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It's surprising how many people think that evolution always takes millions of years. It can take a single generation. If, for example, tomorrow all governments
by jongjong 2y ago
It's surprising how many people think that evolution always takes millions of years. It can take a single generation.
If, for example, tomorrow all governments around the world made it illegal for people taller than 1 meter to have children under penalty of death, then almost all humans would be dwarves after 100 years.
There doesn't need to be new genetic mutations for this to work, natural selection can work off existing mutations which already occurred within the existing population. What can happen is that a trait which was harmful to the host can suddenly become advantageous in terms of survival and reproduction.
And if you think about it, deformities which we consider abnormal and might even consider illnesses are in fact natural occurrences within any sufficiently large population... There is nothing to prevent that so-called deformity or illness from becoming a survival trait in the future. It's just a matter of probability.
- s1artibartfast 2y agoOr a virus goes through and kills everyone with a specific trait. The gene pool can be changed in years.
- dumbo-octopus 2y agoRFK Jr. rolling in his electoral grave. https://bmcmedicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12916-020-01673-z https://bmcmedicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s1291...
- irjustin 2y ago> It's surprising how many people think that evolution always takes millions of years. It can take a single generation. There are many reasons - it's in part due to the education growing up in the 90-00's and how science was understood then and how it's taught today. I could go on and on. I just hope it's taught differently in schools today, but honestly I have no clue. My immediate problem is that so many people are unwilling to change their minds and learn new things. Evolution is almost tied to belief system combined with there's very little every-day-life-"visual cues" that make it obvious. This makes it hard for me to have conversations that point towards evolution.