Humans & Evolution

[sen_no_ongaku]

Thought: in the past few thousand years, genetic evolution in humans has been largely -- though not wholly -- supplanted by technological innovation.

What sets humans apart from other animals is the ability to adapt to selection pressure on an individual rather than generational level. For example, in response to colder temperatures, rather than grow a warmer coat of fur over a thousand years of breeding, we could simply kill a creature that already has a lot of hair and wear its skin. Another example might be the invention of spectacles for people with poor vision, a trait which would otherwise be crippling in.

This is not to say that such innovation can completely replace biological adaptation. Our technology has limits -- and we can see those limits; but we can also move them. Nevertheless, we can't guarantee we can move those limits in time.

Anyway, in the absence of the environment as a driver of evolution, are there other, perhaps societal sources of selection pressure?

Comments

[ellinor.livejournal.com]

I wonder if, in time, we will observe that the we have bred for the ability to develop and use tools. That would be consistent with your observations, but perhaps not not your postulate. Our tools have become more and more sophisticated, and we have become better and better at using them, as the species has progressed over the last several thousand years. Those who use tools better become safer and more attractive for breeding partners. Tools have always had danger involved with them too, from the physical danger of using a sharp tool to skin an animal, to the health dangers of the sedentary lifestyle inherent in using many of today's more sophisticated tools. Those who use the tools best while staying safe and healthy become the bellwethers for the next generation. Over thousands of years, we find that as a species we use better and more sophisticated tools (the question is whether we are inherently physically and mentally better suited to using them; I don't know the answer to that, but I suspect we are). Evolution, or coincidence? Dunno.


:)