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Some people argue that significant evolution has occurred within the human species after the civilisation started, most likely in response to the changing selec
by dejb 17y ago
Some people argue that significant evolution has occurred within the human species after the civilisation started, most likely in response to the changing selective pressures brought on by civilisation itself. The book 'The 10,000 Year Explosion: How Civilization Accelerated Human Evolution' makes this case.
- netsp 17y agoI'm not sure accelerated evolution is the right term, but the idea makes sense. Changing conditions exert selections pressures. Dietary changes would have been a substantial. Lactose tolerance, for example is almost certainly new.
- cjg 17y agoYou can accelerate without changing speed - it's a vector.
- netsp 17y agoevolution is not directional
- dejb 17y agoI think that if the rate of genetic change increases then acceleration is an fair word. If one defined the prevalence of each gene in the population you would get a vector were you could possibly 'change direction'. None of this requires any metric of 'goodness' to be defined if that is what you are worried about.
- kragen 17y agoWe've domesticated cows, pigs, sheep, goats, cats, horses, donkeys, chickens, and rabbits in, more or less, that time, creating substantial selective change. Even lab mice are pretty genetically different from wild mice, and that's within the last century or three, at most. So it wouldn't be that surprising if we had also domesticated ourselves.