Probably just bad grammer. He should have said that "the rate of change...of humans was sped up" rather than implying that the humans did it conciously. The way it is stated would actually be anti-darwinian, since Darwinism relies on random mutatations and differences between individuals interacting with environmental changes to selectively cause greater survival of animals (or plants) carrying those characteristics. Sort of like selective breeding, but with Nature as the breeder, selecting those traits best suited to survival in new environments.
It is more than bad grammar. It is trying to bow to Darwinism but not having the vaguest idea of how to explain the experiment in Darwinian terms. Or perhaps he was making it obvious that the experiment was a disproof of Darwinism while letting the yokels who supervise and pay their bills think that they were abiding by the party line. I really hate to think that people who could do such work could be so stupid as to make such a statement - in writing yet, for a published journal.