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Are humans evolving faster? - 6/8/2009 1:31:44 AM
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shakezula
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http://www.physorg.com/news116529402.html
Researchers discovered genetic evidence that human evolution is speeding up – and has not halted or proceeded at a constant rate, as had been thought – indicating that humans on different continents are becoming increasingly different.
“We used a new genomic technology to show that humans are evolving rapidly, and that the pace of change has accelerated a lot in the last 40,000 years, especially since the end of the Ice Age roughly 10,000 years ago,” says research team leader Henry Harpending, a distinguished professor of anthropology at the University of Utah.
Harpending says there are provocative implications from the study, published online Monday, Dec. 10 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences:
-- “We aren’t the same as people even 1,000 or 2,000 years ago,” he says, which may explain, for example, part of the difference between Viking invaders and their peaceful Swedish descendants. “The dogma has been these are cultural fluctuations, but almost any temperament trait you look at is under strong genetic influence.”
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RE: Are humans evolving faster? - 6/8/2009 11:14:09 AM
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E_Lin
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Absolutely, unequivically not. If anything, humans are de-evolving. Just because peoples in different continents are changing differently means nothing. All it means is that different environments produce different types of people.
Humans are the one and only species on the planet that is not subject to the ravages of natural selection. We have the ability to fend off any predator. We can heal ourselves from so many sicknesses and diseases (not to mention aid those with genetic defects), preventing the genetically weak from dying off. We accomodate and enable the infirmed, preventing them from being left behind and "picked off". We support each other, and do not compete for food and other resources.
Beneficial mutations? Not in humans. We keep getting more populous, but not better as a species. We encourage weakness to persist and breed, so as a whole our human race suffers genetically. There will be no evolution for the human race, on the contrary, we will continue to take two steps back for every two steps forward. Until the point comes where the equilibrium shifts and the steps we take forward can no longer keep up with all the steps taken back.
Then again we can always hope that Jesus comes back sooner rather than later...
_____________________________
"Human beings make life so interesting. Do you know that in a universe so full of wonders, they have managed to invent boredom? Quite astonishing..."
- Death (from the book "Hogfather" by Terry Pratchett)
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RE: Are humans evolving faster? - 6/8/2009 12:20:10 PM
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sfs
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I remember that paper. It was one of the worst studies I've ever seen in print. The methodology has major flaws that invalidate the conclusions. The only good thing to do with it is to pretend it never happened.
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RE: Are humans evolving faster? - 6/8/2009 1:30:59 PM
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DanJames
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quote:
ORIGINAL: E_Lin
Absolutely, unequivically not. If anything, humans are de-evolving. Just because peoples in different continents are changing differently means nothing. All it means is that different environments produce different types of people.
Humans are the one and only species on the planet that is not subject to the ravages of natural selection. We have the ability to fend off any predator. We can heal ourselves from so many sicknesses and diseases (not to mention aid those with genetic defects), preventing the genetically weak from dying off. We accomodate and enable the infirmed, preventing them from being left behind and "picked off". We support each other, and do not compete for food and other resources.
Beneficial mutations? Not in humans. We keep getting more populous, but not better as a species. We encourage weakness to persist and breed, so as a whole our human race suffers genetically.
...
It sounds like you're lamenting what you're saying. Can you clarify?
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RE: Are humans evolving faster? - 6/8/2009 1:32:25 PM
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DanJames
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quote:
ORIGINAL: sfs
I remember that paper. It was one of the worst studies I've ever seen in print. The methodology has major flaws that invalidate the conclusions. The only good thing to do with it is to pretend it never happened.
Care to expound on the flaws of their methodology?
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RE: Are humans evolving faster? - 6/8/2009 2:59:02 PM
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Lapidoth
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As in the days of Sodom and Gomorahh,
As in the days of Noah..........
So, how does Jesus' statement deal with evolving people?
We are no different than those before us.
If we reject the "truth" we have no alternative but to believe
a "lie" just as those before us.
_____________________________
Why does He keep quoting Torah? Doesn't He know He's about to abolish it?
http://www.tedpearce.com/Videos/TheForgottenpeople.html
BARUCH HABA BASHEM YAHUAH
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RE: Are humans evolving faster? - 6/8/2009 3:55:59 PM
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DanJames
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Lapidoth
As in the days of Sodom and Gomorahh,
As in the days of Noah..........
So, how does Jesus' statement deal with evolving people?
We are no different than those before us.
If we reject the "truth" we have no alternative but to believe
a "lie" just as those before us.
I agree that there's nothing new in the heart of man. Adam's struggles, the vileness of Noah's contemporaries, the depravity of David and his kin, everyone from Adam to Dan, all have the same lostness. This article is talking about genetic changes. To be honest, I got a little queezy as I read it. I'm not sure where this guy gets the idea that fitness has anything at all to do with the rate at which a person has babies. A fit person would have 2.5 children just the same as a diabetic has 2.5 children. It's cultural preference that drives the number of children a couple has. My father is the oldest of 7 because 20 years ago it was cool to have lots of kids. My parents had 3. My sister has 2. It has nothing to do with fitness. From my limited perspective, this is an abysmal study. Social evolution at its finest.
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RE: Are humans evolving faster? - 6/8/2009 4:26:34 PM
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solarflare
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Hmmm...well, I think Romans explains it rather well. They reject their creator......it's all downhill after that......
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RE: Are humans evolving faster? - 6/8/2009 4:54:47 PM
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shakezula
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quote:
ORIGINAL: E_Lin
All it means is that different environments produce different types of people.
one of the simpler definitions of evolution is that it is change over time.
quote:
Humans are the one and only species on the planet that is not subject to the ravages of natural selection.
so you do agree that natural selection exists?
quote:
We have the ability to fend off any predator. We can heal ourselves from so many sicknesses and diseases (not to mention aid those with genetic defects), preventing the genetically weak from dying off. We accomodate and enable the infirmed, preventing them from being left behind and "picked off".
the last half of your statement is one reason why scientists think humans are evolving faster. in other species, the weak or those with negative traits did not survive to reproduce. nowadays pretty much everyone has a chance to survive, so more mutations are carried on into the next generation.
quote:
We support each other, and do not compete for food and other resources.
i don't know how you can believe this. history is full of conquer-or-be-conquered.
quote:
We keep getting more populous, but not better as a species. We encourage weakness to persist and breed, so as a whole our human race suffers genetically.
should we discourage weakness then, and the weak die?
_____________________________
watch out for the oo moo and the blehblehbleh
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RE: Are humans evolving faster? - 6/8/2009 4:56:03 PM
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shakezula
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quote:
ORIGINAL: sfs
I remember that paper. It was one of the worst studies I've ever seen in print. The methodology has major flaws that invalidate the conclusions. The only good thing to do with it is to pretend it never happened.
could you explain, sfs? i have seen variations of this finding many times in the past year or so. discover magazine did a special issue about it.
_____________________________
watch out for the oo moo and the blehblehbleh
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RE: Are humans evolving faster? - 6/8/2009 7:19:19 PM
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solarflare
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quote:
one of the simpler definitions of evolution is that it is change over time.
Yeah...that IS simple. How bout this:
quote:
In biology, evolution is the change in the genetic material of a population of organisms from one generation to the next. Though the changes produced in any one generation are small, differences accumulate with each generation and can, over time, cause substantial changes in the organisms. This process can culminate in the emergence of new species.[1] Indeed, the similarities between organisms suggest that all known species are descended from a common ancestor (or ancestral gene pool) through this process of gradual divergence.[2]
Thank you wiki
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RE: Are humans evolving faster? - 6/8/2009 9:28:08 PM
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sfs
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Following up my rather intemperate remarks about the paper, I'll try to explain (not that I remember all of the issues).
The heart of the paper was a survey of the genome for signatures of positive selection (selection for a new trait), left in the distribution of genetic variation still present in the population. (When selection acts, it produces characteristic patterns in variation immediately around the favorable mutation.) They concluded that 7% of the genome had been affected by recent NS (the last 80,000 years, I believe), and that this rate must be the result of increased recent activity by NS, since that high a rate of NS is inconsistent with various other facts about genetic variation.
The problem is with the 7%. What they were doing was looking at the distribution of a particular statistic, as measured for several million variant sites in the human genome; natural selection is likely to give high values for this statistic. They set a threshold, and declared everything above that value to be the result of positive selection -- no false positive error rate, just 100% real selection events. The problem is that they didn't really know what the distribution looks like for neutral evolution, mostly because they didn't know exactly what human demographic history was like, so they couldn't know what fraction of the events in the tail are actually the result of selection. This is a standard issue in this kind of study, which was very popular for a couple of years. They addressed this point by doing a single computer simulation, which showed (for that particular model) that neutral evolution never produces any variants above their threshold. But their model was highly unrealistic (especially in the way it handled recombination), and they really did not have strong grounds for saying anything about what their false detection rate was. Simulations are notorious for giving unrealistic distributions, and this one was not tuned at all to represent reality. Drawing sweeping conclusions from that about how much positive selection there has been in humans was (in my opinion) unjustifiable.
What particularly annoyed me with the paper was that they said their 7% was consistent with the fraction of the genome under selection found by an earlier survey, by Voight et al. The annoying thing was that Voight's paper went out of its way to avoid estimating what fraction their candidate signals of selection was real, since they didn't think it was possible to tell, despite doing considerably more simulation that these authors did. At the time I even asked Ben Voight if I'd misunderstood his paper, since it seemed like such a clear misinterpretation of it. (No, I hadn't misunderstood.) Caution, however, does not get you a lot of publicity.
I don't think the authors are bad people -- I've had a pleasant exchange of emails with the lead author about a genetic simulation of mine -- but I do not think this was a good paper. Never let it be said that I fail to criticize proponents of evolution.
It's quite possible, by the way, that there really has been a substantial increase in positive selection within the last ~80,000 years for humans, given all of the environmental changes that have occurred during that period. Probable, even. But I don't think this paper does much to support that hypothesis.
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RE: Are humans evolving faster? - 6/9/2009 7:12:22 PM
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sfs
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quote:
I'm not sure where this guy gets the idea that fitness has anything at all to do with the rate at which a person has babies.
Because that's how fitness is defined in biology: how many offspring you leave. (It's really how many you have in the long run, rather than immediate offspring, but the basic idea is the same.)
quote:
A fit person would have 2.5 children just the same as a diabetic has 2.5 children.
Today, yes. Until very recently, many people with type I diabetes would die young, and thus have fewer or no children.
quote:
It's cultural preference that drives the number of children a couple has.
In the last century or so, yes, and if you're in the developed world. This study is talking about fitness over tens of thousands of years. During most of human history, how many children you had that survived to adulthood had very little to do with cultural preferences (birth control was hardly the norm) and everything to do with epidemic disease (and resistance to it), the food supply and how well you could survive deprivation. Go look through a cemetery from the 1700s and count how many graves of children there are.
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RE: Are humans evolving faster? - 6/10/2009 11:33:46 AM
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E_Lin
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quote:
so you do agree that natural selection exists?
Yes I do. That is why there are no more Dodo birds. They were not fit enough to survive in a world of humans. Mammoths could not adapt to the warmer climates and the hunting prowess of man, either. Natural selection to me means you either adapt or you die. If a Supervolcano like the one in Yellowstone were to erupt, most of the population of America would die. Only those who could adapt and deal with with the climate and environment changes would survive.
quote:
the last half of your statement is one reason why scientists think humans are evolving faster. in other species, the weak or those with negative traits did not survive to reproduce. nowadays pretty much everyone has a chance to survive, so more mutations are carried on into the next generation.
I highlighted the problem. Anyone can survive nowadays, whereas decades or centuries ago they would not. Bad genes are passed on and on continually from generation to generation. These flaws are not going away, which they would if those who had them did not make it long enough to reproduce and pass them on. These mutations (like Diabetes, ALS, MD, Down Syndrome, etc...) do not appear to be the "beneficial" kind that are necessary to drive the engine of evolution.
quote:
i don't know how you can believe this. history is full of conquer-or-be-conquered.
I'm sorry. I hadn't noticed Alabama trying to conquer Kansas. Or France trying to conquer Spain. I'm not talking about human past, I am referring to human present.
quote:
should we discourage weakness then, and the weak die?
I never said to encourage it. I was only making a contrary observation to humans evolving faster. For the sake of argument.
_____________________________
"Human beings make life so interesting. Do you know that in a universe so full of wonders, they have managed to invent boredom? Quite astonishing..."
- Death (from the book "Hogfather" by Terry Pratchett)
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RE: Are humans evolving faster? - 6/10/2009 11:39:56 AM
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E_Lin
Posts: 1099
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From: Cincinnati, OH
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quote:
ORIGINAL: DanJames
quote:
ORIGINAL: E_Lin
Absolutely, unequivically not. If anything, humans are de-evolving. Just because peoples in different continents are changing differently means nothing. All it means is that different environments produce different types of people.
Humans are the one and only species on the planet that is not subject to the ravages of natural selection. We have the ability to fend off any predator. We can heal ourselves from so many sicknesses and diseases (not to mention aid those with genetic defects), preventing the genetically weak from dying off. We accomodate and enable the infirmed, preventing them from being left behind and "picked off". We support each other, and do not compete for food and other resources.
Beneficial mutations? Not in humans. We keep getting more populous, but not better as a species. We encourage weakness to persist and breed, so as a whole our human race suffers genetically.
...
It sounds like you're lamenting what you're saying. Can you clarify?
I did not intend to give that impression. I was giving an answer, and putting forth a point for the sake of argument in this discussion. I was lamenting nothing...
_____________________________
"Human beings make life so interesting. Do you know that in a universe so full of wonders, they have managed to invent boredom? Quite astonishing..."
- Death (from the book "Hogfather" by Terry Pratchett)
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RE: Are humans evolving faster? - 6/10/2009 12:14:19 PM
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GHitch
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quote:
ORIGINAL: sfs
Because that's how fitness is defined in biology: how many offspring you leave. (It's really how many you have in the long run, rather than immediate offspring, but the basic idea is the same.) So given that Muslims generally make an average of 8 babies per couple, they are more fit?
quote:
In the last century or so, yes, and if you're in the developed world. Exactly, so fitness, in a narrow time window, varies with culture and technology. If fitness is defined by the number of offspring then fitness, as per that offspring, is a function of culture and tech and largely a decision.
-------------
In any case, I don't think any species is evolving into something 'higher' (as Darwin loved to say), nor ever has been. The whole 'higher' and 'lower' ideas are bogus since there is only more or less complex under a Darwinian paradigm. When Darwin used these words he was smuggling in a Judeo/Christian metaphysic without realizing it since he was a materialist.
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Genetic entropy means we're all slowly devolving.
With man and (because of man) even many domestic animals, technology has prevented NS from eliminating many slightly deleterious mutations. So they get passed on.
The genetic load increases and sooner or later leads to mutational meltdown.
_____________________________
"The success of Darwinism was accompanied by a decline in scientific integrity. ...To establish the continuity required by the theory, historical arguments are invoked even though historical evidence is lacking." -W. R. Thompson, PhD
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RE: Are humans evolving faster? - 6/11/2009 2:14:05 AM
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shakezula
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quote:
ORIGINAL: E_Lin
I'm sorry. I hadn't noticed Alabama trying to conquer Kansas. Or France trying to conquer Spain. I'm not talking about human past, I am referring to human present.
our present is full of war and genocide. see darfur for example, al queda in pakistan, and mexico.
_____________________________
watch out for the oo moo and the blehblehbleh
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RE: Are humans evolving faster? - 6/12/2009 10:24:15 AM
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E_Lin
Posts: 1099
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From: Cincinnati, OH
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quote:
ORIGINAL: shakezula
quote:
ORIGINAL: E_Lin
I'm sorry. I hadn't noticed Alabama trying to conquer Kansas. Or France trying to conquer Spain. I'm not talking about human past, I am referring to human present.
our present is full of war and genocide. see darfur for example, al queda in pakistan, and mexico.
I am not refering to nor am I giving assent to insignificant pockets of dissolution. There will always be "small" conflicts here and there (as is human nature) that do not affect the human race as a whole. My point, therefore, is that no matter what petty squabbles may exist, they are localized, and do not stop humans in general around the world from co-operating with each other, and offering support where needed.
_____________________________
"Human beings make life so interesting. Do you know that in a universe so full of wonders, they have managed to invent boredom? Quite astonishing..."
- Death (from the book "Hogfather" by Terry Pratchett)
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RE: Are humans evolving faster? - 6/12/2009 9:29:09 PM
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sfs
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quote:
ORIGINAL: GHitch
So given that Muslims generally make an average of 8 babies per couple, they are more fit?
Only if there is such a thing as a genetic predisposition to being a Muslim. Fitness is a measure of how well different genetic variants do.
quote:
Exactly, so fitness, in a narrow time window, varies with culture and technology. If fitness is defined by the number of offspring then fitness, as per that offspring, is a function of culture and tech and largely a decision.
Say rather that in the developed world, there is very little difference in fitness between different genotypes (since it is only genetic differences that matter when comparing the fitness of different individuals). Obviously, there are exceptions: some genetic variants have profound effects on fitness.
quote:
With man and (because of man) even many domestic animals, technology has prevented NS from eliminating many slightly deleterious mutations. So they get passed on.
The genetic load increases and sooner or later leads to mutational meltdown.
Or the genetic load increases until the deleterious alleles start to make a noticeable difference in fertility or survival, and then NS establishes a new equilibrium, but with more near-sighted or whatever people than before.
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RE: Are humans evolving faster? - 6/13/2009 1:10:01 AM
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shakezula
Posts: 934
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quote:
ORIGINAL: E_Lin
I am not refering to nor am I giving assent to insignificant pockets of dissolution. There will always be "small" conflicts here and there (as is human nature) that do not affect the human race as a whole. My point, therefore, is that no matter what petty squabbles may exist, they are localized, and do not stop humans in general around the world from co-operating with each other, and offering support where needed.
then why is most of the world starving or living in destitute poverty?
_____________________________
watch out for the oo moo and the blehblehbleh
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RE: Are humans evolving faster? - 6/17/2009 10:19:46 AM
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E_Lin
Posts: 1099
Joined: 9/14/2008
From: Cincinnati, OH
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quote:
ORIGINAL: shakezula
then why is most of the world starving or living in destitute poverty?
Where do you get most of the world?
With all the churches and charitable organizitions out there helping people, there is little excuse for the starving or those living destitute. Unless you are talking about people living in countries where the government (usually a dictatorship) is keeping food and relief supplies from its own people. And there is nothing we can do about that other than invade the country and overthrow the oppressive rulers. I am sure that would go over great with the rest of the world...
My point is that countries like the USA and France and Italy, etc... do not go around invading countries to take their resources and leave the people to die, since we/they do not want the future competition. Like in the rest of the animal world, where it is survival of the fittest.
_____________________________
"Human beings make life so interesting. Do you know that in a universe so full of wonders, they have managed to invent boredom? Quite astonishing..."
- Death (from the book "Hogfather" by Terry Pratchett)
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RE: Are humans evolving faster? - 6/17/2009 12:10:45 PM
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shakezula
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quote:
ORIGINAL: E_Lin
quote:
ORIGINAL: shakezula
then why is most of the world starving or living in destitute poverty?
Where do you get most of the world?
are you serious?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty
The World Bank defines extreme poverty as living on less than US $1.25 (PPP) per day, and moderate poverty as less than $2 a day, estimating that "in 2001, 1.1 billion people had consumption levels below $1 a day and 2.7 billion lived on less than $2 a day."
quote:
With all the churches and charitable organizitions out there helping people, there is little excuse for the starving or those living destitute.
read the webpage and let me know if you still believe this.
quote:
Unless you are talking about people living in countries where the government (usually a dictatorship) is keeping food and relief supplies from its own people.
that's a huge % of the world, though. plus there are some countries that are just plain poor. no dictatorship is needed.
quote:
My point is that countries like the USA and France and Italy, etc... do not go around invading countries to take their resources and leave the people to die, since we/they do not want the future competition. Like in the rest of the animal world, where it is survival of the fittest.
do you really believe this? ever hear of christopher columbus or colonialism in africa?
_____________________________
watch out for the oo moo and the blehblehbleh
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RE: Are humans evolving faster? - 6/18/2009 1:13:13 AM
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ranmanpats
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High School girls appear to be evolving a lot faster now than when I was in school!
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RE: Are humans evolving faster? - 6/18/2009 9:49:23 AM
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demolay
Posts: 269
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quote:
ORIGINAL: GHitch
In any case, I don't think any species is evolving into something 'higher' (as Darwin loved to say), nor ever has been. The whole 'higher' and 'lower' ideas are bogus since there is only more or less complex under a Darwinian paradigm. When Darwin used these words he was smuggling in a Judeo/Christian metaphysic without realizing it since he was a materialist.
-----
Genetic entropy means we're all slowly devolving.
With man and (because of man) even many domestic animals, technology has prevented NS from eliminating many slightly deleterious mutations. So they get passed on.
The genetic load increases and sooner or later leads to mutational meltdown.
Well said! Evolutionists keep trying to slip in that "Evolution = change over time" BS. Decay is also change over time, but that is not what evolutionists mean at all by "evolution": they mean microbes to men changes, with ever increasing complexity and invention of new structures, functionality, and genetic information. Their faith is not in change, but a certain kind of change. As much as they try to deny it, it seems their faith is in directional change opposite of entropy. Their faith defies a fundamental law of science, yet they claim evolution IS the very definition of science.
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