Top Geneticist: Human Evolution Is Over

Fox News ^ | Tuesday, October 07, 2008

[A_Former_Democrat]

Can’t wait to see a youtube of NObomba doing The Pogo.

[Coyoteman]

man is not Evolving, and never was evolving.

Who's this then? (In the center of the chart.)

---

Fossil: KNM-ER 3733

Site: Koobi Fora (Upper KBS tuff, area 104), Lake Turkana, Kenya (4, 1)

Discovered By: B. Ngeneo, 1975 (1)

Estimated Age of Fossil: 1.75 mya * determined by Stratigraphic, faunal, paleomagnetic & radiometric data (1, 4)

Species Name: Homo ergaster (1, 7, 8), Homo erectus (3, 4, 7), Homo erectus ergaster (25)

Gender: Female (species presumed to be sexually dimorphic) (1, 8)

Cranial Capacity: 850 cc (1, 3, 4)

Information: Tools found in same layer (8, 9). Found with KNM-ER 406 A. boisei (effectively eliminating single species hypothesis) (1)

Interpretation: Adult (based on cranial sutures, molar eruption and dental wear) (1)

See original source for notes:
Source: http://www.mos.org/evolution/fossils/fossilview.php?fid=33

Source

[LiteKeeper]

Can’t end what never started!

[razbinn]

"Human Evolution Is Over,"

Good!!!it was beginning to wear me out.....

[valkyry1]

Thats a construction of unrelated bone fragments.

[CholeraJoe]

Scientists used to think that the Platypus was a hoax, too.

[Rudder]

Human evolution is grinding to a halt

What a relief! It was getting to be a jungle out there. (badda-bing!)

[gwilhelm56]

Interesting, that ... Liberals Preach Evolution as GOSPEL, and at the same time, Preach WELFARE PROGRAMS to THWART it!

[Busywhiskers]

Is this another crisis that will require an expensive government response.

[count-your-change]

Not much but it does illustrate how one thing can be easily mistaken for another (Mendel) just as slight differences in humans is called evolution. As for the alleles of humans our understanding is obviously very, very incomplete and what could result from two humans and six billion combinations..who knows?
Have humans lost genetic information?

[allmendream]

No. Modern human populations have gained genetic information from the small population of our ancestors.

Two humans, even if they are heterozygous at every loci, contain a maximum of FOUR alleles.

There are a lot more than four alleles for many of our genes.

Where did this genetic diversity come from?

How did Africans become African while Europeans became European if not for natural selection of favorable traits in each environment?

Why wouldn't that be called evolution? Evolution is the change in allelic frequency of a population, and lo and behold alleles for an equatorial climate are favored in equatorial populations.

And yes, one can easily mistake one thing for another (Mendel for Mendeleev) if one lacks knowledge of the subject.

[SunkenCiv]

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[George - the Other]

It ain’t over ‘till the fat lady sings ;)

[wolfcreek]

Not only has the marriage patterns changed evolution, it has caused a disturbing change in the prodigy.

Older parents (whether they think so or not) can’t seem to keep up with or control their children. By the time the kids are teenagers, they rule the home.

[Sopater]

Older parents (whether they think so or not) can’t seem to keep up with or control their children. By the time the kids are teenagers, they rule the home.

Age has nothing to do with it. I don't have to keep up with my teenagers. As parents, my wife and I are in charge, not them. They certainly do not rule the home, nor would it be wise for them to attempt to.

And they are perfectly OK with that.

[wolfcreek]

Good for you and your Wife. Unfortunatly, you 2 are rare in today’s society.

IMO, waiting till your late 30s or early 40s to have children is not only against the natural progression of life but, does an injustice to your children.

[count-your-change]

To your question: I don’t know.

[allmendream]

The first step to gaining knowledge is the admission “I don't know”. That is why everything in Science is only accepted tentatively awaiting further confirmation or rejection or modification.

To me it is obvious that the differences in human populations are due to natural selection of genetic variation.

What should be obvious to anyone is that these differences in human populations are EVOLUTIONARY differences, due to differences in allelic frequency.

Dark skin alleles are more frequent in populations that need protection from the Sun, light skin alleles are more frequent in populations that need to synthesize vitamin D from indirect sunlight. Lactose persistence alleles are more common in populations that have access to milk as adults. Etc, etc.

What is obviously not true is that human populations have all stayed the same, i.e. haven't undergone evolutionary changes.

[count-your-change]

Two questions if I might since you’re familiar with the subject. Chicken or egg. If people did not have the alleles that produce dark skin already how would they have been able to live in tropical climes until evolution produced enough alleles to allow them to do so?

And might it not be equally plausible that those who already had dark skin alleles found they could populate these sunny areas (and inter-breed making dark skin more common) while those lacking many dark skin alleles would tolerate and favor less sunny areas?

Does my question make sense?

[allmendream]

Seeings as how the evidence shows early human populations came out of Africa I imagine they already had dark skin. The problem would be settling norther climes with indirect sunlight while getting enough sunlight to synthesize vitamin D. Lighter skin alleles would be selected for and darker skin alleles would be selected against.

As for where the alleles come from, human reproduction and DNA replication is an error prone process. Genetic variation always arises from an expanding population.

No matter which way you slice it, all the different alleles could not have been present in two human beings (maximum allelic variety of four), and it is mathematically impossible that all those alleles were present in the original human population.

Allelic variety increases with time in an expanding population. This has been seen in numerous observations and it comports well with what we see in humans.

From an original population humans have spread out over the globe and differentiated based upon differing environmental needs.