Rapid acceleration in human evolution described

[thegodfather]

When did scientists ever believe that this was a slow ongoing process??? Although that was a theory at one time, we now believe differently. Human evolution occurs with long periods of stasis marked by short periods of extremely fast evolutionary progress. This research just seems to reaffirm that. This is very interesting research, but my guess is with the rapid rate that we are changing our enviroment, we are applying a huge amount of selective pressures on our population.

And what they are referring to with Africans being resistant to malaria, is Sickel-Cell Anemia, and I'm pretty sure we classify that as a disease.

[Logan13]

When did scientists ever believe that this was a slow ongoing process??? Although that was a theory at one time, we now believe differently. Human evolution occurs with long periods of stasis marked by short periods of extremely fast evolutionary progress. This research just seems to reaffirm that. This is very interesting research, but my guess is with the rapid rate that we are changing our enviroment, we are applying a huge amount of selective pressures on our population.

And what they are referring to with Africans being resistant to malaria, is Sickel-Cell Anemia, and I'm pretty sure we classify that as a disease.

It is a mutation which causes more problems for those who do not live in areas where malaria is a real concern.

[thegodfather]

It is a mutation which causes more problems for those who do not live in areas where malaria is a real concern.

Most diseases are mutations, I wasnt disputing that. I have a lot of ideas about what the future of human evolution holds. Particularly, with regards to obesity and muscle mass. Exobiologists theorize that more "advanced" civilizations would be very small and in some cases would not need physical bodies at all, because their technology would advance so much they would have no need for muscles and things of that nature. Think about the amount of people who do physical labor on a daily basis as opposed to 100,200,300. . . years ago. Definatley an interesting study...good post...