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Is Humanity Still Evolving?
sciencehabit writes "In a world where we've tamed our environment and largely protected ourselves from the vagaries of nature, we may think we're immune to the forces of natural selection. But a new study finds that the process that drives evolution was still shaping us as recently as the 19th century (abstract). 'The finding comes from an analysis of the birth, death, and marital records of 5923 people born between 1760 and 1849 in four farming or fishing villages in Finland. ... Natural selection was alive and well in all of the villages the researchers surveyed."
What do you think is happening any time someone gets killed by disease? Heck, even when someone is run over by a semi. Natural selection will shape us forever unless we conquer death itself.
Of course we are!
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
Yes, we're still evolving. The things being selected for may change, but we are evolving.
Survival is just one evolutionary pressure. As long as we will use inheritable criterion for choosing mating partners, evolution will continue.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
If you have to ask the question, then you don't know what evolution is.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Now down to those that can best shape their environment to suit their needs.
Of course, we could be left with generations of Brawndo drinkers.
Why on Earth would natural selection ever stop? That makes almost no sense. Even if people are not dying at the same rate that they once were (or even if immortality was ever discovered), the reproduction of humans are still based on selection. Perhaps selection is no longer determined by the ability to resist disease, but there are new forces controlling selection. The only way that there would be no such thing as selection, is if humans reproduction was literally, and absolutely, random. Even geography and spatial relationships could not influence reproductive partners. Obviously, human reproduction is not even remotely random, thus reproduction is still being influenced by evolution.
Considering our environment is changing at a radical pace, I'd think it obvious that we're still subject to evolutionary pressures. Now more than ever.
No, not just climate change -- that's going at a much slower pace than the change in diet, access to medical care, exercise habits, and the rest.
(What, you thought that a higher proportion of people with genetic diseases surviving to reproductive age somehow doesn't contribute to the change in allele frequency in the human gene pool?)
b&
All but God can prove this sentence true.
If the death rate reduces, and population increases, then evolution will be faster than ever, as no unique DNA trait goes extinct. Of course, all bets are off in the event of nuclear war etc. catches us up in the "natural selection" department. But assuming natural variance is continuing, and if anything society protects the "differently abled", then we could spawn several new species in even fewer hundreds of millions of years than "we" did last time.
Gently reply
I would say the trend is opposite of that at least in the US and Europe. Take a look at the most successful people from a biological point of view these days. It tends to be the poorest educated and least equipped to care for themselves and these aren't the pretty plastic people. These are the people that exist essentially as a dependents of the welfare state.
Natural selection doesn't mean what most think. Fertility rates among the more intelligent members of society have dropped like a rock while birth rates are still high among the lower third. It can be argued that intelligence is a poor survival trait. Social factors create a form of evolution even if environmental ones are largely removed. What is seen as attractive socially is influx so evolutionary pressures created by society is also in flux. We aren't environmentally adapting so much as socially adapting. If society collapses the downside is it may leave us poor candidates to survive our environment.
some people have more grandchildren than others - evolution favours those people. Some ''traditional'' pressures physical are not so important (eg: resistance to polio, the ability to run fast & catch a meal, ...) others have become more important (ability to live while grossly overweight).
The mental pressures (ie differences) are often overlooked, eg: ability to produce lots of kids in a high pressure urban environment. Good mental ability seems selected against: those with good education tend to have fewer kids. The need to feel to work hard to produce much needed food for the family is not important, the ''social'' will provide the food if you don't; in fact since (in countries like the UK) the more kids you have the more money you have thrown at you: I fear that we are breeding people who are ignorant and don't work.
I expect to get flamed for the above: unfortunately the numbers seem to support my thesis.
Well, if your parents were infertile, it's likely you will be as well.
Uh... wait ... something doesn't sound right here...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Just because today's evolutionary pressures are harder to define, it doesn't mean they are not there. For instance, natural selection will favor people with fast reflexes and better depth perception because most of us drive cars. College graduates are favored because they typically get higher paying jobs and therefore better healthcare.
Keep looking. Evolution isn't done with us yet.
I also have a sneaking suspicion that Autism/Aspergers is partially a function of evolutionary response to a technological lifestyle rather than an agricultural one. Name another genetic disease that occasionally provides benefits. I'll betcha Autism spectrum disorders are nothing more than Mother Nature trying out new ideas for human brain version X+1, currently in beta and still a little buggy.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Evolution doesn't have a value system that prefers education, a comfortable life, or the ability to exist without government help. Personifying the inherently unthinking force of evolution, we might say that evolution cares about exactly one thing: the number of creatures in the Nth generation with similar DNA. Adapting to the environment is key, and note that our current environment does include government services. Fit organisms take full advantage of the environment to maximize reproduction.
Fitness can mean screwing up the birth control or deciding that God would disapprove. Fitness can mean a non-reproducing individual (gay, elderly, too ugly, whatever...) finding dates for siblings and cousins. Fitness can mean getting the kids taken away by the government (they'll survive) so that time can be focused on activities that might produce more.
It's only in a difficult environment, like Finland a few centuries ago, that fitness means the traits that most of us respect: hard work, planning ahead, faithfulness, etc. We have changed the environment, and now it will change us.
People still think that "Survival of the fittest" or "Only the strong will survive" is the entire premise of natural selection. These are obviously over simplifications which completely fail to describe natural selection but has been adopted by many that in theory should have been selected out long ago to boost their egos. I am not referring to anyone that has posted thus far as opposed to making a simple observation, so please don't see this as bait.
If I were to provide my 2 cents on this topic (which it appears I will), I would postulate that to a certain extent, we are going through a transitional period. While the specimens of humanity that are clearly most suited for environmental adaptation have focused on meeting the market demand to prolong life and attempt to eliminate natural death, people classically selected out through illness, disease and general stupidity on their own behalf are being protected from these dangers and surviving. It is believed that the human race will reproduce more rapidly in areas of higher mortality rates. This is to guarantee the survival of the race. People who were classically at the highest risk of death from disease would also reproduce at the greatest rate in order to perpetuate the race. So, families who have a long history of dieing off from any number of any number of environmentally induced issues will produce a gaggle of children with the hopes that one or two will survive. But since we have eliminated most of the environmental threats to these people, they are living through all these former perils. However since their instinct of survival of the race convinces them to reproduce more rapidly without proper consideration to the lower mortality rate, a great deal more of what formally was considered fodder, are surviving, hence the previous poster's comments to Walmart people.
Women who are pregnant read magazines that educate them as to how to protect their wombs. The articles they read state things like "Doing this increases the chance of first trimester spontaneous abortion by 300%". I can't possibly imagine how a comment like that can be made, there are an infinite number of variables that are involved in gestation, to suggest any single event can increase the risks of spontaneous abortion in the first trimester is just plain rubbish. What is worse, are we talking about 1 in a million to 3 in a million? Are we talking 1 in 10 to 3 in 10? It doesn't say, just says by 300%. Yet, women will instantly stop doing whatever it says they shouldn't do to avoid that.
Nature is no longer selecting out "Walmart people" since we have averted most of the dangers they have faced in the past. In fact, we have even reached a point where people such as my sister (a typical Walmart patron) now survive and bring additional offspring into the world where she attempts to protected them from everything to an extremity. For example, her children were not allowed to play with wooden toys like Lincoln Logs since they might get a splinter from them. She is entirely incapable of rational and intelligent thought, but thanks to medicine and excessive warning labels, her line will perpetuate. Don't get me wrong, I love my sister, but I am a realist in this regard.
We have protected these people to extreme levels and they are still reproducing at a rate that would protect their line against extinction. The "adapted" member of the species on the other hand reproduce at a more conservative rate since their instincts tell them that they'll experience a level closer to 95 out of 100 offspring surviving in their sub-species.
As a result, what is actually happening is that the "Walmart people" are actually in a major transition period of evolution. They are reproducing at a rate based on the fact that until less than 50 years ago, their chances of survival were much worse. It will require a few more generations before their over-reproduction becomes directly detrimental to their chances of survival and they will either be selected out or they will decrease their rate of repro