

Has human evolution stopped? - ksvs
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123440723977275883.html

======
jballanc
Here's what happened...

I loaded HN, saw a headline which mentioned "evolution", saw that this
headline was sourced from the Wall Street Journal, and thought to myself
"Damn, the Journal really is turning into yet another right-wing rag...I
wonder what they've dredged up this time"

...then I did something that, apparently, most of the members leaving comments
thus far did not do: I read the article.

First, this is a book review. The only question of accuracy is how well the
review represented the content of the book. Second, though the term is not
used in the article, the mention of Gould gives away the topic of the book.
It's a concept called "punctuated equilibrium", and it's very much an open
question in biological research.

The most troubling result of the ID movement is the subsequent balkanization
of views on all sides of the issue. What we have here (and by here, I mean
this comment thread, not the article) is a prime example of individuals
jumping to "defend" evolution without giving much thought or analysis to what
it is they're defending.

Modern theories of Evolution are as complete and sound as Newton's laws of
motion... I should know, since I'm currently completing a Ph.D. looking into
some of them...

------
jacquesm
The Wall Street Journal should know better than to comment on stuff they
haven't got a clue about.

Every time an egg gets fertilized that's evolution in progress, every time a
human being does not get offspring because his/her desired mate gets snagged
by a more appealing specimen that's evolution in progress and every time
somebody gets killed by accident before they get to reproduce that's evolution
in progress too.

The fact that the changes accumulate too slow for you to witness this in real-
time does not mean it does not happen.

Any scientist that works in biology claiming that human evolution has stopped
will soon find himself/herself the laughingstock of his profession.

~~~
trapper
Most layman I have talked to think of evolution as having a fitness function
selecting for perfection. Most of these type of arguments end up being about
environmental pressure selecting non-desired traits rather than evolution per
se. It's a terminology problem. The arguments are correct if you ignore this.

I like "descent with modification" when explaining what evolution is to
layman. They find it easier to understand as the term isn't so loaded.

~~~
gravitycop
_I like "descent with modification" when explaining what evolution is to
layman._

What, then, would _de_ volution be?

~~~
kaens
_De_ volution is a nonsense concept.

~~~
gravitycop
So, then, are _higher mammals_ and _higher animals_ misnamed?
<http://www.google.com/search?q=%22higher+mammals%22>

<http://www.google.com/search?q=%22higher+animals%22>

The Encyclopedia Britannica mentions plants that are more highly evolved than
others: <http://www.google.com/search?q=%22highly+evolved+plants%22>

<http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/463192/plant>

_for example, the most highly evolved plants reproduce by means of seeds, and,
in the most advanced of all plants (angiosperms), a reproductive organ called
a flower is formed._

~~~
kaens
I'm confused as to what you think the term _higher mammals_ or _higher
animals_ has to do with the term _devolution_.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devolution_(biological_fallacy)>

~~~
gravitycop
The existence of _high_ er mammals and _high_ er animals implies the existence
of _low_ er mammals and _low_ er animals, and therefore possible _de_
volutionary directions.

~~~
kaens
I suggest you read the wikipedia link? The terms higher and lower are, as far
as I understand, mostly just there for classifying the amount of complexity
present in an organism - there's not some "these organisms are _better_ than
these other ones" thing going on.

Unless you mean something entirely different than what most people mean when
they say "devolution", what you are referring to is just evolution. The same
way that "reverse racism" is just racism.

~~~
gravitycop
>> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devolution_(biological_fallacy)>

_I suggest you read the wikipedia link_

I read it before you gave the link. The discussion page conflicts with the
current state of the main page.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Devolution_(biological_fal...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Devolution_\(biological_fallacy\)#Supposed_non-
existence_of_de-evolution)

 _evolution can be both 'progressive' and 'regressive'. [...] if a population
deteriorates genetically it certainly is something like 'devolution', and this
article completely ignores this issue. [...] deterioration, misconceptions
aside, is a real thing, and we need to stop giving people the impression that
it is only a 'fallacy'._

~~~
kaens
Alright.

I said " _De_ volution is a nonsense concept" because, as I stated before,
what is referred to by "devolution" is _just_ evolution. The term, as used
commonly, implies some sort of objective heirarchy to evolution, and although
organisms may get labeled with terms describing their complexity, that does
not mean that one has somehow "devolved" if it evolves into an organism with
less complexity. It has just evolved.

Edit:

There's not much disagreeance on the page. There are people talking about
using the term to describe something that actually happens, but they aren't
talking about what most people mean when they say "devolution".

~~~
gravitycop
_The term [devolution], as used commonly, implies some sort of objective
heirarchy to evolution_

Yes. Such an objective hierarchy of species is frequently referred-to in
Charles Darwin's, _The Descent of Man_.
<http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext00/dscmn10.txt>

_Von Baer has defined advancement or progress in the organic scale better than
any one else, as resting on the amount of differentiation and specialisation
of the several parts of a being [...] In accordance with this view it seems,
if we turn to geological evidence, that organisation on the whole has advanced
throughout the world by slow and interrupted steps. In the great kingdom of
the Vertebrata it has culminated in man.[...]

Thus we have given to man a pedigree of prodigious length, but not, it may be
said, of noble quality. The world, it has often been remarked, appears as if
it had long been preparing for the advent of man [...] The most humble
organism is something much higher than the inorganic dust under our feet; and
no one with an unbiassed mind can study any living creature, however humble,
without being struck with enthusiasm at its marvellous structure and
properties. [...]

no animal voluntarily imitates an action performed by man, until in the
ascending scale we come to monkeys [...]

this is the first case known to me in the ascending scale of the animal
kingdom [...]

It is generally admitted, that the higher animals possess memory, attention,
association, and even some imagination and reason. If these powers, which
differ much in different animals, are capable of improvement, there seems no
great improbability in more complex faculties, such as the higher forms of
abstraction, and self-consciousness, etc., having been evolved through the
development and combination of the simpler ones. It has been urged against the
views here maintained that it is impossible to say at what point in the
ascending scale animals become capable of abstraction, etc.; [...]

He who believes in the advancement of man from some low organised form, will
naturally ask how does this bear on the belief in the immortality of the soul.
[...]

I am aware that the conclusions arrived at in this work will be denounced by
some as highly irreligious; but he who denounces them is bound to shew why it
is more irreligious to explain the origin of man as a distinct species by
descent from some lower form [...]

In the lower divisions of the animal kingdom, sexual selection seems to have
done nothing: such animals are often affixed for life to the same spot, or
have the sexes combined in the same individual, or what is still more
important, their perceptive and intellectual faculties are not sufficiently
advanced to allow of the feelings of love and jealousy, or of the exertion of
choice. When, however, we come to the Arthropoda and Vertebrata, even to the
lowest classes in these two great Sub-Kingdoms, sexual selection has effected
much. [...]

Man, like every other animal, has no doubt advanced to his present high
condition [...] and if he is to advance still higher [...] Otherwise he would
sink into indolence [...]

The main conclusion arrived at in this work, namely, that man is descended
from some lowly organised form, will, I regret to think, be highly distasteful
to many. [...]

Man may be excused for feeling some pride at having risen, though not through
his own exertions, to the very summit of the organic scale; and the fact of
his having thus risen, instead of having been aboriginally placed there, may
give him hope for a still higher destiny in the distant future. [...] with his
god-like intellect which has penetrated into the movements and constitution of
the solar system--with all these exalted powers--Man still bears in his bodily
frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin._

~~~
kaens
Look, I don't know if you're drunk, or if you just want to argue, or why this
is so important to you, but I'm done arguing this.

If you seriously think that we haven't changed our theories of evolution since
Darwin, there's not much I can do about that.

I'm not a biologist, but it seems to me that evolution refers to combined
mutations over time and not much more, regardless of the perceived "direction"
of those mutations. I imagine I would be more frustrated than I am already if
I were a biologist.

~~~
jacquesm
that is HN's resident troll:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=482311>
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=480986>

His m.o. is usually to take some weird position and to argue incessantly with
all kinds of links to support his position thrown in for good measure.

The interesting thing here is it seems to work, he gets modded up quite
frequently and scores tons of karma like this.

------
tokenadult
"Scientific orthodoxy says that human evolution stopped a long time ago."

No it doesn't. I call blarney on this article.

~~~
jballanc
That was in the title...did you bother to read any further?

~~~
tokenadult
Yes. The book review was written by someone less familiar with the research
than I would have desired. The opening line I objected to was probably
inserted by a Wall Street Journal editor, but the book under review is less
impressive than, say,

[http://www.amazon.com/The-Nature-of-
Intelligence/dp/B000PY4U...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Nature-of-
Intelligence/dp/B000PY4UU2/)

or

[http://www.amazon.com/Nature-Paleolithic-Art-Dale-
Guthrie/dp...](http://www.amazon.com/Nature-Paleolithic-Art-Dale-
Guthrie/dp/0226311260/)

or other books I've read on closely related subjects. This is a subject that
deserves a lot of books, but one might as well read the better books.

------
kaens
No. People need to stop asking this.

As far as I understand it, evolution is not a thing that stops.

I am significantly annoyed at the propagation of stuff like this. It's like
this horrible catch-22 where such a small amount of the population actually
understands current theory, and the rest just have these really off-the-wall
interpretations, with a similarly small percentage admitting that they have no
clue what they're talking about - like how the (stereotypical) average
american citizen thinks of abiogenesis, evolution, and the big bang as one big
lump of a theory.

Please, correct me if I'm wrong, but saying somethings "evolution has stopped"
is nonsense, right?

~~~
bianco
I have a dumb question: how can a _theory_ stop?

~~~
endtime
Evolution is a process. Processes can stop. No one is suggesting that the
theory of evolution has stopped; as you point out, that would not be a
meaningful statement.

------
chris11
I was unimpressed by their analysis of the genetic causes of intelligence.
Just because some genetic disorders and intelligence happen to be correlated
doesn't mean that both are caused by the same gene. I think the reasoning in
this article was incredibly sloppy.

------
turtle3
It is an interesting discussion.

The article's points about evolution continuing in terms of disease
prevention, ability to fight germs, etc. are understandable, as with greater
population density, exposure to those things do go up.

On the other hand, every time we make a scientific advance which allows people
to continue living/reproducing when they wouldn't have before, we lower the
selection criteria, and it seems like this would have to slow evolution as a
result, right?

------
10ren
Whatever is causing today's lower fertility rates is a profound pressure on
human evolution.

------
bianco
There is macroevolution (molecule-to-man theory) and microevolution (no
increase in complexity and no new species).

And then there is natural selection, which decreases the amount of variation
of a species.

It's very important to keep different things separate.

~~~
jballanc
Macroevolution vs. microevolution is a false dichotomy dreamed up by the
Creationism/ID crowd. It's the way they allow themselves to acknowledge
incontrovertible evidence for evolution, like acquiring antibiotic resistance,
while still denying evolution.

Unless you can give me a strict definition of the boundary between macro and
micro, then they're all the same governed by the same laws.

------
vaksel
only in the south

