Posted on 04/08/2009 6:19:32 PM PDT by GOPGuide
snip
It's even conceivable, he said, that our genes eventually will change enough to create an entirely new human species, one no longer able to breed with our own species, Homo sapiens.
"Someday in the far distant future, enough genetic changes might have occurred so that future populations could not interbreed with the current one,'' Sussman said in an e-mail message.
snip
It's also the topic of a new book, "The 10,000 Year Explosion,'' by anthropologists Henry Harpending and Gregory Cochran of the University of Utah, Salt Lake City.
"For most of the last century, the received wisdom in the social sciences has been that human evolution stopped a long time ago,'' Harpending said. "Clearly, received wisdom is wrong, and human evolution has continued.''
snip
When he was asked how many genes currently are evolving, Harpending replied: "A lot. Several hundred at least, maybe over a thousand.''
Another anthropologist, John Hawks of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said, "Our evolution has recently accelerated by around 100-fold.''
A key reason, Hawks said, is the enormous growth of the world's population, which multiplies the size of the gene pool available to launch new varieties.
"Today, beneficial mutation must be happening far more than ever before, since there are more than 6 billion of us,'' Cochran said.
The changes are so rapid that "we could, in the very near future, compare the genes of old people and young people'' to detect newly evolving genes, Cochran said. Skeletons from a few thousand or even a few hundred years ago also might provide evidence of genetic change.
"Human evolution didn't stop when anatomically modern humans appeared or when they expanded out of Africa,'' Harpending said. "It never stopped.''
(Excerpt) Read more at mcclatchydc.com ...
Actually I think technology would cause evolution to slow. We aren’t being wiped out by diseases the way we would be without medicines.
On the other hand I suppose easier lives could drive evolution in a different direction and not a good one.
“Human Evolution Speeding Up”
Evolution or adaptation?
No, as population and mobility increases, so do the number genetic combinations.
At least microevolution, I don’t want to get into a debate over Macro (Personally, I have suspicions about whether abiogenesis is possible)
Evolution Speeding Up or Intelligent Re-Design?
WE SHOULD TEACH BOTH!
Good point. Also an easier life “should” lead to greater brain development but I’m not so sure that many don’t retard that all by themselves.
And a few other new evolutionary traits that modern society's pressures may be hastening:
* Doughnut: A circle of fat around the navel, which represents the doughnut hole.
* Cankles: Fat that fills in and eliminates the curve between the calf and the ankle.
* Wings: Also called bra fat, it refers to the rounded bulge above and below the bra strap.
* Banana Fold: The ridge of fat high on the leg and just below the derrière.
* Chubb: Fatty kneecaps.
Brain development has not improved with increased nutrition, at least for the past 100 years.
While height has increased in Western nations over the past 100 years, skull volume has not.
So we’re adapting quicker to changes in our environment because changes in our environment at happening quicker; and this the author believes will create “an entirely new human species, one no longer able to breed with our own species, Homo sapiens”?
The ability of McClatchy journalists to reproduce may be imperiled!
Over thousands of years.
Hey, this is not a gay marriage thread!
People are getting more stupid, lazy and ignorant — but is that really due to genetics?
Oh good.... maybe I can sprout some wings and fly the hell out of this crazy place!
OK, here's mine: Does this mean Idiocracy is more or less likely?
I've come across Cochran before, quite a sharp fellow. I suspect his book's thesis is a threat to the regnant, superficial theory of human equality taught by my anthropology prof. I'm surprised Cochran's not more controversial.
Actually I think technology would cause evolution to slow. We aren’t being wiped out by diseases the way we would be without medicines.
And here everybody thought Trofim Lysenko was dead. Little did we know.
Good grief. This article is a wonderful demonstration of how little anthropologists understand elementary genetics.
“that future populations could not interbreed with the current one...”
Ten-thousand year old people aren’t supposed to sleep with 20-year olds anyway. That’s just gross.
Exactly. If anything we are devolving.
Look at the segments of the population that is procreating far faster than others. The welfare crowd, People stuck in a 600AD time warp. Not encouraging.
Women get implants, plastic surgery to make themselves more attractive. Men do tummy tucks, hair implants, eyelids.
Last I checked there wasn't a silicon gene. Their offspring will not look like the altered parents.
Modern medicine keeps weak specimens alive that in turn have children.
Years ago those weak people wouldn't live long enough to procreate.
Are up evolving or devolving. I vote for the latter.
Ah, I see. This must be why everyone in big cities is evolving into Democrats!
This coming from someone who things *evolutionary legal scholars* is a valid classification?
This flies in the face of the notion that genetic bottlenecks have been behind the evolution of mankind. Broadening the gene pool will cause a reversion to the norm. We’re not all that differentiated now, even after presumably tens of thousands of years in isolation from one another.
The FR atheist/evolutionists must approve. They have not shown up to spam your keyword lists with profanity, make personal attacks, twist and distort, create strawmen, or engage in any of the other methods they use to demonstrate their superlative intelligence /sarc>
From pygmies to giants and from summu wrestlers to jockeys; major differences in stature and size makes to difference; still 100% human.
EEUUWW
How the hell do you have evolution without “selection” for attributes that favor success in life.
It is in fact the least-successful people in this world that are propagating at the fastest rate.
Idiocracy is happening folks. Just enjoy society while it lasts.
In no time at all Barney frank should be making
the evolutionary leap into Ultraman.
Or Johnny Weismuller? These theories and charts get tricky.
Cheers!
The very fact that genetic engineering will be designed by flawed human beings belies contradicts notion that genetically engineered humans will be intellectually superior to those naturally evolved by forces we really have no conception.
Also, in the realm of ideas, modern prosperity encourages idiocy. Because there is a cushion for Leftist politicians not to suffer the immediate consequences of their actions, people believe that that drivel is equally valid. When you become too civilized, you loose key aspects of the will and drive that got you to where you are. You start living off the past and are condemned to inevitable decline. One almost has to believe that a the success & advance of modern socieity also contains the seeds of its destruction.
Ever seen “Gattaca”?
Pingity-ping.
Ain’t it sweet?
Soon, we will be able to fly to the planet Krypton under our own power!
“Soon, we will be able to fly to the planet Krypton under our own power!”
What, are you kiddin’ me?
Been doin’ it for years (and boy are my arms tired)!
I guess some of us evolve faster than others. I better keep my mouth shut lest you more highly evolved volk...err...folks decide to exterminate those of us who have been less favored by natural selection!
“”Human evolution didn’t stop when anatomically modern humans appeared or when they expanded out of Africa,’’ Harpending said. “It never stopped.’’”
Any claim by these morons that evolution theory is not racist is laughable. The whole thing relies on the less than perfect compared to the more perfected and the destruction of that which is less than perfect.
Crappy-diem.
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Zatso? There's a bigger market for stupid voters and cannon fodder, isn't there?
Why is saying people in Africa continued to evolve racist?
They have the same ear mutation as 0bama.
That has been a tenet of the Bible: the Fall of Adam.
“And your shall be like God..” is the oldest lie in The Book. Just ask Satan.
And that same lie is coming back.
See evil, think evil, do evil.
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