Humans Evolving Faster Than Ever

Kwyj1b0 writes "In a massive study on genetic variation among humans, researchers found that most changes have occurred in the last 200 generations, too fast for natural selection to catch up. Recent papers show that rare genetic variations have a more drastic effect than previously believed. Another result shows that 'we carry a much larger load of deleterious variants' (as well as positive variants) than our ancestors 200 generations ago."

Comments

Re:It's "Survival of the Fit-enough"...

[flonker]

The frightening aspect of this is that population may expand its genetic diversity to fill the 'fit enough" gene pool. Then it will overflow the "fit enough" gene pool by creating mutations that can't survive even with health care, bringing survival back down, albeit with increased genetic variety such that many can't survive without constant medical treatment.

That is to say, we will evolve to require medical treatment.

Re:This this not evolution

[Kjella]

So is fabrication of fire arms, but both are not evolution in theway we have defined the term evolution.

Well you're right in that if we saw people with machine guns slaughter guys with muskets, we wouldn't call that evolution. Neither is going from 6-7 children/woman to 2-3 children/woman as many countries have done in a generation or two. It's only evolution if there's a reasonably clear link between your genetic makeup and your ability/probability to reproduce. I don't see much chance that a random mutation would help me survive a bullet, though there's a good chance that personality traits that are genetic could help me avoid a situation (or worse, put me in a situation) where I get shot. That's real evolutionary pressure right there, though I think the number of people shot and killed is too small to have any real significance.

But in terms of culture then genetics is a huge part of attractiveness, including appearance, personality and intelligence. That can have both direct effects to hooking up and indirect effects like social circle, social status and economic status. And perhaps even far more so today, how many kids you want to have. Sure society is a huge influence here but ultimately it comes down to personal choice that may be a lot more built in than people realize. Changing culture also makes different genes important, in a society with pre-arranged marriages your courtship genes might not matter much but in a society of free selection they do. That is a new selection pressure right there.