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Just to clarify, 'evolution' is the process of change that takes many, many millions of years - time frames of 15,000 years are not evolution. As Ricky Gervais

Just to clarify, 'evolution' is the process of change that takes many, many millions of years - time frames of 15,000 years are not evolution. As Ricky Gervais once desribed, in evolutionary terms, modern man is still equviliant to a shaved chimp!

randallsquared 16y ago
Well, for any major fitness difference, evolution could happen considerably more quickly than millions of years. A 10% difference would be noticeable in only hundreds of years, and a 1% difference in thousands.
michaelochurch 16y ago
Biological evolution takes place over millions of years: actually, it's a bit faster than that and can be observed quite quickly in simpler organisms, but I agree with what you are saying. At present, cultural and technological evolution are so fast that biological evolution seems to be glacial in comparison. I would argue that the occlusion of hunter-gatherer lifestyles by agriculture is an "evolutionary" process, even though one in the cultural rather than biological sphere (since it's unlikely that there were substantial genetic differences between the two types of people). As with biological evolution, what survives is what is most fit and not what is "best".
- _delirium 16y ago
  That sounds roughly like the "dual inheritance theory", that human societies are a product of both biological evolution and sociocultural evolution: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_inheritance_theory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_inheritance_theory (I don't have any strong knowledge of or opinion on the subject; seems plausible enough.)
scott_s 16y ago
A comprehensive scan of the human genome finds that hundreds of our genes have undergone positive natural selection during the past 10,000 years of human evolution. http://www.livescience.com/609-hundreds-human-genes-evolving.html http://www.livescience.com/609-hundreds-human-genes-evolving... Providing the strongest evidence yet that humans are still evolving, researchers have detected some 700 regions of the human genome where genes appear to have been reshaped by natural selection, a principal force of evolution, within the last 5,000 to 15,000 years. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/07/science/07evolve.html http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/07/science/07evolve.html There are many more examples that can be found through Google.
- tcarnell 16y ago
  good point - of course I absolutely believe humans (as well as every other living thing on Earth) as still evolving. And of course evolution happens all the time, with every generation evolution must be happening. And I've written genetic algorithms to find solutions to problems so I know that evolution is not intrinsically a slow process. My point really was that evolutionary changes in these time-scales are very unlikey to significantly affect society (changing to agriculture etc). Thanks for the response and the great links!
- cpeterso 16y ago
  I wonder how long until human evolution produces humans genetically incapable of interbreeding. Wikipedia says that even some intergeneric (genus) hybrids may be fertile! Here is some unsettling information about "humanzees" and "chumans", hypothetical intergeneric hybrids between humans and chimpanzees: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Humanzee https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Humanzee Also: Hybrids between different subspecies within a species (such as between Bengal and Siberian tigers) are known as intra-specific hybrids. Hybrids between different species within the same genus (such as between lions and tigers) are sometimes known as interspecific hybrids or crosses. Hybrids between different genera (such as between sheep and goats) are known as intergeneric hybrids. Extremely rare interfamilial hybrids have been known to occur (such as the guineafowl hybrids). No interordinal (between different orders) animal hybrids are known.
cperciva 16y ago
Evolution doesn't always happen slowly. To take a well-known example: The lactase persistence gene went from insignificant levels to covering the majority of Europe and northern Asia over just a few thousand years. Evolution usually happens slowly because usually species are already well-adapted to their environment. When an environment changes to provide a significant benefit to a particular mutation, the spread of that mutation can speed up dramatically.
rbanffy 16y ago
> time frames of 15,000 years are not evolution. Tell that to MRSA...
- jleyank 16y ago
  Their mistake is counting years not generations...
robotresearcher 16y ago
That's not really a clarification, as it's misleading. Every single child inherits traits from its parents with variation, and the frequency of their being passed on to another generation is subject to selection pressure. That's all evolution is. Biological evolution happens with every generation - hours in bacteria, decades with humans. And since we're reproducing asynchronously, it's happening second by second across the population. This is important to understand. Evolution does NOT operate on scales of thousands or millions of years. It can not, because there are no reproduction-variation-selection operations working on that timescale in biology (that I know about). There may be large time spans between what look like interesting things - speciations, the advent of birds, etc. But this is just in the mind of the observer. Consider that the bacteria that cause infectious disease are becoming resistant to the antibiotics we've had for only a few decades. We can see evolution happening in petri dishes. Don't try to draw any technical insight from Ricky Gervais' comment. Chimps today, like all animals today, are are equally evolved.

randallsquared 16y ago

Well, for any major fitness difference, evolution could happen considerably more quickly than millions of years. A 10% difference would be noticeable in only hundreds of years, and a 1% difference in thousands.

michaelochurch 16y ago

Biological evolution takes place over millions of years: actually, it's a bit faster than that and can be observed quite quickly in simpler organisms, but I agree with what you are saying. At present, cultural and technological evolution are so fast that biological evolution seems to be glacial in comparison. I would argue that the occlusion of hunter-gatherer lifestyles by agriculture is an "evolutionary" process, even though one in the cultural rather than biological sphere (since it's unlikely that there were substantial genetic differences between the two types of people). As with biological evolution, what survives is what is most fit and not what is "best".

_delirium 16y ago
That sounds roughly like the "dual inheritance theory", that human societies are a product of both biological evolution and sociocultural evolution: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_inheritance_theory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_inheritance_theory (I don't have any strong knowledge of or opinion on the subject; seems plausible enough.)

scott_s 16y ago

A comprehensive scan of the human genome finds that hundreds of our genes have undergone positive natural selection during the past 10,000 years of human evolution. http://www.livescience.com/609-hundreds-human-genes-evolving.html http://www.livescience.com/609-hundreds-human-genes-evolving... Providing the strongest evidence yet that humans are still evolving, researchers have detected some 700 regions of the human genome where genes appear to have been reshaped by natural selection, a principal force of evolution, within the last 5,000 to 15,000 years. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/07/science/07evolve.html http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/07/science/07evolve.html There are many more examples that can be found through Google.

tcarnell 16y ago
good point - of course I absolutely believe humans (as well as every other living thing on Earth) as still evolving. And of course evolution happens all the time, with every generation evolution must be happening. And I've written genetic algorithms to find solutions to problems so I know that evolution is not intrinsically a slow process. My point really was that evolutionary changes in these time-scales are very unlikey to significantly affect society (changing to agriculture etc). Thanks for the response and the great links!
cpeterso 16y ago
I wonder how long until human evolution produces humans genetically incapable of interbreeding. Wikipedia says that even some intergeneric (genus) hybrids may be fertile! Here is some unsettling information about "humanzees" and "chumans", hypothetical intergeneric hybrids between humans and chimpanzees: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Humanzee https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Humanzee Also: Hybrids between different subspecies within a species (such as between Bengal and Siberian tigers) are known as intra-specific hybrids. Hybrids between different species within the same genus (such as between lions and tigers) are sometimes known as interspecific hybrids or crosses. Hybrids between different genera (such as between sheep and goats) are known as intergeneric hybrids. Extremely rare interfamilial hybrids have been known to occur (such as the guineafowl hybrids). No interordinal (between different orders) animal hybrids are known.

cperciva 16y ago

Evolution doesn't always happen slowly. To take a well-known example: The lactase persistence gene went from insignificant levels to covering the majority of Europe and northern Asia over just a few thousand years. Evolution usually happens slowly because usually species are already well-adapted to their environment. When an environment changes to provide a significant benefit to a particular mutation, the spread of that mutation can speed up dramatically.

rbanffy 16y ago

> time frames of 15,000 years are not evolution. Tell that to MRSA...

jleyank 16y ago
Their mistake is counting years not generations...

robotresearcher 16y ago

That's not really a clarification, as it's misleading. Every single child inherits traits from its parents with variation, and the frequency of their being passed on to another generation is subject to selection pressure. That's all evolution is. Biological evolution happens with every generation - hours in bacteria, decades with humans. And since we're reproducing asynchronously, it's happening second by second across the population. This is important to understand. Evolution does NOT operate on scales of thousands or millions of years. It can not, because there are no reproduction-variation-selection operations working on that timescale in biology (that I know about). There may be large time spans between what look like interesting things - speciations, the advent of birds, etc. But this is just in the mind of the observer. Consider that the bacteria that cause infectious disease are becoming resistant to the antibiotics we've had for only a few decades. We can see evolution happening in petri dishes. Don't try to draw any technical insight from Ricky Gervais' comment. Chimps today, like all animals today, are are equally evolved.