ones are "superior"

Interesting, but

[Vlad2.0]

I think it will be really interesting to see what happens to humanity (genetically) over the next several thousand years. The article makes it sound like bioinformatics could really take off in an effort to better ourselves by artificial selection.

A number of things have changed that will greatly impact our evolution that hasn't been experienced by our species before:

1. Ease of migration allowing for extreme mixing of previously separated social groups (this has been in decline over the last few thousand years, but now that you can travel between continents relatively quickly and cheaply, the impact will be much much greater.)

2. Knowingly allowing, accepting, and encouraging reproduction of individuals, who...shouldn't (No, I don't mean Bush). There's some bad genes out there. Some that shouldn't be passed on. While we're at a point where we can curtail some of this through prescreening parents for likely inherited traits, we continue to become more accepting of people with, well, bad genes. Aren't we effectively letting people piss into the pool?

3. Will this spawn a new race (as in car) by parents to "maximize" the brain genes described in TFA? Do I have to listen to soccer mom's brag about their kids DNA now?

4. How will this impact governments? And more importantly, dating websites?

I guess only time will tell.

DID people actually think evolution had stopped?

[Colin Smith]

I mean really? Come on...

You go to college, work your arse off, earn lots of money, die without kids, the race doesn't get your genes. You're a single parent living on state benefit with 12 kids... big contribution to the gene pool.

Changes in DNA being made by both diet and habitat

[manon]

Yesterday, I read this in the Guardian. It's a very interesting article about how, over the last 10.000 years, our DNA has been altered by what we eat and where we live.

Still going strong

[nnnneedles]

I hate to see all these comments talking about how evolution mechanisms are failing in the modern world.

We can't escape natural selection, no matter how many pills and safety mechanisms we introduce into society.

Women just tend to become more and more picky with whom they mate. And while things like good eye sight become less important, other things take their place. Things like having lots of money, social skills/social network, an athletic body, cooking skills and so on.

Here in Europe, the number of babies born per adult keep falling. This means it is actually getting harder to reproduce than it was in a past, poorer Europe.

Re:Still going strong

[clickety6]

It wasn't just womern being picky according to this article:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-20586 88,00.html

"According to the study, north European women evolved blonde hair and blue eyes at the end of the Ice Age to make them stand out from their rivals at a time of fierce competition for scarce males."

Evolution and Jerry Springer

[Anonymous Coward]

Watching a Jerry Springer Show gave me these conclusions:
- the humane genes are still evolving
- they are evolving at a rapid rate
- they are evolving in the wrong direction

Oh yeah, and:
- it's not 'designed'
- it's certainly not 'intelligent'

Re:Of course

[mpe]

Of course human genes are still evolving; you just have to examine what it is these days that limits people in reproductivity, and what encourages them. It's obvious that we, as a species, should ever so slightly more alcohol-resistant, because drunk driving kills a lot of young people before they can reproduce.

Humans of European ancestory are already more resistant to alchol than most mammals. Because for a long time brewing was the normal method of purifying drinking water. Cars have only been around for just over a century, where as water living pathogens have been around a lot longer.

Evolution can be "fast"

[Colin Smith]

A few generations are enough, particularly in areas with high mortality rates, high levels of disease. It just doesn't apply to the individual.

Re:Evolution can be "fast"

[The AtomicPunk]

Holy crap! They were missing four fingers and toes and some sick bastard amputated the ones they had?!

Re:Evolution can be "fast"

[kyouteki]

My father was slaughtered by a six-fingered man. He was a great swordmaker, my father. When the six-fingered man appeared and requested a special sword. My father took the job. He slaved a year before it was done. The six-fingered man returned and demanded it, but at one tenth his promised price, my father refused. Without a word, the six-fingered man slashed him through the heart. I loved my father. So naturally, I challenged his murderer to a duel. I failed. The six-fingered man left me alive, but he gave me these. I was eleven years old. And when I was strong enough, I dedicated my life to the study of fencing. So the next time we meet, I will not fail. I will go up to the six-fingered man and say, "Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die."

pretty obvious

[idlake]

I think that article isn't seeing the forest for the trees.

In fact, natural selection has clearly operated at a huge scale, when Europeans settled every corner of the globe, while indiginous populations have disappeared or mingled. Genes associated with those Europeans have spread, while many others have nearly disappeared.

This is an example of group selection, and it has selected many genes at once; some of them may have helped Europeans in their conquests, others may have just been along for the ride.

On the flipside, medical and environmental advances probably are causing us to lose functions at a massive rate: no need to deal with food-born pathogens if you don't encounter any.

Evolution isn't as neat and simple as "better mammal wins" or "better gene gets selected".

The Chinese are illustrative of another interesting development in evolution: limiting population growth in the absence of high child mortality and in the presence of modern medical technologies and genetic testing. Whatever policies nations adopt in that environment, they'll end up acting as "natural" selection as well.

Re:Cost of living

[Bazzalisk]

I think you miss the point.

An evolutionary advantage is whatever passes your genes on to the next generation. Hence it is the poor not the rich that have it. Quality of life doesn't make a difference. Evolution is a simple dumb process, it holds no moral judgements whatsoever.

Re:Culture is all that matters.

[Yaztromo]

The point is, this is our culture, it will not go away, it's in our genetic code to be this way, and simply by telling us its in our genetic code, or showing us our code, it's not going to change a damn thing because religion and culture are not defined by math equations.

Bullshit. Culture has never been a static, unchanging entity. Culture is whatever we as a society wish it to be, and it changes all the time.

Indeed, science has had an amazing impact on culture in the last 100 years. We moved from a culture of travel by foot and horse to an automotive culture. We've gone from Uncle George playing a banjo to carrying whatever music we want wherever we want on portable music devices. We've gone from having to spend hours at the library to look up an obscure fact to having information at our fingertips 24 hours a day. We've gone from candles and oil lamps to electric lights. And perhaps most noticably, we've gone from getting together with friends and family, or reading a book, or playing a board game, to sitting in front of the TV set.

Sorry, but our culture is very heavily influenced by science. It wasn't that long ago in certain parts of the Western world where the area you were allowed to sit in on the bus was determined by the colour of your skin -- something which is no longer part of any Western culture (except in the minds of a few deluded racists who think that culture is static and unchanging, so long as they get to dictate what culture is).

Yes, some parts of culture are sufficiently ingrained that it is hard to overcome their momentum -- but it is hardly impossible to do so. Major events and new ideas and inventions are changing culture every day.

I'm sure 10+ years ago there were some old white guys in South Africa who were convinced that Apartheid would never end as well -- and yet here we are. Women are allowed to vote everywhere in the Westernized world as well, in case nobody had bothered to tell you.

Sorry, but you come across as an appologist for racists and bigots with a dumb comment like that. Culture changes. Get used to it. Discrimination is not a given -- it's a completely learned trait

Yaz.

Re:Cost of living - MOD PARENT UP!

[SigILL]

This is a very good point that quite a lot of people don't seem to get. Anything that causes a person not to reproduce is (eventually) selected against. For example, being sensitive to the meme "there are too many people on this world" is an evolutionary disadvantage and will eventually be removed from the genepool. The same goes for high intelligence (being that intelligent people often don't reproduce).

That's probably also why religion is so prevalent in human populations: the evolutionary advantage it gives should not be underestimated.

So if you consider people like you to be a good addition to the human gene pool, breed! :)

Re:Natural selection is not just survival.

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

Some people lead long, healthy active lives and never reproduce through choice, lack of opportunity or possibly just inadequate social skills. Isaac Newton famously died a virgin.


Precisely. And yet Newton undoubtedly had an effect on the general society around him, not least through his work in the mint. The overall population benefited from his labours, although he never himself returned his genes to the general pool.

Lets say, as is generally thought, that Newton had genes which gave him an extreme "geek" factor. This factor benefits the general populace, although the "geek" genes themselves may never be passed on directly. However, the potential for such genes to be expressed is passed on through, for example, Newton's siblings and close relatives.

Evolution works on a macro population level, not just on an individual organisim by organism basis.

Why evolution in humans should have stopped by now

[SteWhite]

Darwin Awards aside, what made people think that evolution stopped with the modern era?

The fact that through medical care and technology, we have almost eliminated "survival of the fittest" (better written as "survival of the best fit to their habitat")?

People now live and have children when they would previously have died, either through diseases, or harsh environmental conditions. The elimination of the process of natural selection should see to it that evolution in humans no longer occurs, at least not in any beneficial way. Bad genes that lead to people having chronic medical conditions are not removed from the gene pool by those people dying without producing offspring. Humankind needs to step in with more advanced medical care and gene therapy to replace what was once done by nature.

Just my $0.02 of course!

The next big evolutionary step....

[The Famous Druid]

Most whites have a gene that gives partial resistance to Bubonic Plague, as those Europeans who didn't have it 600 years ago don't have living descendants now.

Will the next big evolutionary change be (partial?) resistance to Bird-flu or Ebola ?

Eugenics is Stupid

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

While we're at a point where we can curtail some of this through prescreening parents for likely inherited traits, we continue to become more accepting of people with, well, bad genes. Aren't we effectively letting people piss into the pool?

No. No. No. Eugenics is not just wrong. It's painfully stupid.

Why does evolution work? What is the secret. The secret my friends is randomness.

Randomness is the process which drives evolution. The universe is a vast, unpredicable chaotic system. It is only by randomly searching through many possible solutions that a species can hope to adapt to any enviornment.

The minute you take out randomness, by taking away genes or introducing them, you've stopped evolving, and have started specialising. And guess what happens to specialist species when their enviornment changes? That's right. They die.

Evolve dolphins with bigger lungs so they can dive deeper, kill off all lesser lunged dolphins. Then earths 02 levels drop by 2%. Ooops. Specialised, deep sea feeding dolphins are dead meat. With a random system, there would still be some lower lung capacity dolphins around.

Think this doesn't apply to people? Ask yourself this? Can you say with certainty what genes will be beneficial or detrimental to humanities survival in 1 million years time? What about 10,00 years time? 100 years? 10 years? Who would have predicted even 20 years ago that "geek" traits would be in such demand? Can you say what genes are beneficial or detrimental right now!?

Yet you want to throw out the single most powerful aspect of evolution. Random chance. It's got us where we are today, and if you think anyone can engineer an entire planet and its ecosystem half as well as random evolution, I'd like to see you try.

For an example of the superiority of evolution over engineering, just check out evolved antennas. NASA seems to think random evolution is just fine.

VERY SLOW ...

[willtsmith]

Lets put it this way, humans are not going to ever loose their pinky finger if modern society goes on the way it is.

I don't think you can expect any MAJOR changes in an evolutionary model that does not ELIMINATE unfavorable characterists. We live in society's in which pretty much everybody reproduces and most of those reproductions end up reproducing themself. For those who cannot cope with society, we have public assistance and jail.

If anything, I believe modern evolutionary pressure (the last three hundred years) is producing more of the genes from people who have poor family planning skills and just cannot grasp or accept birth control. I fear what this pattern may produce in 20,000 years where people with less cognitive skills have 3-4 times more children than those with more cognitive skills. That and the other pressure for religious fanatics to have more children than those who take rational views of the world. Those with deep intellect could be forced to create a "Zardoz" society to protect themselves.

Re:VERY SLOW ...

[Gulthek]

Oh man. I sure hope you're in the group that isn't producing a lot of offspring.

Quick bullet point summary:

* Poor != stupid
* Wealthy != intelligent
* Evolution != progression to a superior being
* Evolution == reaction to environmental stress
* Religion != absence of rational thought

If "intelligent" people are choosing not to have offspring, then their genes are commiting suicide, and good riddance.

Re:Weak and strong are cultural.

[ShakaUVM]

>>Genetically, we have a concept called races.
>No, we don't. Race is cultural, and is of little interest genetically.

Really? Explain that to my black friend in 8th grade as he suffered during a sickle-cell anemia crisis.

I'm sure he'd be happy to know that he can't have a disease that affects primarily African-Americans, because there are no genetic differences in races.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sickle-cell_disease#G enetics

Or to my Chinese roommate who lacks alcohol dehydrogenase enzymes in his liver and so has one drink and turns bright red. Embarassing for a guy who was in a frat that prized heavy drinking skills very highly. The enzyme deficiency has a huge penetration in Asia, something like up to 70% in some countries, a couple percent in Germany, 0% in Ireland. Go figure.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_dehydrogenase

Or the Jewish student organization that sponsored a free screening day for Tay-Sachs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tay-Sachs_disease

The concept that race is solely a cultural construct is mere wishful thinking: "I wish there were no genetic differences in people, because then there'd be no racism, and we'd all live in a world filled with flowers and ponies." No, as we discover more about genetic diversity we learn which genes have greater tendencies in certain ethnic groups. This is NOT an excuse for racism -- the concept that one person can be somehow metaphysically superior than another due to skin pigmentation is absurd -- but denying uncontroversial science for political reasons is troubling as well.

Re:Weak and strong are cultural.

[meringuoid]

No, as we discover more about genetic diversity we learn which genes have greater tendencies in certain ethnic groups.

But what's in the DNA doesn't correlate particularly well with what we have culturally labelled 'races'. The genetic difference between a European, an Arab, an Indian, a Chinaman, an aboriginal, and a native American isn't all that much, compared to the genetic difference between African tribe A and African tribe B. And yet we consider David Smith and Tanaka Jiro to be of different 'races', while two Africans of far greater genetic diversity from each other we lump together as 'black'.

Less intelligent

[Anonymous Coward]

But who would you say is intelligent? It seems to me like you are confusing making a carreer for yourself with beeing genetically superior in terms of intelligence.

How many great minds are not being spent looking for food on garbage dumps in Africa? Or go their whole life without ever getting access to even basic education? If you examine the phd's of the world and compare their genes to the genes of the homeless, it would be very surprising if you found any regular difference.

Genetically, you are not in any way inferior because you spend your days trying to survive starvation, or flip burgers for minimum-wage at McDonalds.

Re:Less intelligent

[ranton]

but i think the only thing those surveys prove is that the method of calculating iq favors those who are educated

Racial biology has been proven a pseudo-science for quite some time

These beliefs are the exact kind of "politically correct" thinking that holds back research in the area of human intelligence. People are so adverse to labeling each other that they ignore real research that hopes to expand our knowledge of human intelligence. How can we possibly think that different human races could evolve to look so different but did not evolve differently at all internally?

The studies that the GP post mentioned are very, VERY numerous; but I will mention one here. A study done by the University of the Witwatersrand (a liberal college in South Africa) tested hundreds of students using Raven's Matrices. Raven's Matrices are the best known and most researched culturally-reduced tests that we have for rating IQ. They use diagrammatic puzzles with a missing part. You could hardly argue that any level of college education could help you find the missing peice of a puzzle.

It is documented that Sub-Saharan Africans have an average IQ of about 70. African university students scored an average of 84 on these tests, which is about 15 points higher than average which is the same as it is in America and Europe. Highly selected engineering students with extensive training in math and science scored about 103. This is also similar to Europe and America, where engineering students in college generally have IQs of about 15 points higher than liberal arts majors. This doesnt mean that their more intense schooling made them smarter, just that they generally must be smarter to even attempt a more intellectually intense career.

People think of sub-70 scores on an IQ test to mean mental retardation. That is only because among caucasions, people with such low IQ scores generally are retarded as a result of in utero complications. They also often have visible deficiencies in motor skills and speech. Sub-70 IQ South Africans are often technically normal, because that is not a very low score for them.

Thinking of it in terms of mental age, an adult with an IQ of 70 has the mental age of an 11 year old. I could drive, work on the farm, and shoot a gun before the age of 11. Having an IQ of 70 does not make you retarded, it is just that there is a strong correlation in America that people with low IQ are also retarded.

All of this culturally biased nonsense is just that: nonsense. Early IQ test were definetly culturally biased, but that has been fixed for the most part. Asians generally score better on American IQ tests than Americans do, so how could they possibly be culturally biased? And many tests, such as Raven's Progressive Matrices, have nothing to do with education level either.

You cannot fix a problem until you accept that it exists.

--

Re:Weak and strong are cultural.

[GuloGulo]

It's nice to know that a post composed primarily of logically flawed, inaccurate arguments still gets +5.

Without disagreeing with you, what part of your argument refutes the idea that the concept of race is not supported by genetics?

All you've done is give examples of genetic anomalies that are present in populations. Those genetice anomalies are a response to environment, and have nothing to do with the race of the individual.

To explain it to you so you understand, if you moved groups of different "races" around, they would eventually develop similar genetic anomalies.

I think you're trying to wedge a social argument into a discusiion of genetics, but none of what you say is supported by fact.

Genes and natural selection.

[rew]

What many people fail to realize is that it takes "evolution" on the order of tens to hundreds thousands of years to "invent" a gene.

Random mutations have to encode for a new protein that activates in the right cells and "does the right thing". From then on, this is likely to become a "gene": Almost any random mutation will invalidate the protein, and disable the "feature".

Suppose such a new "invention" is not always advantageous. Say, only during an ice age. During ice ages, those carrying the intact encoding for the protein (we say they "have the gene"), will survive best, those that don't have it will drop in numbers. Once such a condition is over (say ice age stops), natural selection suddely starts to favor those that "do not have the gene". Still, as they decend from a population where most had the gene to survive, they remain "genetically close", and the gene will easily activate and proliferate during the next ice age.

A real world example is Sicle Cell Anemia. It is a genetic disease: You're born with or without it. Advantage of HAVING the disease? You don't die of Malaria (you do die of the disease, but most have had children by then).

So depending on the amount of malaria mosquitos around, the percentage of people with the Sicle Cell Anemia gene varies a lot. Natural selection at work!

Now, if you look at 10000 to 15000 years, it is unlikely that "evolution" has "invented" a lot of new genes. That however genes have activated and deactivated is however very likely.

If the "running fast" gene was "mostly essential" 10000 years ago in africa, but now not any more, then natural selection would have ensured that 90-95% of the population had that gene 10000 years ago. Nowadays, there is no longer a selection for-or-against this gene. So, the percentage of the people having the gene will slowly drop (I don't work in the field, I have no idea how fast this goes).

Did you ever notice that different children "don't like" different foods? This is a genetic safeguard to preserve the species. Evolution apparently "invented" that a long time ago.

If five percent of your tribe "Simply doesn't like to eat chicken", and the H5N1 Chicken flue comes around, about 5% of the tribe is likely to survive to pass on a much elevated "don't like chicken" gene.

Most likely the "common knowledge" about what to eat and what not to eat has leveled out the "taste" genes: They no longer significantly influence survival.

Re:You have a lot to learn.

[StrawberryFrog]

If you end Aparthied in South Africa you simply are creating a new form of Aparthied somewhere else.

Of course. I'd forgotten the law of conservation of Apartheid.

Re:Cost of living - MOD PARENT UP!

[mikeplokta]

No, it can only be selected if there is genetic differentiation in it. So if susceptibility levels to the "full world" meme vary for different alleles of the same gene, the less susceptible versions will be selected for. But if that genetic variation doesn't exist, it can't be selected for.

It works the other way round, too. Anything that has evolved has clearly been subject to inheritable differences in the past, and it probably still is, unless the selective pressure for it is so strong that the population is essentially homeogenous. This is the strongest argument for there being a genetic basis to intelligence level, since intelligence has clearly evolved in the fairly recent past.

Obligatory Monty Python Quote

[cp.tar]

There are Jews in the world.
There are Buddhists.
There are Hindus and Mormons, and then
There are those that follow Mohammed, but
I've never been one of them.

I'm a Roman Catholic,
And have been since before I was born,
And the one thing they say about Catholics is:
They'll take you as soon as you're warm.
You don't have to be a six-footer.
You don't have to have a great brain.
You don't have to have any clothes on. You're
A Catholic the moment Dad came,

Because

Every sperm is sacred.
Every sperm is great.
If a sperm is wasted,
God gets quite irate.

Every sperm is sacred.
Every sperm is great.
If a sperm is wasted,
God gets quite irate.

Let the heathen spill theirs
On the dusty ground.
God shall make them pay for
Each sperm that can't be found.

Every sperm is wanted.
Every sperm is good.
Every sperm is needed
In your neighbourhood.

Hindu, Taoist, Mormon,
Spill theirs just anywhere,
But God loves those who treat their
Semen with more care.

Every sperm is sacred.
Every sperm is great.
If a sperm is wasted,
God gets quite irate.

Every sperm is sacred.
Every sperm is good.
Every sperm is needed
In your neighbourhood!

Every sperm is useful.
Every sperm is fine.
God needs everybody's.
Mine! And mine! And mine!

Let the Pagan spill theirs
O'er mountain, hill, and plain.
God shall strike them down for
Each sperm that's spilt in vain.

Every sperm is sacred.
Every sperm is good.
Every sperm is needed
In your neighbourhood.

Every sperm is sacred.
Every sperm is great.
If a sperm is wasted,
God gets quite iraaaaate!

Human evolutionary forces

[Warg! The Orcs!!]

It is a conceit of the intelligent that intelligence drives human evolution. The skeletons of early hominids show evidence of the support of unproductive individuals within communities. Skeletons with broken but healed limbs, crippling arthritis, debilitating head wounds show that individuals that had been injured or were elderly were cared for by their peers/relations. The intelligent thing to do would be to ditch the dead weight and ease pressure on resources. Instead the human attributes demonstrated are compassion and co-operation. As for man getting less-healthy, no-one can tell which genes will be be favoured by the whims of nature and the wider the gene pool the better. In Europe sickle cell anaemia is an illness, in malarial zones it's an eveolutionary adaptation that aids survival. Who is to say what's healthy and what isn't. We have survived and prospered through our abilities to communicate and co-operate. Intelligence has followed on the coattails of our advancement and has not driven it. If a near-extinction meteor impact were to occur, would the species' best hope of survival lie with a select group of the Intelligensia or a select group of fertile people with excellent parenting skills? Think on this: You, dear reader, may regard yourself as intelligent and may pride yourself on your ability to read PERL or code in binary but that doesn't make babies. It is true that the "intelligent" breed less. The brutal fact is the geekier you are the less likely you are to reproduce and so when you have finished that algol compiler you've been working on and want to pat yourself on the back for being clever, remind yourself that you are not the pinnacle of human evolution and just an offshoot. The single mother successfully stretching out her budget raising four kids is more likely to leave an indelible imprint on the evolution of Man than you are.

Look for latex allergies to come on strong!

[jafac]

Latex allergies mean - - no condoms (other materials are definately not as effective).

Therefore, more offspring.

Latex allergy is a genetic condition. So some of those offspring will also be allergic to latex.