Rapid Acceleration in Human Evolution

[Darth Fanboy]

Whose undies will be bunched first?

By Will Dunham

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Human evolution has been moving at breakneck speed in the past several thousand years, far from plodding along as some scientists had thought, researchers said on Monday.

In fact, people today are genetically more different from people living 5,000 years ago than those humans were different from the Neanderthals who vanished 30,000 years ago, according to anthropologist John Hawks of the University of Wisconsin.

The genetic changes have related to numerous different human characteristics, the researchers said.

Many of the recent genetic changes reflect differences in the human diet brought on by agriculture, as well as resistance to epidemic diseases that became mass killers following the growth of human civilizations, the researchers said.

For example, Africans have new genes providing resistance to malaria. In Europeans, there is a gene that makes them better able to digest milk as adults. In Asians, there is a gene that makes ear wax more dry.

The changes have been driven by the colossal growth in the human population -- from a few million to 6.5 billion in the past 10,000 years -- with people moving into new environments to which they needed to adapt, added Henry Harpending, a University of Utah anthropologist.

"The central finding is that human evolution is happening very fast -- faster than any of us thought," Harpending said in a telephone interview.

"Most of the acceleration is in the last 10,000 years, basically corresponding to population growth after agriculture is invented," Hawks said in a telephone interview.

The research appears in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

FAVORABLE GENE MUTATIONS

The researchers looked for the appearance of favorable gene mutations over the past 80,000 years of human history by analyzing voluminous DNA information on 270 people from different populations worldwide.

Data from this International HapMap Project, short for haplotype mapping, offered essentially a catalogue of genetic differences and similarities in people alive today.

Looking at such data, scientists can ascertain how recently a given genetic change appeared in the genome and then can plot the pace of such change into the distant past.

Beneficial genetic changes have appeared at a rate roughly 100 times higher in the past 5,000 years than at any previous period of human evolution, the researchers determined. They added that about 7 percent of human genes are undergoing rapid, relatively recent evolution.

Even with these changes, however, human DNA remains more than 99 percent identical, the researchers noted.

Harpending said the genetic evidence shows that people worldwide have been getting less similar rather than more similar due to the relatively recent genetic changes.

Genes have evolved relatively quickly in Africa, Asia and Europe but almost all of the changes have been unique to their corner of the world. This is the case, he said, because since humans dispersed from Africa to other parts of the world about 40,000 years ago, there has not been much flow of genes between the regions.

So what's the hardcore creationist crowd going to say when they realize this means that we're no longer technically in God's image hmmmmm?

[SCRawl]

So what's the hardcore creationist crowd going to say when they realize this means that we're no longer technically in God's image hmmmmm?

I'm not sure that dryer ear wax will be a compelling case for your hardcore crowd. In any case, they'll chalk it up to the Great Evolutionist Conspiracy, and dismiss it out of hand. Haven't you learned yet that more evidence makes for a less compelling argument with these people?

[Darth Fanboy]

So what's the hardcore creationist crowd going to say when they realize this means that we're no longer technically in God's image hmmmmm?

I'm not sure that dryer ear wax will be a compelling case for your hardcore crowd. In any case, they'll chalk it up to the Great Evolutionist Conspiracy, and dismiss it out of hand. Haven't you learned yet that more evidence makes for a less compelling argument with these people?

Oh I know. Nothing is ever going to change THEIR mind, but nevertheless this is a big revelation it could go a long way to helping people understand that genetic diversity is a good thing *crosses fingers*.

[Dooey Jo]

Why must these things always be discussed in terms of how creationists are going to react?

[CaptainChewbacca]

If I found I had a mutant power and it was dry earwax, I'd be PISSED.

[Coalition]

I'd be concerned that they will use this argument and try to show that other animals are capable of similar rapid evolution. I.e. The 'kinds' of animals brought on the Ark, then evolved into the different forms today.

Something along the lines of, "This scientific document shows that rapid evolution is going on, therefore with this rate, you would have had this many species of dogs from one common ancestor within XX number of years, amazingly at the same date as we preicted for Noah's Ark'.

[Darth Servo]

Why must these things always be discussed in terms of how creationists are going to react?

Because

1. They're the ones desperately trying to stop all this research
2. They're the ones who are going to whine, moan, complain and otherwise make complete pests of themselves over such news.
3. They're the most fun to mock.

[Gullible Jones]

I'm waiting for the racialists to get a hold of this one. Once they see it, they'll never shut up...

[Cykeisme]

How do the selective pressures manifest?

Did people in Asia with drier earwax have a greater chance of surviving and having more offspring? If so, why?

[Darth Servo]

I'm waiting for the racialists to get a hold of this one. Once they see it, they'll never shut up...

<White Supremacits Asshole>
Ha-ha, we can drink milk as adults better than any other race. We're superior.
</WSA>

Thats hardly comparable to the idioty they've BEEN claiming--"whites are smarter, whites are the best military power in the world, whites are created in God's image" yadda, yadda, yadda.

[Guardsman Bass]

Dr. Harpending was the professor in the anthropology class I took called "Human Origins and Evolution." I remember him talking about this, and the Ashkenazi Jew example in class.

[JointStrikeFighter]

How do the selective pressures manifest?

Did people in Asia with drier earwax have a greater chance of surviving and having more offspring? If so, why?

Asia is more humid so perhaps dryer earwax reduces the risk of ear infection?

[Drooling Iguana]

Bah, this is all just microevolution! Everyone knows that creatures can naturally diverge up to a certain point, but then a giant invisible wall spontaneously appears to prevent any new species from forming! Anything else is simply evilutionist lies! Exclamation point!

[Dooey Jo]

Because

1. They're the ones desperately trying to stop all this research
2. They're the ones who are going to whine, moan, complain and otherwise make complete pests of themselves over such news.
3. They're the most fun to mock.

But everybody already know what the standard fundie retorts are. They'll say "microevolution" and/or "curse of Adam", because they never change. How much fun is it, really, when all everyone does is say the same "lawlz I am a fundie" lines all the time? It won't make the actual fundies stop, and it won't make anyone laugh, so what's the point, really? I can't be the only one that's getting a bit tired of this.

<White Supremacits Asshole>
Ha-ha, we can drink milk as adults better than any other race. We're superior.
</WSA>

Thats hardly comparable to the idioty they've BEEN claiming--"whites are smarter, whites are the best military power in the world, whites are created in God's image" yadda, yadda, yadda.

What they will say is that these beneficial traits came to be because it is good to keep populations separated and that interbreeding will dilute them. At least the more "sophisticated" ones.

[Zablorg]

I wonder if there is any word on asians having an increased tolerance towards alchohol?

I saw in this human variety documentary, how apparently asians get pissed on alchohol quicker than caucasians due to the fact that long ago, when faced with the problem of how to clean their drinking water, the east and the west found different ways of getting about it. The east found that making tea out of it worked just dandy. The west on the other hand, decided to disinfect it by making it alchoholic. Thus, europeans and such have a higher tolerance towards alchohol than that of asians, natural selection and all that.

But now that national trade has been set up I'm curious as to whether that is changing.

[Zixinus]

I think that the scale of change here is simply overblown. Somehow I don't think that dryer earwax requires massive changes in DNA. This is not rapid at all, in fact, it is likely that these changes are old. They merely noticed these stuff now.

I can't be the only one that's getting a bit tired of this.

Second that! I for one have a headache every time I hear the word creationist.

[Alyrium Denryle]

I think that the scale of change here is simply overblown. Somehow I don't think that dryer earwax requires massive changes in DNA. This is not rapid at all, in fact, it is likely that these changes are old. They merely noticed these stuff now.

I can't be the only one that's getting a bit tired of this.

Second that! I for one have a headache every time I hear the word creationist.

I should note. The rate of mutation did not change. Just the selective pressure. In a village of 15 families, the guy that can digest lactose and thus drink tasty nutritious milk is going to sire pretty much every other guy's kids, not sure on the earwax... but if you dont think developing resistance to Malaria is selected for...

[Darth Fanboy]

Second that! I for one have a headache every time I hear the word creationist.

Well then don't read these type of threads out loud.

[Rye]

Creationists will just say it's "intra kind variation" or some such bullshit. They think H Erectus is a deformed modern human after all. Besides, it's obvious that these mutations have just removed information so it's just an example of the entropy since The Fall.