NationStates Jolt Archive

COMMENTARY: What with the continuing furor over "intelligent design" and "creationism," I found this article to be very interesting. Seems those who hold that humans ceased evolving when we developed agriculture are wrong. Now if we could only develop a gene that would inhibit us from hurting each other.


Still Evolving, Human Genes Tell New Story (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/07/science/07evolve.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin)


By NICHOLAS WADE
Published: March 7, 2006
Providing the strongest evidence yet that humans are still evolving, researchers have detected some 700 regions of the human genome where genes appear to have been reshaped by natural selection, a principal force of evolution, within the last 5,000 to 15,000 years.

The genes that show this evolutionary change include some responsible for the senses of taste and smell, digestion, bone structure, skin color and brain function.

Many of these instances of selection may reflect the pressures that came to bear as people abandoned their hunting and gathering way of life for settlement and agriculture, a transition well under way in Europe and East Asia some 5,000 years ago.

Under natural selection, beneficial genes become more common in a population as their owners have more progeny.

Three populations were studied, Africans, East Asians and Europeans. In each, a mostly different set of genes had been favored by natural selection. The selected genes, which affect skin color, hair texture and bone structure, may underlie the present-day differences in racial appearance.

The study of selected genes may help reconstruct many crucial events in the human past. It may also help physical anthropologists explain why people over the world have such a variety of distinctive appearances, even though their genes are on the whole similar, said Dr. Spencer Wells, director of the Genographic Project of the National Geographic Society.

The finding adds substantially to the evidence that human evolution did not grind to a halt in the distant past, as is tacitly assumed by many social scientists. Even evolutionary psychologists, who interpret human behavior in terms of what the brain evolved to do, hold that the work of natural selection in shaping the human mind was completed in the pre-agricultural past, more than 10,000 years ago.

"There is ample evidence that selection has been a major driving point in our evolution during the last 10,000 years, and there is no reason to suppose that it has stopped," said Jonathan Pritchard, a population geneticist at the University of Chicago who headed the study.

Dr. Pritchard and his colleagues, Benjamin Voight, Sridhar Kudaravalli and Xiaoquan Wen, report their findings in today's issue of PLOS-Biology.

Their data is based on DNA changes in three populations gathered by the HapMap project, which built on the decoding of the human genome in 2003. The data, though collected to help identify variant genes that contribute to disease, also give evidence of evolutionary change.

The fingerprints of natural selection in DNA are hard to recognize. Just a handful of recently selected genes have previously been identified, like those that confer resistance to malaria or the ability to digest lactose in adulthood, an adaptation common in Northern Europeans whose ancestors thrived on cattle milk.

But the authors of the HapMap study released last October found many other regions where selection seemed to have occurred, as did an analysis published in December by Robert K. Moysis of the University of California, Irvine.

Dr. Pritchard's scan of the human genome differs from the previous two because he has developed a statistical test to identify just genes that have started to spread through populations in recent millennia and have not yet become universal, as many advantageous genes eventually do.

The selected genes he has detected fall into a handful of functional categories, as might be expected if people were adapting to specific changes in their environment. Some are genes involved in digesting particular foods like the lactose-digesting gene common in Europeans. Some are genes that mediate taste and smell as well as detoxify plant poisons, perhaps signaling a shift in diet from wild foods to domesticated plants and animals.

Dr. Pritchard estimates that the average point at which the selected genes started to become more common under the pressure of natural selection is 10,800 years ago in the African population and 6,600 years ago in the Asian and European populations.

Dr. Richard G. Klein, a paleoanthropologist at Stanford, said that it was hard to correlate the specific gene changes in the three populations with events in the archaeological record, but that the timing and nature of the changes in the East Asians and Europeans seemed compatible with the shift to agriculture. Rice farming became widespread in China 6,000 to 7,000 years ago, and agriculture reached Europe from the Near East around the same time.

Skeletons similar in form to modern Chinese are hard to find before that period, Dr. Klein said, and there are few European skeletons older than 10,000 years that look like modern Europeans.

That suggests that a change in bone structure occurred in the two populations, perhaps in connection with the shift to agriculture. Dr. Pritchard's team found that several genes associated with embryonic development of the bones had been under selection in East Asians and Europeans, and these could be another sign of the forager-to-farmer transition, Dr. Klein said.

[ This article is two pages long. To read the rest of the article, go here (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/07/science/07evolve.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&th&emc=th). ]

The only problem is that the ID people can't read. :D

Hate to turn this into a flame war, but this does remind me of this thing I read about race and intelligence. Europeans and Asians were considerably higher.

Hate to turn this into a flame war, but this does remind me of this thing I read about race and intelligence. Europeans and Asians were considerably higher.
I'd say this comment is nothing more than a blatant thread hijacking, as it has absolutely nothing to do with the opening post, nor with any previous comments on the thread. If you want to bring that kind of crap up, start your own thread.

Does this mean we'll turn into super psychics over time?! :D

or just that our skin color will change over time. ;p

What color are going to be? Especially with Global Warming. I would assume Black or Brown. I'd love to see what type of racism there would be, when everyone is of the same color. ;)

Does this mean we'll turn into super psychics over time?! :D

or just that our skin color will change over time. ;p

What color are going to be? Especially with Global Warming. I would assume Black or Brown. I'd love to see what type of racism there would be, when everyone is of the same color. ;)

That'll be cancelled out by Ice Age/nuclear winter.

What color are going to be? Especially with Global Warming. I would assume Black or Brown. I'd love to see what type of racism there would be, when everyone is of the same color. ;)

I thought you said you were Jewish - you should know quite a lot about racism directed towards people of the same colour, unfortunately.

Hate to turn this into a flame war, but this does remind me of this thing I read about race and intelligence. Europeans and Asians were considerably higher.

I still think if a Bushman or an Aboriginee makes an IQ-test, THEY will do by much better than we. It's all a question of definition, IMNSCO.

Funny thing about this is that these facts are unacceptable and must be suppressed by both US leftists and conservatives. Leftists because they believe everyone is the same as an article of faith, conservatives because it's politically advantageous to tout the creationism crap.

Leftists because they believe everyone is the same as an article of faith

There is a difference between wanting to treat the same, and believing to be the same. I've not heard anyone deny that there are differences - I've only heard them deny that they are bigger or more important than our commonalities. Remember - the left is usually the ones who side with multiculturalism and celebration of differences, but are opposed to those differences becoming cause for adverse treatment. In simplified theory, at least.

Meh. We outpaced evolution with technology years ago.

The only problem is that the ID people can't read. :D
LOL! You nut! :D

LOL! You nut! :D
Well okay--they can read, but they're obviously lacking in the comprehension area, because the evidence for natural selection is overwhelming and has been since before humans even knew what to look for. What they're really guilty of is willful blindness.

Hate to turn this into a flame war, but this does remind me of this thing I read about race and intelligence. Europeans and Asians were considerably higher.
Sigh. How many times, Oh Lord?

Race is an artificial construct having no basis in either biology or behavior. It is based on nothing more than things like skin color, which varies all across the human spectrum. The basic category which the biological sciences recognize is the species. The primary characteristic held in common by the members of any given species is that they have viable offspring which later become themselves fertile. All humans seem to be able to do this. Ergo, we are all the same species.

Social Scientists can be such idiots some times. Makes me wonder why I study one. How on earth did they do around explaining the differences between say the nomadic Masai and shorter, stockier Northern Europeans? Before the Nothern Europeans settled they would have to have been able hunters - more athletic and lankier.
The average Dutchman, whose country produces the Continent's loftiest men, is now more than six feet tall - almost two inches above his American counterpart.
...
For British men, too, are outstripping their transatlantic rivals. At the time of the American Revolution, the average US male was two inches taller than his British counterpart. Today he is almost half an inch shorter.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1185457,00.html

Social Scientists can be such idiots some times. Makes me wonder why I study one. How on earth did they do around explaining the differences between say the nomadic Masai and shorter, stockier Northern Europeans? Before the Nothern Europeans settled they would have to have been able hunters - more athletic and lankier.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1185457,00.html
One possible explanation lies with immigration. As more Mexicans and Chinese enter the US, these individuals may lower the average height, it is argued. But statisticians dismiss this suggestion. During the 19th century the country took in millions of malnourished, and therefore small, people. Yet Americans remained the tallest people in the world at that time.

Do Americans blame everything on immagrants?

Well okay--they can read, but they're obviously lacking in the comprehension area, because the evidence for natural selection is overwhelming and has been since before humans even knew what to look for. What they're really guilty of is willful blindness.

I don't know any IDers that deny natural selection, or the role of mutations in providing variation for natural selection to 'work'. The question is whether natural selection is sufficient to account for the development of a pre-human into a human.

I didn't find much in the above article that would favour either the ID side or the naturalistic side. I found it quite an interesting article. Why indeed would we expect that humans are not undergoing natural selection?

I don't know about evolution, but I've seen evidence of devolution!

Do Americans blame everything on immagrants?If immigrants are the source of the American populace getting shorter then, as I'm aware, that would be classed as evolution (a new set of DNA being added to the gene pool).

And with the current trend towards couples remaining childless there will be natural selection of genes that encourage the paternal/maternal instinct.

The Scotish and the Welsh have already devolved, whilst the English have, so far, resisted devolution. ;)

Why indeed would we expect that humans are not undergoing natural selection?

Just look at Hollywood.

Social Scientists can be such idiots some times. Makes me wonder why I study one. How on earth did they do around explaining the differences between say the nomadic Masai and shorter, stockier Northern Europeans? Before the Nothern Europeans settled they would have to have been able hunters - more athletic and lankier.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1185457,00.html

If you mean, what I think you mean.... height and build are not just factors that impact hunting ability. You might want to bear in mind the smaller bodies are proportionally stronger (which might matter depending on prey, and availability) and can require less consumed material (more per pound of bodyweight, perhaps... but not more per body).

During the 19th century the country took in millions of malnourished, and therefore small, people.

And if you cut tails off mice, they have tailless descendents! Well known fact... in the 19th century.

If you mean, what I think you mean.... height and build are not just factors that impact hunting ability. You might want to bear in mind the smaller bodies are proportionally stronger (which might matter depending on prey, and availability) and can require less consumed material (more per pound of bodyweight, perhaps... but not more per body).I was thinking about that, but also that the less varied diet that would have emerged in an agarian society could have caused the stockiness of the Europeans, which would explain why those who emmigrated to the Americas became taller than their European counterparts.

But I've made another point about Western societies tendency towards DINKs. Since they have no offspring any gene that has drawn them away from having kids won't survive. Whereas those who had kids will pass on any genes that may have disposed them towards having kids.

But also there have been numerous epidemics and pandemics in humanitiy's history. This will have favoured those with stronger immune systems.

I was thinking about that, but also that the less varied diet that would have emerged in an agarian society could have caused the stockiness of the Europeans, which would explain why those who emmigrated to the Americas became taller than their European counterparts.


Possible contributing factor. It doesn't affect the genetic programming, of course... but diet and environment can (obviously) determine the extent or nature of the reaction our 'natural' predispositions will have.

But why are the vietnamese so short :rolleyes:

But why are the vietnamese so short :rolleyes:
Why not?

I have no doubt that the future holds strange and wonderful things for the human race. We use our brains a lot, they'll probably get bigger, but we have little use for our body hair, so that'll probably disappear.
Wonder if we'll sprout an extra finger? An extra eye on the back of our heads wouldn't go astray, it'll stop people from bumping into things from behind...

But seriously though, there are a lot of genetic abnormalities, could they be the product of mother nature 'trying things out'? Interesting...

But why are the vietnamese so short :rolleyes:

A person is short only when compared to a taller person. Maybe other, non Vietnamese people are too tall!

Not so much as a nibble from this quarter. I half-expect Truss to seize upon anything I might have to offer as some semi-private form of amusement anyway, so I might as well spare myself the bother and let the usual lightweights banter this back and forth instead.

Enjoy.

Why indeed would we expect that humans are not undergoing natural selection?

In the past, probably even in the last few hundred years to some extent, we have undoubtedly evolved, but now stupid medical science has pretty much put a stop to all that. Survival of the fittest doesnt really work when doctors can keep the unfit alive to reproduce. on the other hand, in developing countries, the lack of medicine and doctors, combined with the high birth rates, could mean that eventually the people in developing countries will evolve to be superior to the rest of us.

So next time you get sick, have the decency to die so that someone better can impregnate your wife and out-evolve them damn foreigners.

Hate to turn this into a flame war, but this does remind me of this thing I read about race and intelligence. Europeans and Asians were considerably higher.
The last study I saw simply said that intelligence is inherited. No mention was made of race. Only smart people have smart chlildren, less smart people have less smart children. Intelligence could be a survival advantage as smart people make more money (on average) which can buy better medicine. But at the same time less smart people tend to have more children. So which tactic will evolution favor? Who knows.

It became controversial because almost immediatly people began making statements like the one above. The study itself didn't control for race.

-only read the title...sooo-

Wait haven't humans evolved in the last 500 yrs? With like growing immune to certain diseases, getting taller and built more fully due to better nutrition. If so, then really its no suprise that humans have evolved during the last 15,000 yrs.

But why are the vietnamese so short :rolleyes:

Most likely due to diet more than anything. I also have heard the theory that the closer that one group of peoples are to the equator the shorter they are. The reasoning being gravitational pull is greater at the equator than the far northern or southren areas.

The last study I saw simply said that intelligence is inherited. No mention was made of race. Only smart people have smart chlildren, less smart people have less smart children. Intelligence could be a survival advantage as smart people make more money (on average) which can buy better medicine. But at the same time less smart people tend to have more children. So which tactic will evolution favor? Who knows.

It became controversial because almost immediatly people began making statements like the one above. The study itself didn't control for race.


A logical conclusion I would think. Doesn't take alot of looking around to come up with the conclusion you just made.

Even if evolution is really causing differences in intelligence, it'd be very unintelligent to apply that generally to individuals.

Say there's blue people, and green people. The average IQ of a blue person is 100. The average IQ of a green person is 95. There's still going to be really dumb blue people and really smart green people.

One of the worst logical mistakes you can make is to take general trends and assume they apply equally to every case. After all, the tallest NBA player is Chinese.

People evolve to solve the difficulties that their species faces. At one time, it required abstract reasoning to find water. Humanity was reduced to a few thousand people -- and those thousand people were the ones smart enough to find water. So humanity became smarter. It's naive to think races that evolve separately won't be faced with different difficulties to overcome, and evolve differently.

And, it's commonly accepted that some races are taller, on average, than others. Why can't some be smarter, on average, than others? And, why can't some be smarter in some regards, and some be smarter in others? Intelligence can only be considered objective once you subjectively decide what you mean by 'intelligence'.

Most likely due to diet more than anything. I also have heard the theory that the closer that one group of peoples are to the equator the shorter they are. The reasoning being gravitational pull is greater at the equator than the far northern or southren areas.
Not gravity, heat. The larger the body mass the less skin per pound. The less heat loss per pound. I've heard that's why polar bears, whales, and walrus are so big. But then I'm sure someone will mention elephants.

New possible evidence of our evolutionary origins:

http://www.physorg.com/news11499.html

Five members of a Kurdish family in Turkey, who can only walk naturally on all fours, are being hailed as a unique insight into human evolution.

...Last year's discovery of the family in rural southern Turkey has produced a scientific debate: Some researchers believe genetic faults caused the siblings to regress in a form of "backward evolution," while other scientists claim genes triggered brain damage"

(Not sure if anyone else has posted that, anywhere here...)

New possible evidence of our evolutionary origins:

http://www.physorg.com/news11499.html



(Not sure if anyone else has posted that, anywhere here...)

i just read about that family yesterday. very interesting stuff...

The only problem is that the ID people can't read. :D

Well, that's natural selection for you. Literacy is a maladapative trait. A creationist who can absorb new data will "die," or at least cease to exist as a creationist.

Not gravity, heat. The larger the body mass the less skin per pound. The less heat loss per pound. I've heard that's why polar bears, whales, and walrus are so big. But then I'm sure someone will mention elephants.

Let them go ahead and mention elephants. Elephants are smaller than their extinct cousins to the north. Fits the pattern perfectly. Usually when people see a flaw in a well established pattern in science it's because they don't understand how to apply it.

Like how astronomers used to say that black holes can't exist because they violate the laws of thermodynamics. Or when the fundies say the same about evolution.

Even if evolution is really causing differences in intelligence, it'd be very unintelligent to apply that generally to individuals.

Say there's blue people, and green people. The average IQ of a blue person is 100. The average IQ of a green person is 95. There's still going to be really dumb blue people and really smart green people.

One of the worst logical mistakes you can make is to take general trends and assume they apply equally to every case. After all, the tallest NBA player is Chinese.

People evolve to solve the difficulties that their species faces. At one time, it required abstract reasoning to find water. Humanity was reduced to a few thousand people -- and those thousand people were the ones smart enough to find water. So humanity became smarter. It's naive to think races that evolve separately won't be faced with different difficulties to overcome, and evolve differently.

And, it's commonly accepted that some races are taller, on average, than others. Why can't some be smarter, on average, than others? And, why can't some be smarter in some regards, and some be smarter in others? Intelligence can only be considered objective once you subjectively decide what you mean by 'intelligence'.
IQ tests are inherently flawed and culture specific. Most tests are designed for European/American/Australian people. A person from the equator would have trouble answering a question about something like snow, for example. Race is also a purely human construct. We define it by skin color in general. There are tribes in Africa that are more genetically similar to Scandinavians than neighboring tribes.

One of the worst logical mistakes you can make is to take general trends and assume they apply equally to every case. After all, the tallest NBA player is Chinese.

That's called an existential fallacy. Drawing a particular conclusion from universal premises.

Yay for logic!

The one thing that everyone is ignoring when talking about natural selection is SEXUAL selection... the PRIMARY factor in evolution today. Since the species tends to be monogamous in nature, and survival is (artifically) high, the remaining factor is sex. Human intelligence (skewed towards the monogamous nature with a tendency for adultry/cuckoldery, but with a long long history of polygamy among nobles and despots) can really only explained in terms of sexual selection... as is about every other thing that differentiates humans from our "ancestors" of millions of years ago.

COMMENTARY: What with the continuing furor over "intelligent design" and "creationism," I
Only in America.

Indeed, Malletopia. In most developed nations, the question is less "will I die?" and more "who will sleep with me?"

Now that, as it's been said, most peoplecan survive, evolution is slowing down significantly. Still, I've always thought that too much blame and praise is placed on genetics. I'm more of a nurture than nature believer, myself. People tend to oversimplify, assuming "intelligence" (however it's defined) can be contained in a single (or even just a few) bits of DNA.

Indeed, Malletopia. In most developed nations, the question is less "will I die?" and more "who will sleep with me?"

Now that, as it's been said, most peoplecan survive, evolution is slowing down significantly. Still, I've always thought that too much blame and praise is placed on genetics. I'm more of a nurture than nature believer, myself. People tend to oversimplify, assuming "intelligence" (however it's defined) can be contained in a single (or even just a few) bits of DNA.


Nature/nurture, yay. I still don't get why people believe the two to be opposites; certain patterns and behaviours to be learned are pre-programmed, and the rest programmed with respect to it. Basically, an OS and software functions. Both compliment each other.

Well, I agree with you that the two are complimentary. I dunno, I just find people tend to be too ready to look to genetics to explain everything. I guess it appeals to the scientific mind: clear, simple causality. X+Y=Z, versus A+B+C+.... and so on. Ah, well.

Now if we could only develop a gene that would inhibit us from hurting each other.
Hey!
I like hurting people.

There is a genetic fact that animal breeders and farmers use. There are pure-bred animals and cross-breeds. Both have their advantages. Pure-bred animals are very predictable. Their characteristics are well known. You know exactly what you are going to get. But, to get a top producing animal, farmers cross pure-breds to get cross-breds with "hybrid vigor" (not hybrid in the sense of two different species) These animals, while less predictable, generally out grow and out perform pure-breds.

The question is, can this apply to humans? Are countries with less cross-breeding more predictable and countries with a great deal of cross-breeding more vigorous?

In the past, probably even in the last few hundred years to some extent, we have undoubtedly evolved, but now stupid medical science has pretty much put a stop to all that. Survival of the fittest doesnt really work when doctors can keep the unfit alive to reproduce. on the other hand, in developing countries, the lack of medicine and doctors, combined with the high birth rates, could mean that eventually the people in developing countries will evolve to be superior to the rest of us.

So next time you get sick, have the decency to die so that someone better can impregnate your wife and out-evolve them damn foreigners.

Modern medicine does not prevent natural selection, it just changes the parameters. In fact, you can change the parameters all you like, but you cannot remove natural selection. Nowadays, natural selection parameters are factors causing e.g. people to have less children, like increasing wealth and education. Following your logic, it would be better to keep everyone poor and uneducated, since poor people are likely to have more children.

What would be intelligent would be to find a way to encourage intelligent wealthy people to have more kids. However, most of the wealthy kids I know were not the sort I would want more of in this world anyway. I come from a family of 8 kids, and we were always the poorest in the school. I guess my parents did their part.

Personally, I have many friends that come out of developing countries, and I would not at all mind to see more of them in my country (Australia).