6 ms·

Researchers Say Data From an Island in Quebec Proves Humans Are Still Evolving

27 points by pmcpinto 11y ago

ChuckMcM 11y ago
Personally, I would find it more astonishing if we proved humans were not evolving.
- mindcrime 11y ago
  Came here to say the same thing. I mean, what reason would we have to believe that evolution has stopped??? I suppose you can argue that technology has eliminated some evolutionary pressures, but from what I can see, that just moves the goalposts around a bit, it doesn't eliminate them.
  - chipperyman573 11y ago
    Evolution requires survival of the fittest to still be a thing. If the weak die off faster than the strong, the strong have a better chance of reproducing. Then their superior genes are passed on, etc... However, this is no longer as much the case. People who have weaker immune systems, for example, can take medicine to prevent dying from a (previously fatal) sickness.
    - mindcrime 11y ago
      Then their superior genes are passed on, etc... However, this is no longer as much the case. It's still absolutely the case... it's just that the fitness function has changed. Now evolution isn't testing to see who can outrun a wooly mammoth or sabre-tooth tiger, or survive without food for 27 straight days, or to see who has the strongest immune system. Now it's testing to see who can navigate their way through high-school, get into a good college, choose a valuable major, get a degree, and get a job making beau-coup money. Since it is still the case that those with more money (on average) have more reproductive opportunities, get better medical care, live longer, etc. All of that said, let's not ignore that the physical stuff still matters as well. Unless a lot has changed in the 20 some odd years since I was in high-school, the jocks on the football team are still getting laid more than most guys. And being bigger and stronger and more physically fit is still correlated with success in the worlds of business and politics. I don't have the reference handy, but I'm pretty sure I've seen studies showing that taller men are more likely to be elected in political races. And having political power, again, tends to lead to more reproductive success, etc.
      - ckarmann 11y ago
        Yes, being tall, in good health, physically well-built and smart gives you, on average, more success in career and with members of the opposite sex. But does it give you more offspring, which is the important thing for evolution? In our times having a lot of sexual partners or one partner with a lot of sexual activity doesn't mean you have a lot of children. To be clear: do rich and successful people have more children than poor ones? Someone has any source on that?
        mindcrime 11y ago
        To be clear: do rich and successful people have more children than poor ones? Someone has any source on that? Two thoughts on that: 1. They almost certainly have more opportunity for mating. But they may not always take advantage of that opportunity (especially since they may have child-less sex through various birth control measures) 2. It isn't just a question of the number of children, it's also a question of the fitness of their children. If "fit attracts fit" then the most fit females tend to pair up with the most fit males, and their children average out as more fit than others. But now we're back to the idea that we no longer know exactly what "fit" means in this world. I guess the answer is "it's complicated". But I still don't see any reason in any of that, to think that no evolution occurs.
      - modoc 11y ago
        I think you're unfortunately wrong on this point. While high earning well educated people may live longer, at least in the US they aren't reproducing more. Most of the educated/high-earning people I know are either not having kids at all, or are having 1-2 kids. Most of the lower educated, lower earning people I know have 3+ kids and have them at a younger age, which in turn leads to larger descendant populations in a shorter time period. Medical care is good enough (at least here in the US) that virtually all of those children are making it to adulthood, and then reproducing.
        mindcrime 11y ago
        That's a fair point... that we live in a world with birth control, and where people are more likely to make a conscious decision to not have kids does change the dynamic. But I still don't think that any of that would lead one to think that "evolution has stopped". Even if you step back to only focus on what you describe as "the lower educated, lower income" people, there's still competition for reproductive success within that group. If nothing else, sexual selection is still a factor, even if survival selection isn't as much a factor. Another thing to consider is the "red queen" theory that human evolution and the evolution of pathogens are locked into a (more or less) permanent "arms race". I don't know that anybody knows for sure that that theory is true, but if it has merit, that's another reason to believe that we are still evolving on some level.
    - mhurron 11y ago
      > Evolution requires survival of the fittest to still be a thing The definition of 'fittest' is not set in stone.
      - jeremysmyth 11y ago
        It absolutely is, but it's defined backwards compared to how most people intuit it. You can't look at a population today and identify which individuals are the fittest in evolutionary terms. It's not possible to state with precision that someone who has e.g. more sex or more children or is taller or richer or poorer or better spoken or more sociopathic is more likely to succeed. Rather, fitness is something that can only be defined in reverse, because today's population is full of individuals with ancestors who have survived and reproduced, and so on all the way back. As Neal Stephenson puts it: "Like every other creature on the face of the earth, Godfrey was, by birthright, a stupendous badass, albeit in the somewhat narrow technical sense that he could trace his ancestry back up a long line of slightly less highly evolved stupendous badasses to that first self-replicating gizmo---which, given the number and variety of its descendants, might justifiably be described as the most stupendous badass of all time. Everyone and everything that wasn't a stupendous badass was dead."
    - Cowen 11y ago
      Evolution doesn't "require" anything except breeding.
    - Jtsummers 11y ago
      Survival of the fittest [in their environment]. We're still evolving, even if it's not in a way that would make us better at surviving in the plains/tundra/forest/jungle anymore. It may make us worse at those things (as a species), but better in our new environment (urban, factories, offices).
- jostmey 11y ago
  I think what people really mean is that as a species, we are no longer under a strong selective pressure, which would mean that the Human genome is diversifying (good) but mutations that are only a little bit detrimental are not being filtered out (bad).
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- Afton 11y ago
  I wouldn't just find it astonishing, I would be deeply confused about what it could possibly mean!
kbenson 11y ago
> The idea that some of the best evolutionary data could come from church archives was both astonishing and exciting. It really shouldn't be (astonishing, that is). As major social, political and educational structures that were, at least in some cases and locations, largely exempt from the greater political upheavals and wars, they should be considered a first choice to search for a lot of data that has to do with human history.
cfontes 11y ago
Evolving yeah, but toward what? We completely screwed natural selection, so I guess bad genes will be creeping into the population for a long time, things like cancer, malformations and genetic related diseases will be blooming like crazy in the next centuries. Let's hope medicine keeps up with it.
- bakhy 11y ago
  you could say we "evolved" medicine. it's too simple to regard evolution as something that happens merely on an individual level. e.g. it was always possible that the strongest and smartest human will get killed by a group of physically and intellectually weaker people. does that mean we stopped evolving back then? no, we evolved social behavior, like many animals before us, i guess...
- openasocket 11y ago
  Our current evolutionary situation is not completely without precedent. A somewhat similar case is the birds of paradise. These birds have virtually no natural predators and need to only forage a few hours a day for food. With few other forms of natural selection at play, their evolution has been guided almost entirely by sexual selection, resulting in some dramatic examples of sexual dimorphism. I predict something similar may happen in humans.
- jegutman 11y ago
  Evolution doesn't have a direction, it's an explanation of a thing that happens. Diversity in the gene pool is almost certainly a plus for the long-term survival of the species, but it's marginal, must like everything that would determine the long-term survival of the species. Almost all diseases that happen after a species' reproductive age is very difficult to select out either in a positive or negative way unless it happens to be strongly genetically linked (either through sharing genes or being very close on a chromosome) to a different positive or negative trait. Even then in the long run the survival of that trait will be dominated by its independent characteristics. The way to flip this around is that you could also look at the "survival" of the disease, disorder, etc. Not that we WANT these to survive, but they either will or won't. If a disease causes death 100% of the time at age 2 and provides no other benefits in the carrier / recessive trait it tends not to last in the gene pool for very long.
zzalpha 11y ago
Random aside: am I the only one who finds Nautilus articles are often needlessly padded? I get the goal of writing a story-style magazine science article. I've read my fair share, and executed well, they can make for an enjoyable read. But this article feels like 50% uninspired travel diary...
- thomas 11y ago
  >> But this article feels like 50% uninspired travel diary... Exactly. Could have done with something half the length (and twice as informative).
- nashashmi 11y ago
  That is how I felt after seeing the first entire paragraph dedicated to the other guy he met; and out of everything he could talk about, he chooses to talk about the shirt the guy was wearing!!.
- superskierpat 11y ago
  And there were so. many. typos.
bakhy 11y ago
first thought: why would this be interesting? of course we are. but then i remembered all the radically religious nutjobs. :S
- unit91 11y ago
  There are Christians who believe the neo-Darwinian synthesis is correct [1] and atheists who don't [2][3]. [1] https://biologos.org/ https://biologos.org/ [2] http://www.amazon.com/Mind-Cosmos-Materialist-Neo-Darwinian-Conception/dp/0199919755 http://www.amazon.com/Mind-Cosmos-Materialist-Neo-Darwinian-... [3] http://www.amazon.com/What-Darwin-Wrong-Jerry-Fodor/dp/031268066X http://www.amazon.com/What-Darwin-Wrong-Jerry-Fodor/dp/03126...
collyw 11y ago
Why would you assume it stopped?
vessenes 11y ago
I'm mystified at the conclusions drawn by the data; islanders changed at what age they tended to have children. There's absolutely no discussion of cultural impact whatsoever as a cause; these islanders were not cut off from the rest of the world; they speak French for goodness sake! Despite this omission, there's much talk of cultural changes on the island now that tourism is a big thing, so it's on the radar of the journalist. I just don't understand how you can jump to 'groundbreaking change in genetic theory' from 'birth dates changed'. I'm not even that against the proposal -- if I look at what selective breeding can do in say dogs, it makes sense to me that environment would encourage rapid genetic changes at times. Fine; but this article neither proves that genetic changes are the cause here, nor even attempts to provide an environmental explanation that could cause such a shift.
- davidw 11y ago
  There must be some science there, but between all the place and people descriptions and other stuff, it felt pretty glossed over.
perlgeek 11y ago
> That human evolution has continued into modern times was, until recently, a mostly theoretical idea debated among experts because there simply was no data. No? I thought that humans used to be all lactose intolerant, and that the ability to digest lactose was a rather recent mutation that's for example more spread in Europa than in East Asia. To me that's a perfect example of modern humans still evolving genetically.

27 points by pmcpinto 11y ago

ChuckMcM 11y ago

Personally, I would find it more astonishing if we proved humans were not evolving.

mindcrime 11y ago
Came here to say the same thing. I mean, what reason would we have to believe that evolution has stopped??? I suppose you can argue that technology has eliminated some evolutionary pressures, but from what I can see, that just moves the goalposts around a bit, it doesn't eliminate them.
- chipperyman573 11y ago
  Evolution requires survival of the fittest to still be a thing. If the weak die off faster than the strong, the strong have a better chance of reproducing. Then their superior genes are passed on, etc... However, this is no longer as much the case. People who have weaker immune systems, for example, can take medicine to prevent dying from a (previously fatal) sickness.
  - mindcrime 11y ago
    Then their superior genes are passed on, etc... However, this is no longer as much the case. It's still absolutely the case... it's just that the fitness function has changed. Now evolution isn't testing to see who can outrun a wooly mammoth or sabre-tooth tiger, or survive without food for 27 straight days, or to see who has the strongest immune system. Now it's testing to see who can navigate their way through high-school, get into a good college, choose a valuable major, get a degree, and get a job making beau-coup money. Since it is still the case that those with more money (on average) have more reproductive opportunities, get better medical care, live longer, etc. All of that said, let's not ignore that the physical stuff still matters as well. Unless a lot has changed in the 20 some odd years since I was in high-school, the jocks on the football team are still getting laid more than most guys. And being bigger and stronger and more physically fit is still correlated with success in the worlds of business and politics. I don't have the reference handy, but I'm pretty sure I've seen studies showing that taller men are more likely to be elected in political races. And having political power, again, tends to lead to more reproductive success, etc.
    - ckarmann 11y ago
      Yes, being tall, in good health, physically well-built and smart gives you, on average, more success in career and with members of the opposite sex. But does it give you more offspring, which is the important thing for evolution? In our times having a lot of sexual partners or one partner with a lot of sexual activity doesn't mean you have a lot of children. To be clear: do rich and successful people have more children than poor ones? Someone has any source on that?
      - mindcrime 11y ago
        To be clear: do rich and successful people have more children than poor ones? Someone has any source on that? Two thoughts on that: 1. They almost certainly have more opportunity for mating. But they may not always take advantage of that opportunity (especially since they may have child-less sex through various birth control measures) 2. It isn't just a question of the number of children, it's also a question of the fitness of their children. If "fit attracts fit" then the most fit females tend to pair up with the most fit males, and their children average out as more fit than others. But now we're back to the idea that we no longer know exactly what "fit" means in this world. I guess the answer is "it's complicated". But I still don't see any reason in any of that, to think that no evolution occurs.
    - modoc 11y ago
      I think you're unfortunately wrong on this point. While high earning well educated people may live longer, at least in the US they aren't reproducing more. Most of the educated/high-earning people I know are either not having kids at all, or are having 1-2 kids. Most of the lower educated, lower earning people I know have 3+ kids and have them at a younger age, which in turn leads to larger descendant populations in a shorter time period. Medical care is good enough (at least here in the US) that virtually all of those children are making it to adulthood, and then reproducing.
      - mindcrime 11y ago
        That's a fair point... that we live in a world with birth control, and where people are more likely to make a conscious decision to not have kids does change the dynamic. But I still don't think that any of that would lead one to think that "evolution has stopped". Even if you step back to only focus on what you describe as "the lower educated, lower income" people, there's still competition for reproductive success within that group. If nothing else, sexual selection is still a factor, even if survival selection isn't as much a factor. Another thing to consider is the "red queen" theory that human evolution and the evolution of pathogens are locked into a (more or less) permanent "arms race". I don't know that anybody knows for sure that that theory is true, but if it has merit, that's another reason to believe that we are still evolving on some level.
  - mhurron 11y ago
    > Evolution requires survival of the fittest to still be a thing The definition of 'fittest' is not set in stone.
    - jeremysmyth 11y ago
      It absolutely is, but it's defined backwards compared to how most people intuit it. You can't look at a population today and identify which individuals are the fittest in evolutionary terms. It's not possible to state with precision that someone who has e.g. more sex or more children or is taller or richer or poorer or better spoken or more sociopathic is more likely to succeed. Rather, fitness is something that can only be defined in reverse, because today's population is full of individuals with ancestors who have survived and reproduced, and so on all the way back. As Neal Stephenson puts it: "Like every other creature on the face of the earth, Godfrey was, by birthright, a stupendous badass, albeit in the somewhat narrow technical sense that he could trace his ancestry back up a long line of slightly less highly evolved stupendous badasses to that first self-replicating gizmo---which, given the number and variety of its descendants, might justifiably be described as the most stupendous badass of all time. Everyone and everything that wasn't a stupendous badass was dead."
  - Cowen 11y ago
    Evolution doesn't "require" anything except breeding.
  - Jtsummers 11y ago
    Survival of the fittest [in their environment]. We're still evolving, even if it's not in a way that would make us better at surviving in the plains/tundra/forest/jungle anymore. It may make us worse at those things (as a species), but better in our new environment (urban, factories, offices).
jostmey 11y ago
I think what people really mean is that as a species, we are no longer under a strong selective pressure, which would mean that the Human genome is diversifying (good) but mutations that are only a little bit detrimental are not being filtered out (bad).
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
Afton 11y ago
I wouldn't just find it astonishing, I would be deeply confused about what it could possibly mean!

kbenson 11y ago

> The idea that some of the best evolutionary data could come from church archives was both astonishing and exciting. It really shouldn't be (astonishing, that is). As major social, political and educational structures that were, at least in some cases and locations, largely exempt from the greater political upheavals and wars, they should be considered a first choice to search for a lot of data that has to do with human history.

cfontes 11y ago

Evolving yeah, but toward what? We completely screwed natural selection, so I guess bad genes will be creeping into the population for a long time, things like cancer, malformations and genetic related diseases will be blooming like crazy in the next centuries. Let's hope medicine keeps up with it.

bakhy 11y ago
you could say we "evolved" medicine. it's too simple to regard evolution as something that happens merely on an individual level. e.g. it was always possible that the strongest and smartest human will get killed by a group of physically and intellectually weaker people. does that mean we stopped evolving back then? no, we evolved social behavior, like many animals before us, i guess...
openasocket 11y ago
Our current evolutionary situation is not completely without precedent. A somewhat similar case is the birds of paradise. These birds have virtually no natural predators and need to only forage a few hours a day for food. With few other forms of natural selection at play, their evolution has been guided almost entirely by sexual selection, resulting in some dramatic examples of sexual dimorphism. I predict something similar may happen in humans.
jegutman 11y ago
Evolution doesn't have a direction, it's an explanation of a thing that happens. Diversity in the gene pool is almost certainly a plus for the long-term survival of the species, but it's marginal, must like everything that would determine the long-term survival of the species. Almost all diseases that happen after a species' reproductive age is very difficult to select out either in a positive or negative way unless it happens to be strongly genetically linked (either through sharing genes or being very close on a chromosome) to a different positive or negative trait. Even then in the long run the survival of that trait will be dominated by its independent characteristics. The way to flip this around is that you could also look at the "survival" of the disease, disorder, etc. Not that we WANT these to survive, but they either will or won't. If a disease causes death 100% of the time at age 2 and provides no other benefits in the carrier / recessive trait it tends not to last in the gene pool for very long.

zzalpha 11y ago

Random aside: am I the only one who finds Nautilus articles are often needlessly padded? I get the goal of writing a story-style magazine science article. I've read my fair share, and executed well, they can make for an enjoyable read. But this article feels like 50% uninspired travel diary...

thomas 11y ago
>> But this article feels like 50% uninspired travel diary... Exactly. Could have done with something half the length (and twice as informative).
nashashmi 11y ago
That is how I felt after seeing the first entire paragraph dedicated to the other guy he met; and out of everything he could talk about, he chooses to talk about the shirt the guy was wearing!!.
superskierpat 11y ago
And there were so. many. typos.

bakhy 11y ago

first thought: why would this be interesting? of course we are. but then i remembered all the radically religious nutjobs. :S

unit91 11y ago
There are Christians who believe the neo-Darwinian synthesis is correct [1] and atheists who don't [2][3]. [1] https://biologos.org/ https://biologos.org/ [2] http://www.amazon.com/Mind-Cosmos-Materialist-Neo-Darwinian-Conception/dp/0199919755 http://www.amazon.com/Mind-Cosmos-Materialist-Neo-Darwinian-... [3] http://www.amazon.com/What-Darwin-Wrong-Jerry-Fodor/dp/031268066X http://www.amazon.com/What-Darwin-Wrong-Jerry-Fodor/dp/03126...

collyw 11y ago

Why would you assume it stopped?

vessenes 11y ago

I'm mystified at the conclusions drawn by the data; islanders changed at what age they tended to have children. There's absolutely no discussion of cultural impact whatsoever as a cause; these islanders were not cut off from the rest of the world; they speak French for goodness sake! Despite this omission, there's much talk of cultural changes on the island now that tourism is a big thing, so it's on the radar of the journalist. I just don't understand how you can jump to 'groundbreaking change in genetic theory' from 'birth dates changed'. I'm not even that against the proposal -- if I look at what selective breeding can do in say dogs, it makes sense to me that environment would encourage rapid genetic changes at times. Fine; but this article neither proves that genetic changes are the cause here, nor even attempts to provide an environmental explanation that could cause such a shift.

davidw 11y ago
There must be some science there, but between all the place and people descriptions and other stuff, it felt pretty glossed over.

perlgeek 11y ago

> That human evolution has continued into modern times was, until recently, a mostly theoretical idea debated among experts because there simply was no data. No? I thought that humans used to be all lactose intolerant, and that the ability to digest lactose was a rather recent mutation that's for example more spread in Europa than in East Asia. To me that's a perfect example of modern humans still evolving genetically.