
Human Evolution Enters an Exciting New Phase - najhr999
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/11/recent-human-evolution-2/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wired%2Findex+%28Wired%3A+Top+Stories%29
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unoti
It seems to me that natural selection is, for the most part, broken now for
humans. Intelligence and other positive characteristics don't seem to get
involved in whether they have surviving offspring today the way I imagine it
did a few thousand years ago. Is it true that natural selection for humans is
mostly dead? Perhaps I'm wrong about this, but it's something that interests
and concerns me.

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maratd
I can't stress enough how important it is to read Darwin's original work.
Contemporary understanding of evolution outside of academia is _deeply
flawed_.

There are two forces at work in evolution. Natural selection (survival of the
fittest) and sexual selection (reproduction of the sexiest). Out of the two,
natural selection is by far the _weaker_ force.

> Intelligence and other positive characteristics don't seem to get involved
> in whether they have surviving offspring today the way I imagine it did a
> few thousand years ago.

You're thinking very narrowly in the "survival of the fittest" mode.

You're ignoring sexual selection entirely.

It doesn't matter how hot, strong, or brilliant you are, if you have zero
kids, from an evolutionary perspective ... it's the same as if you were killed
and eaten by some wild animal.

And, of course, the quality of your offspring matters as well and is
determined by mate choice.

There's plenty of evolutionary pressure around today. Actually, I would say
it's far more extreme today than ever before, especially in our urban areas.

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cup
Would this then make the case even more pessimistic, considering there is an
inverse correlation between family sizes and parental education levels.

I.e. smarter individuals have less (or no) kids.

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mahyarm
Urbanization in general reduces family sizes. Something like free RISUG
procedures for 13+ males, and the procedure being promoted during sex ed
classes would probably reduce irresponsible pregnancies significantly. Even
the US government would benefit significantly from reduced expenditures with a
program like that.

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wwwtyro
I hate to sound unimpressed, but does biological evolution strike anyone else
as rather irrelevant, now? I doubt we will be held hostage by these mortal
coils for much longer.

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hnriot
Anyone that thinks their smartphone and self driving car will in any way
impact the evolutionary pressures is very self deluded. Evolution will act on
our species' population for many hundreds of centuries before any significant
impact from technology is seen.

Also I am not sure you understand what "mortal coil" means:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortal_coil>

~~~
duaneb
> Evolution will act on our species' population for many hundreds of centuries
> before any significant impact from technology is seen.

You don't think that, say, genetic engineering will change the genome? I'm
betting we'll be primarily artificially designed by the end of the century.

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maxwin
Talking about how we are going to evolve in the next thousands of years is a
waste of time. Artificial interference is going to kick in long before that. I
believe we will be very different 300 years from now.

~~~
pyre

      > Artificial interference is going to kick in long
      > before that
    

If we're constantly 20 - 30 years away from a major break-through, it will
eventually come true! ;-)

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mdda
Since we're talking about human evolution, time-scales of 20-30 years are only
1 generation changes. Machine evolution may have a much shorter generational
cycle - but for the moment, it doesn't seem too much to ask to be a little
patient. Machines have come a long way in the last 4 human generations...

~~~
pyre
I was referring to the constant claims that we're X years away from a break-
through for the last Y years.

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hasenj
> Akey specializes in what’s known as rare variation, or changes in DNA that
> are found in perhaps one in 100 people, or even fewer.

This classification of variations into "rare variations" and "common
variation" is interesting (and new to me).

Any one knows resources that explain more about this?

Popular science depictions of "mutations" make them sound like "one lucky
shot" kind of thing. This model never made sense to me. I figured these
variations must be occurring constantly across the population.

It's interesting to me that even the variations which are considered "rare"
actually occur at a rate that's around 1 in 100. Hell, even if it was 1 in a
1000, that's still quite a lot.

I need more resources about this topic!

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emiliobumachar
One advantage of this grand diversity of the gene pool is that if a worst-case
scenario apocalyptic epidemic does happen (weaponization of pathogens,
anyone?) there's more odds a small subgroup of us could be naturally
resistant.

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CapitalistCartr
At the rate biological research is progressing, anything beyond this century
is impossible. In a couple of centuries, we'll have replaced carbon with
silicon in our bodies and be living a couple millennia.

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mahyarm
How would silicon avoid something like cancer? Why would that make any
difference?

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robertk
Backups. If you can backup someone's brain (which should be doable in
silicon), then even if they contract cancer, you can simply back them up for a
few hundred years (or however long it takes) until there's a cure.

~~~
mahyarm
Oh I thought you meant the more literal substance, not making a software
simulation reproduction.

~~~
robertk
Either way. I imagine silicon hardware that we intelligently designed would be
easier to backup than messy biology we hardly understand.

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cpeterso
I wonder if there will be future speciation of humans. Will humanity become a
big, homogenous melting pot or will some isolated humans (or Martian
colonists) veer into a new genetic branch?

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alxjrvs
Ctrl + F, "Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters"

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