Interesting article.
One thing to remember is that evolution != progress
Humans evolving 100 times faster than historical levels.
41–50 of 72 posts
Re: Humans evolving 100 times faster than historical levels.
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Nobody 10,000 years ago had blue eyes," My reaction is that he misspoke here or he overstated his claim to make a point. I know nothing about the proportion of people with blue eyes back then or right now for that matter. But I think at the very least, you could only make that claim with a tiny, tiny, tiny amount of confidence. Maybe the proportion of humans with blue eyes was smaller back then, maybe it was larger,…
All blue eyed people traced to 10000 year old ancestor: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-511473/All-bl...
What I don't understand is how they can say the blue-eye mutation occurred in one single individual. I would think it is just as possible that the mutation could have occurred multiple times, and thus there would be multiple origins to those with blue eyes.
I did find a different source that would tend to support the randomness of mutations, and that also indicates that there are two different mutations that can lead to blue eyes, and as such, it is unlikely there is only one ancestor. http://www.thetech.org/genetics/ask.php?id=160
Re: Humans evolving 100 times faster than historical levels.
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think being attracted to different ethnic groups might have an advantage, too - keeping diversity in the gene pool up is probably beneficial.
Except that in practice, it hardly ever happened until very recently. Ethnic groups lived far apart, and those folks who lived near a boundary between two different ethnic groups would hardly ever interbreed with the others (whether that's mostly cultural or a lack of attraction, though, I'm not sure). Even now, it happens surprisingly infrequently.
I was just guessing anyway - but I think it does not have to be a fully different ethnic group, maybe often people are attracted to someone who looks quite different. Of course there are those pysch experiments were people seem to rate the average face the highest, but I have heard the "attracted to exotic" variant too often, so I am a bit skeptic of that research.
Re: Humans evolving 100 times faster than historical levels.
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
All blue eyed people traced to 10000 year old ancestor: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-511473/All-bl...
What I don't understand is how they can say the blue-eye mutation occurred in one single individual. I would think it is just as possible that the mutation could have occurred multiple times, and thus there would be multiple origins to those with blue eyes. I did find a different source that would tend to support the randomness of mutations, and that also indicates that there are two different mutations that can lead…
Also, it doesn't mean the blue gene aids reproductive success - it might just be related to another gene that is adaptive.
Re: Humans evolving 100 times faster than historical levels.
#45Races as we know them today didn't exist until fewer than 20,000 years ago, when genes involved in skin pigmentation emerged, Hawks said.
1) This blows my mind -- am I reading it right that there was virtually no variation in skin color 20,000 years ago? I assumed there was always variation in skin pigmentation, with darker skin colors predominating until we expanded into northern latitudes where lighter colors made sense.
2) What about Neandertals? I always imagined them being light-skinned, since they were adapted to northern climates. I wonder if they evolved genes for light skin tens of thousands of years before modern humans did. If so, that must have made them look even more freakish to modern human eyes, and vice-versa.
Re: Humans evolving 100 times faster than historical levels.
#46Evolution works in spurts. We are spurt of evolution as long as our environment is changing, which it has constantly been for the last 40,000 years.
According to Gould (a paleontologist).
Dawkins, with his gene-centered view of Darwinian evolution, refutes this, explaining that evolution by natural selection is gradual.
Re: Humans evolving 100 times faster than historical levels.
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
You could just attribute it to the attractiveness of blue eyes. Most people consider blue (and green) eyes more beautiful than eyes with a different color. But this will get you only as far as the next inevitable question: why are blue eyes attractive?
Children are have lighter eyes (and everything else) than adults. It's a sign of youth.
Huh? Are you saying Blue is a lighter shade of Brown?
Re: Humans evolving 100 times faster than historical levels.
#48Interesting article. One thing to remember is that evolution != progress
But survival is good.
Re: Humans evolving 100 times faster than historical levels.
#49"Nobody 10,000 years ago had blue eyes," Hawks said. "Why is it that blue-eyed people had a 5% advantage in reproducing compared to non-blue-eyed people? I have no idea." Now that's interesting. Any theories?
Don't only Caucasians have blue eyes? And aren't they (full disclosure "we" in my case) also the only ones with the mutated version of the gene which controls how much melanin is deposited in skill, hair and... I think also irises? Asians and Africans both have the normal version of the same gene.
And melanin has many roles, sun protection being just one, the other is as a structural protein. Just compare how black skin ages vs. how a redhead of the same (advanced) age looks.
And why would Caucasians have a mutation which deposits less of such a useful protein? Vitamin D.
It is produced when UV light hits the skin. In northern climates with less sun, and skin being covered or you die of exposure, often even when the sun is up, people get a lot less vitamin D.
Inuit get more due to their diet, and modern man also gets much more again because of diet. And yet most people living in the north even today lack vitamin D.
Also, I thought all of the above is common knowledge which makes me question the whole article.
Re: Humans evolving 100 times faster than historical levels.
#50Evolution works in spurts. We are spurt of evolution as long as our environment is changing, which it has constantly been for the last 40,000 years.
According to Gould (a paleontologist). Dawkins, with his gene-centered view of Darwinian evolution, refutes this, explaining that evolution by natural selection is gradual.
>Dawkins, with his gene-centered view of Darwinian evolution, refutes this, explaining that evolution by natural selection is gradual.
People say he refutes this. According to him, he never said anything to refute this. In either case, you have to be specific about what "gradual" means. Dawkin's evolution is more gradual than intelligent design, but not so gradual that it is inconsistent with Stephen Gould's claim.