Despite high standard of living, advances in medicine, we continue to evolve at the same pace as mos
37 replies, posted
[QUOTE][URL="http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120430152037.htm"]ScienceDaily (Apr. 30, 2012)[/URL] — [B]New evidence proves humans are continuing to evolve and that significant natural and sexual selection is still taking place in our species in the modern world.[/B]
Despite advancements in medicine and technology, as well as an increased prevalence of monogamy, research reveals humans are continuing to evolve just like other species.
Scientists in an international collaboration, which includes the University of Sheffield, analysed church records of about 6,000 Finnish people born between 1760-1849 to determine whether the demographic, cultural and technological changes of the agricultural revolution affected natural and sexual selection in our species.
Project leader Dr Virpi Lummaa, of the University's Department of Animal and Plant Sciences, said: "We have shown advances have not challenged the fact that our species is still evolving, just like all the other species 'in the wild'. It is a common misunderstanding that evolution took place a long time ago, and that to understand ourselves we must look back to the hunter-gatherer days of humans."
Dr Lummaa added: "We have shown significant selection has been taking place in very recent populations, and likely still occurs, so humans continue to be affected by both natural and sexual selection. Although the specific pressures, the factors making some individuals able to survive better, or have better success at finding partners and produce more kids, have changed across time and differ in different populations."
As for most animal species, the authors found that men and women are not equal concerning Darwinian selection.
Principal investigator Dr Alexandre Courtiol, of the Wissenschftskolleg zu Berlin, added: "Characteristics increasing the mating success of men are likely to evolve faster than those increasing the mating success of women. This is because mating with more partners was shown to increase reproductive success more in men than in women. Surprisingly, however, selection affected wealthy and poor people in the society to the same extent."
The experts needed detailed information on large numbers of study subjects to be able to study selection over the entire life cycle of individuals: survival to adulthood, mate access, mating success, and fertility per mate.
Genealogy is very popular in Finland and the country has some of the best available data for such research thanks to detailed church records of births, deaths, marriages and wealth status which were kept for tax purposes. Movement in the country was also very limited until the 20th century.
"Studying evolution requires large sample sizes with individual-based data covering the entire lifespan of each born person," said Dr Lummaa. "We need unbiased datasets that report the life events for everyone born. Because natural and sexual selection acts differently on different classes of individuals and across the life cycle, we needed to study selection with respect to these characteristics in order to understand how our species evolves."[/QUOTE]
Not really surprising when you consider how evolution works on the subcellular level.
Seems a lot of people fail to understand how evolution works.
Modern medicine will slow evolution, people with serious inheritable conditions, or even minor one now have a greater chance of survival, screwing with natural selection
[QUOTE=download;35780727]Modern medicine will slow evolution, people with serious inheritable conditions, or even minor one now have a greater chance of survival, screwing with natural selection[/QUOTE]
No, see, that's the point - you'd think modern medicine would slow evolution, but it's at the same rate as other species where survival of the fittest applies. That's kind of the surprising bit of the article. The fact that sexual selection continues is kind of the obvious bit.
[QUOTE=download;35780727]Seems a lot of people fail to understand how evolution works.
Modern medicine will slow evolution, people with serious inheritable conditions, or even minor one now have a greater chance of survival, screwing with natural selection[/QUOTE]
Modern medicine isn't going to "slow" evolution, it's just going to affect which inheritable traits can be maintained within the gene pool
Natural and sexual selection? In humans? impossible!
And when you say natural selection.. imo it's not just diseases and inheritable conditions, because cigarette alone cuts a lot of people's lives short. Same for car accidents, and the list would go on but many of them are still just some modern human practices. Our vast number of people, and what we do is, for some part, natural selection.
Why would that even influence the speed of evolution? We're just creating a new environment we're going to adapt differently to, but I don't see how it could have any effect on the speed.
Technological advance and evolution are two seperate things that (mostly) cannot influence each other.
[QUOTE=Marik Bentusi;35780991]Why would that even influence the speed of evolution? We're just creating a new environment we're going to adapt differently to, but I don't see how it could have any effect on the speed.[/QUOTE]
Well now many individuals with various diseases and disadvantageous mutations can still stay alive and pass their genes to the newer generations.
[QUOTE=Maucer;35781708]Well now many individuals with various diseases and disadvantageous mutations can still stay alive and pass their genes to the newer generations.[/QUOTE]
See, that's what I was thinking. Shouldn't we technically be evolving faster? Survival of the fittest means very little to us, now, considering large portions of our population survive to reproductive age. Wouldn't that mean the volume of mutations being passed on would be significantly higher?
i wonder if we'll evolve eyes that can peer into the computer screen for a greater amount of time without drying up.
And buttocks which will not feel like they're burning after 6 hours of sitting down.
[editline]1st May 2012[/editline]
hell! throw in an extra arm too to allow for faster typing and gaming!
[editline]1st May 2012[/editline]
i'm joking. i'm fully aware of how evolution works.
[QUOTE=Arachnidus;35781714]See, that's what I was thinking. Shouldn't we technically be evolving faster?[/QUOTE]
Not in terms of biological evolution, at least. Mutations and recombination produce variation between individuals. In "nature" the ones with the best properties and genes are more likely to survive and pass their genes to the newer generations. Little by little the whole specie's gene pool changes and evolves. But with the modern medical technology we could fully stop the "elimination" of the worse individuals, which is crucial for evolution.
I don't think we can make very strong conclusions out of this. ~100 years is not a long time in terms of evolution and modern medication has not been around for long. And I have no idea how they measured the rate of evolution using church records.
[QUOTE=mac338;35780749]No, see, that's the point - you'd think modern medicine would slow evolution, but it's at the same rate as other species where survival of the fittest applies. That's kind of the surprising bit of the article. The fact that sexual selection continues is kind of the obvious bit.[/QUOTE]
Rate of what?
What's what they are measuring?
Amount of change in the DNA? That's constant and based on sources of mutation like ionising radiation and all other mutagens. What do they use to determine the actual "amount of evolution"?
This whole thing sounds rather bullshitty. You have to realize evolution is very abstract, complex and relative term, and the statement this is making seems a tad bit far fetched.
Yeah, we will always keep changing, that's natural. Yeah, fuckups will have less chilrdren, that's natural. But how can you rate and compare evolution of two species?
None the less, another thing why I am skeptical is our lifetime. Evolution requires generation rotation. One our reproduction rotation takes what, thirty years? Most animals don't have even half of that, many create a new generation semi-annually or annually. They are bound to "evolve [B]significantly[/B] faster", based on pure logic and maths.
Another thing is the survival and birth rates. In western world, the average birth rate is 1-2 children per a life of average woman. In nature, there are often multiple or even dozens descendants in a single birth, while the females are usually capable of annual birth. They produce MASSIVE amount of samples out of which only tiny minor fraction succeeds, while for humans, it's rather [I]normal [/I]to survive to sexually productive age and have a kid or two.
Point is that regardless of our society, we are bound to evolve SIGNIFICANTLY slower than other species on this planet, and that rate is by now very very low.
[QUOTE=Awesomecaek;35781826]Rate of what?
What's what they are measuring?
Amount of change in the DNA? That's constant and based on sources of mutation like ionising radiation and all other mutagens. What do they use to determine the actual "amount of evolution"?
This whole thing sounds rather bullshitty. You have to realize evolution is very abstract, complex and relative term, and the statement this is making seems a tad bit far fetched.[/QUOTE]
Absolutely, you make some great and valid arguments. They don't go as to explain how they measure this, so all I can offer is mere speculation; perhaps they measure the difference in genome-information, or as simple as the amount (%) who are actually able to reproduce. I can also assume that they measure speed of evolution not by amount of years, but per generation. But again, that's solely speculation.
So I can agree the article is written a bit shoddily, but I trust the Sheffield APS, so I assume they know what they are doing and are basing this off some thought-out information. Apologies for the confusion in that case.
[QUOTE=mac338;35782039]Absolutely, you make some great and valid arguments. They don't go as to explain how they measure this, so all I can offer is mere speculation; perhaps they measure the difference in genome-information, or as simple as the amount (%) who are actually able to reproduce. I can also assume that they measure speed of evolution not by amount of years, but per generation. But again, that's solely speculation.
So I can agree the article is written a bit shoddily, but I trust the Sheffield APS, so I assume they know what they are doing and are basing this off some thought-out information. Apologies for the confusion in that case.[/QUOTE]
Thing is I already see people going OKAY HOW SOON WILL MY BABAYS HAVE WINGS
[QUOTE=Awesomecaek;35782078]Thing is I already see people going OKAY HOW SOON WILL MY BABAYS HAVE WINGS[/QUOTE]
What, the same people who think evolution should've resulted in a crockoduck? :v:
Isn't there some people that think we'll lose out little finger in the future?
[QUOTE=MegaChalupa;35780762]Modern medicine isn't going to "slow" evolution, it's just going to affect which inheritable traits can be maintained within the gene pool[/QUOTE]
And isn't that what evolution is? Taking out from the gene pool traits that you're better off without and adding new traits that you're better off with? Or are you considering the vanguard of the species instead of the average?
I'm shocked at how humans haven't bred ourselves to grow 5 extra legs. We have had 150,000 years to do it, why hasn't anything been done for this area of critical importance?
My female friend who is basically a young biologist explained sexual selection to me yesterday, strange timing for news.
it does make me wonder what we'll become though...
Only thing that will speed evolution is tweaking our genes and such.
[QUOTE=Arachnidus;35781714]See, that's what I was thinking. Shouldn't we technically be evolving faster? Survival of the fittest means very little to us, now, considering large portions of our population survive to reproductive age. Wouldn't that mean the volume of mutations being passed on would be significantly higher?[/QUOTE]
No, because survival of the fittest is still important today in some ways. People won't mate with people that have mutations to avoid their offspring having mutations and thus go and find someone who doesn't have those mutations and is much more fit. Think of a High School cheer leader going for some football jock rather then the scrawny guy. Thus people with mutations will most like mate with other people who also have mutations.
[QUOTE=MegaChalupa;35780762]Modern medicine isn't going to "slow" evolution, it's just going to affect which inheritable traits can be maintained within the gene pool[/QUOTE]
Wouldn't that kind of speed up evolution and not slow it down? if some genetic defect gets passed along for too long there's a tendency for the offspring to develop an immunity to it.
[editline]1st May 2012[/editline]
[QUOTE=LtKyle2;35783931]No, because survival of the fittest is still important today in some ways. People won't mate with people that have mutations to avoid their offspring having mutations and thus go and find someone who doesn't have those mutations and is much more fit. Think of a High School cheer leader going for some football jock rather then the scrawny guy. Thus people with mutations will most like mate with other people who also have mutations.[/QUOTE]
I saw a documentary once on how in the future there was a big possibility of the human race evolving into 2 different species, one short, fat and ugly and another with the "perfect look", not that every hot girl goes for the hot guy (I've seen some strange couples) but that's usually what happens.
[QUOTE=DeanWinchester;35784013]Wouldn't that kind of speed up evolution and not slow it down? if some genetic defect gets passed along for too long there's a tendency for the offspring to develop an immunity to it.[/QUOTE]Or it will be accepted as "norm" and remain there.
Why on Earth would anyone think we're evolving slower?
Our technology is outpacing natural evolution. That doesn't imply natural evolution is slowing down.
Breaking news: scientists find that humans are evolving at the same pace as usual: [I]really fucking slowly[/I]
[QUOTE=Bat-shit;35780848]Natural and sexual selection? In humans? impossible!
And when you say natural selection.. imo it's not just diseases and inheritable conditions, because cigarette alone cuts a lot of people's lives short. Same for car accidents, and the list would go on but many of them are still just some modern human practices. Our vast number of people, and what we do is, for some part, natural selection.[/QUOTE]
Well, the thing is, most people reproduce before dying from smoking. Same thing with high-cholesterol foods: people generally reproduce before they succumb to it. Sure, there may [I]eventually[/I] be significant strides towards adapting to those due to evolution, but at a slower pace than evolving due to other things. It's much, much more likely that we'll just phase out smoking and high-cholesterol due to culture, not biological evolution.
[QUOTE=DeanWinchester;35784013]Wouldn't that kind of speed up evolution and not slow it down? if some genetic defect gets passed along for too long there's a tendency for the offspring to develop an immunity to it.[/quote]
Yeah, genetic defects get adapted to because those that have it [I]die[/I]. But if medicine makes it so that you [I]don't[/I] die from it, then the people with it will reproduce more, and the adaptation to it will be slower. In the meantime, medicine will just simply fix it on its own, not evolution.
[QUOTE=DeanWinchester;35784013]I saw a documentary once on how in the future there was a big possibility of the human race evolving into 2 different species, one short, fat and ugly and another with the "perfect look", not that every hot girl goes for the hot guy (I've seen some strange couples) but that's usually what happens.[/QUOTE]
Somehow I doubt that. One, culture changes at a relatively quick pace compared to our evolution. What's seen as attractive some times will be unattractive other times. Second, people aren't exactly uniform in their tastes.
If it [I]does[/I] happen, it will happen [I]very[/I] slowly.
I thought this was obvious anyway?
[QUOTE=Arachnidus;35781714]See, that's what I was thinking. Shouldn't we technically be evolving faster? Survival of the fittest means very little to us, now, considering large portions of our population survive to reproductive age. Wouldn't that mean the volume of mutations being passed on would be significantly higher?[/QUOTE]
the number of mutated genes in a population means little in regard to evolution velocity if there's insufficient selection pressure to purge them
[editline]1st May 2012[/editline]
[QUOTE=Last or First;35784382]Somehow I doubt that. One, culture changes at a relatively quick pace compared to our evolution. What's seen as attractive some times will be unattractive other times. Second, people aren't exactly uniform in their tastes.[/QUOTE]
it isn't exactly that culture affects what is viewed as attractive. there's a pancultural constant in between: status
it isn't that "in the past, fat people were attractive, nowadays, thin people are attractive, ergo culture changes sexual preferences"
it's more like "in the past, being fat was an indicator of having excess wealth, power and status, and therefore an attractive mate. nowadays, it's the opposite + other expensive standards of beauty"
in all cases, high-status individuals will be seen as better reproductive candidates, and they are the ones that engineer societal standards of attractiveness.
[editline]1st May 2012[/editline]
[QUOTE=Lankist;35784248]Why on Earth would anyone think we're evolving slower?
Our technology is outpacing natural evolution. That doesn't imply natural evolution is slowing down.[/QUOTE]
it's reasonable.
if you remove selection pressures, then you would expect neutral and disadvantageous mutations to accumulate in the population.
I haven't seen any mutations in people that could be classed as a beneficial one in... ever. They've all been horrible, disfiguring ones. And all 'normal' people get to mate, and reproduce, so there is no selection anymore. Everyone's genes get passed.
[editline]1st May 2012[/editline]
obviously gonna get dumbs for this, for whatever reason
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