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Humans haven't stopped evolving

harvardmagazine.com

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Re: Humans haven't stopped evolving

#91

Post by johnthewise »

asdff wrote: post #75
margalabargala wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the claim that humans stopped evolving is an uncharitable reading. Another would be, 50k years is such a narrow window that evolution cannot be observed across it.

You can observe evolution on much narrower timescales. People were following how covid was evolving after all. Evolution just means some changes to dna. Even identical twin children have some differences between them.

It's more of a function of selection pressure applied to genes per unit time based on some environmental factor, so you'd expect to observe less evolution in narrower timescales simply because it takes few decades for humans to pass on genes versus bacteria or viruses. In the same fashion, if some gene pool is locally optimal(?) against the environmental pressures, it may just stop evolving meaningfully. E.g, If male baldness were reversed easily with a pill or something, the environmental pressure to select those genes would decrease rapidly.

Re: Humans haven't stopped evolving

#92

Post by swed420 »

cutterl6 wrote: post #82
PretzelPirate wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm almost 40 and never wanted kids. As a kid, everyone would say things in the context of "when you have kids of your own..." and I always knew that I didn't want them. If I lived in a world without reliable birth control, I may have ended up with kids I didn't want, but I'm lucky that I have other options. Kids shouldn't be raised by people who don't want them, and not everyone is born with the biological drive to…

[flagged]

> Stop sharing your opinions. You will literally be extinct soon. Your existence doesn't matter.

What an insane take. You have no idea what that person's contributions are to this world, or how long those contributions will be relevant after they pass.

Re: Humans haven't stopped evolving

#94

Post by padjo »

Jach wrote: post #54
delichon wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's been no biological change in humans in 40,000 or 50,000 years. Everything we call culture and civilization we’ve built with the same body and brain. -- Stephen Jay Gould, "The Spice of Life", 2000 Gould was an evolutionary biologist and Harvard professor, and one of the most prominent popularizers of evolution since Darwin, but somehow believed that it doesn't apply to modern humans.

One should not read or pay much attention to anything Gould wrote or said. ( http://cogweb.ucla.edu/Debate/CEP_Gould.html ) The amount of damage Gould has done offsets any positives. It's not just even being wrong, indeed you can charitably read that quote as being almost correct (the phrase is "anatomically modern human"); the worst thing he's done is probably to mischaracterize the rest of the field as scientists b…

Countering the nonsense prevalent in a lot of evolutionary psychology counts as a big positive in my book.

Re: Humans haven't stopped evolving

#95

Post by lotsofpulp »

inigyou wrote: post #85
metalman wrote: post #84

the problem is that humans are modifying the environment, orders of magnitude faster than evolution can keep up with, and many of the "features" of our modern technological cities are prouncedly geared towards our worst/best (non) survival instincts, as from an evolutionary perspective we are all living in the valley of infinite plentitude, and survival of the fittest has taken on an entirely other definition.

Evolution doesn't find a solution to a problem. Instead, it finds all possible solutions. Ones which don't fit through the problem are culled. During happy times, mutation creates a variety of individuals. During stressful times, individuals who happen to have traits that help them weather the stress are the ones who survive more. Sometimes much more. That's when the evolution happens. Both parts can happen concurren…

>Both parts can happen concurrently and gradually, like those butterflies who turned black to hide in coal smoke.

Do you mean the black ones survived and procreated?

Re: Humans haven't stopped evolving

#96

Post by thrance »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #18

Given that fertility rates are currently plummeting worldwide, the principles of natural selection would dictate that humans are currently undergoing very high selection pressure for specific traits. Basically, any genetic trait that causes people today to think "You know, I think I'm going to remain childfree" is specifically selected against, and any trait that causes people to want more children will be selected f…

Why did you just assume there are genes that predict "not wanting children"? It's happening uniformly all around the world, and is much better predicted by things like wealth and freedom than anything else: cultural reasons, not heredity.

Re: Humans haven't stopped evolving

#97

Post by serious_angel »

saidnooneever wrote: post #77
chr15m wrote: post #52

Lactose tolerance is a classic example of a recently evolved trait. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lactase_persistence

I for one am glad that now people can have a healthy serving of cheese without the side effects. Do you think we will become more and more tolerant? like with the happy people? One day maybe we can drink only milk and eat only cheese, even on the sweltering summer heat. For me those days i still struggle and sometimes reluctantly find myself reverting back to greens

> Do you think we will become more and more tolerant?

I do not, sorry. This question feels quite odd to see, too, frankly. I became intolerant in ~20 years just "because", and only when I checked at medics for non-related general tests, and out of the blue it showed on the results paper. And And this is when I never had any abnormal meals with it, but just casually and normally as any other one, I believe. It was like a blow to the gut...

This intolerance changes the life much. It makes impossible to have any meals with other people in group or be afraid of trying anything that may have any kind of milk in it, and you may imagine that there's so much of it out there... including many kinds of common bread, cakes, candies, certain cheese, coffee as Latte, Cappuccino etc. The aftereffect depends on the person, and some have diarrhea-type issues, but in the case here, it only the stomach that hurts so much as if someone cuts it inside-out. There are tablets, but... it's always dear scary and it doesn't help much...

Currently, I am ~1.75m and ~63kg in ~40 years old woman, and I see more of this intolerance become normalized in European and Asian countries where some stores sell lactose-free holy milk and some cafes offer a so much appreciated lactoze-free lovely coffee...

Re: Humans haven't stopped evolving

#98

Post by nozzlegear »

inigyou wrote: post #89
nozzlegear wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Humans are the only mammals with genders at all. Are you confusing gender with sex?

Has that been proven?

There are some animals that come close to having what we'd call gender roles: bonobos, some other primates (not all), and a bird called a ruff. But as far as we can tell, those animals don't have an internal "I am X gender" self concept.

(Interesting note: bonobos are very fluid and change their gender roles depending on the situation and context.)

Re: Humans haven't stopped evolving

#99

Post by vitally3643 »

chaz6 wrote: post #93

Does anybody think that evolution just stops? A species only stops evolving when it is wiped out.

Or when they develop a society which removes all evolutionary pressures.

Evolution isn't magical, it's purely probabilistic. You can drive the probabilities down real low and then genetically engineer the rest away.

Re: Humans haven't stopped evolving

#100

Post by [deleted] »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #81
Grimblewald wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

also, technology largly exists to remove the discomfort of evolutionary pressure. This doesnt mean the mutations that give rise to evolutionary changes in the population, but it does mean we've removed or mititaged many of the mechanisms which would select for specific traits. Again, we would naturally still change, but not in the the way or at the rate otger organisms continue to or at which we would sans technology…

I think this is a common misperception, but it's not accurate. The general idea is that with technology there is less risk of someone dying or not being able to procreate due to their susceptibility to disease (because modern medicine would likely cure them) or their inability to acquire food/resources. But even if that were 100% true, that just shifts selection pressure elsewhere. For example, your ability to hunt i…

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