> We've pretty much stopped evolving as a species through natural selection events.
This is quite false. All that has happened is that we've (to some extent) replaced genes with memes, and memes evolve just like genes do.
Evolution is still underway, actively and blindly selecting individuals and ideas with equal efficiency.
> There's not much of that happening in the homogenized urban setting where the majority of people live, and will live for the foreseeable future.
I'll just give one example that falsifies the thesis -- what is called Asperger Syndrome (AS). A thousand years ago, someone having the behaviors associated with AS might be at a significant evolutionary disadvantage compared to someone who could pick more olives up off the ground. But today, the AS behaviors represent a distinct advantage because the environment has changed in ways that favor that mental wiring, such that a number of AS "sufferers" (to use the psychological terminology) are famous -- Bill Gates, Albert Einstein, Thomas Jefferson and many others identified as having AS.
AS is so obviously an advantage in modern times that another psychological school of thought called "Grit" goes so far as to describe the same behavior pattern as an advantage:
Of course, the Grit people don't call it AS or even mention AS, they just say how advantageous it is to have the intense focus and obsession with only a few activities (or even one) this behavior produces in many modern success stories.
It's evolution at work. I'm sure many more examples could be found, less dramatic than this one.
Evolution is the central theory of biology, and it didn't just stop for human beings when we built the first TV set or began dwelling in arenas of pure thought -- quite the contrary.
Success in the way you describe it has nothing to do with evolution. To choose someone at random - Sarah Palin is almost twice as successful as Gates or Einstein (she's had 5 children - those two only 3 each).
Unless people with AS / Grit have more children than those without, there's no selective pressure to increase the prevalence of the trait in the population. You could consider health of the children - so maybe you should count great-grandchildren rather than direct children.
BUT - I agree that evolution probably hasn't stopped - it just is selecting for different traits than it did 15,000 years ago. What exactly is being selected for in US in 2014, I can't say.
This is quite false. All that has happened is that we've (to some extent) replaced genes with memes, and memes evolve just like genes do.
Evolution is still underway, actively and blindly selecting individuals and ideas with equal efficiency.
> There's not much of that happening in the homogenized urban setting where the majority of people live, and will live for the foreseeable future.
I'll just give one example that falsifies the thesis -- what is called Asperger Syndrome (AS). A thousand years ago, someone having the behaviors associated with AS might be at a significant evolutionary disadvantage compared to someone who could pick more olives up off the ground. But today, the AS behaviors represent a distinct advantage because the environment has changed in ways that favor that mental wiring, such that a number of AS "sufferers" (to use the psychological terminology) are famous -- Bill Gates, Albert Einstein, Thomas Jefferson and many others identified as having AS.
AS is so obviously an advantage in modern times that another psychological school of thought called "Grit" goes so far as to describe the same behavior pattern as an advantage:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grit_(personality_trait)
Of course, the Grit people don't call it AS or even mention AS, they just say how advantageous it is to have the intense focus and obsession with only a few activities (or even one) this behavior produces in many modern success stories.
It's evolution at work. I'm sure many more examples could be found, less dramatic than this one.
Evolution is the central theory of biology, and it didn't just stop for human beings when we built the first TV set or began dwelling in arenas of pure thought -- quite the contrary.