Then again there might be advances in californication which will extend evolutionary tracks!
Posted on 10/07/2008 11:30:28 AM PDT by Sopater
Human evolution is grinding to a halt because of a shortage of older fathers in the West, according to a leading genetics expert.
Fathers over the age of 35 are more likely to pass on mutations, according to Professor Steve Jones of University College London.
Speaking Tuesday at a UCL lecture entitled "Human Evolution Is Over," Professor Jones will argue that there were three components to evolution — natural selection, mutation and random change.
"Quite unexpectedly, we have dropped the human mutation rate because of a change in reproductive patterns," Professor Jones told The Times.
"Human social change often changes our genetic future," he said, citing marriage patterns and contraception as examples.
Although chemicals and radioactive pollution could alter genetics, one of the most important mutation triggers is advanced age in men.
This is because cell divisions in males increase with age.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Jones’ thinking is pretty bad here. In the article (or a similar one I saw yesterday) they admit to a figure of hundreds of mutations in each individual (they cite 300, which is a reasonable guess from what I’ve read).
People, an average mutation level of 1 (ONE!) gives you inevitable error catastrophe leading to the extinction of the genome. Natural selection can only function, even in principle, when some indviduals are more healthy then the previous generation, and when the proportion of more-healthy and as-healthy individuals is large enough to pass along a healthy set of genes to future generations.
If too large a proportion of individuals have a less-healthy genome due to deleterious mutations, then there are only two possibilities: genomic entropy (the population becomes less fit), or extinction. With 300 mutations in every individual, more or less, and the vast majority of mutations being damaging, more or less, then what you have is a tidal wave of entropy that natural selection is pretty powerless to resist. It’s like trying to push back the tide with a shovel.
The old cop-out was that most mutations are neutral, because most genes are ‘junk’. That idea (’junk DNA’) has been discarded for some years, so the robust conclusion we face is that we are not evolving, but in danger of rapid devolution. Simulations I’ve seen (look up the software Mendel’s Accountant, free on the web), suggest a survival time in the thousands of generations for something like the human genome, at best.
My reaction to this article: Lol...
Maybe Pee Wee was ahead of his time. After all, wasn’t Nurse Nancy young and Pee Wee “old”?
He’s gonna be long since dead and dust when future historians will look back at his statement and say “File this guy under ‘Dimwits’.”
I’m sorry, but this is old news.
Obama is living proof of DEvolution.
Then again there might be advances in californication which will extend evolutionary tracks!
With all due respect to this gentleman’s credentials he is incorrect. Humans are changing (the factors causing the change are unclear). H. Sapiens is becoming more gracile. This trend has been going on for more that 10,000 years. In addition, our brains are becoming smaller. We do not know if they are becoming more folded. If not, we are becoming less smart that we were in the past. H. Sapiens had the largest brains about 25,000 years ago. Recall that our brain requires a lot of resources to function.
Well, I think we have a LOT of mutant fathers over 35 in the West - look at Congress.
He has no way of knowing. Noticeable changes occur over a long period of time. Not long enough for modern science to see a difference.
And, of course, in humans, there's also a tendency toward selective breeding....
Get thee to Mendeleev!
Another nutcase heard from!
The inheritance of traits doesn’t explain how those traits came to be. There are more alleles in the human population than can be accounted for by two individuals. Where did this genetic diversity come from?
There’s always some scientist somewhere wanting to declare things over. They’re usually not very good scientists.
The fact is knees, spines and sinuses are still a problem, so we still clearly have some evolving left to do.
Without variation there could be no genetics and no evolution so why is it there? Perhaps surprisingly we have no real idea; and I have spent many years studying the ecological genetics of snails, fruitflies and humans in an attempt to understand this issue.
Certain snails are very diverse in their shell characters, and I have collected hundreds of thousands of specimens from all over Europe in an attempt to find out why. I have also worked on fruit flies in variable environments, both in the wild and in the laboratory. At the moment I am particularly involved in looking at the interaction of thermal ecology and genetics in snails and in Drosophila.
8 years of under-graduate and post-graduate schooling.
According to one of my daughters in law, who has an advanced degree in sociology, dolphins are already smarter than humans. I’m not so sure ... I think it depends on which human they are being compared to.
I didn’t know it had ever begun :)
I believe it was God who created us in His image to begin with...you can’t get any better than that ;)
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