The Increasing Pace of Human Evolution

[monk222]

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An article in Scientific American relates research that concludes culture has sped up human evolution in the last ten thousand years, "a host of changes to everything from digestion to bones has been taking place", attributed to the increasing complexity of society and the increase in the population.

A striking note is also raised with respect to Africans, for whom it is reported that the rate of evolutionary change has been slower, due to the fact that the population has not had to undergo the more dramatic adaptations that those who migrated to Europe and Asia had to undergo in their new climates:

Not all populations show the same evolutionary speed. For example, Africans show a slightly lower mutation rate. "Africans haven't had to adapt to a fundamentally new climate," because modern humanity evolved where they live, Cochran says. "Europeans and East Asians, living in environments very different from those of their African ancestors and early adopters of agriculture, were more maladapted, less fitted to their environments."

One cannot help drawing an association to the recent debate on race and IQ. However, if there is a connection, the overall thrust of these findings is positive, in that our differences are more about culture rather than something innate, and hence malleable and progressive.

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Comments

[miss-next.livejournal.com]

Regarding that article, check this as well.

[hardblue.livejournal.com]

Thanks, Miss Next! Perhaps you can help me a little, though. Is this distinction between SNPs and "genes" such as to throw out the substantive conclusions of the article? notwithstanding the complaint that the work hasn't been vetted by professionals yet.

[miss-next.livejournal.com]

Probably not, but I'm not an expert in this particular field, so don't take that as certain. I really posted the link more as a warning against over-enthusiastic and underinformed science journalists.

If there's one thing I've learnt from working here, it is this: always go and look at the original journal article behind the news story if you possibly can.

[hardblue.livejournal.com]

I have appreciated this shadowy side of the Internet and its news, as I have certainly gotten burned on regular news stories before. It is probably just going to continue to be one of my pitfalls. If it looks anything like a reputable source, such as I take "Scientific American" to be, which I've always taken to be one of the quality science periodicals going back way before the Internet, I'll run with it. It's awkward for me to be wrong, but it's no big deal, this being just a personal blog.

[miss-next.livejournal.com]

You may perfectly well still be quite right. The thing is, it's hard to tell one way or the other. Even the original journal article isn't guaranteed to be right, but it is at least guaranteed to be a conscientious and scientific attempt to explain some observed phenomenon made by people who know what they are doing as far as is currently possible.

There's been quite a lot of sniping recently on Language Log about the poor quality of science journalism in general, though, and they have a fair point. Scientists, unless they have some gross bias, are out to discover the truth; that's the whole idea of science. Journalists, on the other hand, are out to sell papers, and if scientific truth isn't what they consider will be interesting to their audience, they will do their best to make it so. This isn't even always consciously dishonest. Often it's just a case of emphasising the bits that they think their readers will understand and relate to, whereas those aren't actually the bits that really matter.