Quote:
Originally Posted by charles brough
During the last seventy thousand years, social evolution among us has developed so fast that we ceased to need any further biological evolution.
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There are three observations I wish to make in relation to this Charles:
1. Your use of the word need (highlighted above) makes me very uncomfortable. It suggests a basic misunderstanding of the character and mechanisms of evolution. I am more than ready to learn that you were using this in a wholly metaphorical sense, but I should like to hear that directly from you. For the record neither we, nor any other organism on the planet, ever needed any biological evolution: in every instance it just happened.
2. You continue to make the flawed claim that evolution has ceased. (I note in passing some confusion on your part as to whether this evolution ceased 70,000 years ago, or 200,000 years ago. You might wish to clarify that.) There is a cornucopia of research relating to recent human evolution. I recommend you study some of it. If this claim is central to your thesis then your thesis is fatally flawed.
Here are a couple of examples to get you started:
Natural selection on protein-coding genes in the human genome : Nature
In the above, an analysis of selected genes reveals a strong correlation with Darwinian selection.
Convergent adaptation of human lactase persistence in Africa and Europe : Abstract : Nature Genetics
In this example the very recent (within the last 3000 years) convergent evolution of lasctose tolerance in East Africans is demonstrated.
Perhaps most damning for your argument is this example:
PLoS Genetics - Localizing Recent Adaptive Evolution in the Human Genome
This study of genome sequences in African-Americans, European-Americans and Chinese suggests that natural selection has caused as much as 10 percent of the human genome to change in some populations in the last 15,000 to 100,000 years.
3. You remark to Craig, "Also, I have no idea how you gained the impression I think the other great apes evolved biologically more than we!"
I'm going to take a pretty wild stab at it here, but do you think the thread title " the apes evolved but we don't!" might have contributed to that impression?
