FAST TRACK: Human evolution has sped up thanks to the population explosion caused by agriculture.
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Homo sapiens sapiens has spread across the globe and increased vastly in numbers over the past 50,000 years or so—from an estimated five million in 9000 B.C. to roughly 6.5 billion today. More people means more opportunity for mutations to creep into the basic human genome and new research confirms that in the past 10,000 years a host of changes to everything from digestion to bones has been taking place.
"We found very many human genes undergoing selection," says anthropologist Gregory Cochran of the University of Utah, a member of the team that analyzed the 3.9 million DNA sequences* showing the most variation. "Most are very recent, so much so that the rate of human evolution over the past few thousand years is far greater than it has been over the past few million years."
"We believe that this can be explained by an increase in the strength of selection as people became agriculturalists—a major ecological change—and a vast increase in the number of favorable mutations as agriculture led to increased population size," he adds.
Roughly 10,000 years ago, humanity made the transition from living off the land to actively raising crops and domesticated animals. Because this concentrated populations, diseases such as malaria, smallpox and tuberculosis, among others, became more virulent. At the same time, the new agriculturally based diet offered its own challenges—including iron deficiency from lack of meat, cavities and, ultimately, shorter stature due to poor nutrition, says anthropologist John Hawks of the University of Wisconsin–Madison, another team member.
"Their bodies and teeth shrank. Their brains shrank, too," he adds. "But they started to get new alleles [alternative gene forms] that helped them digest the food more efficiently. New protective alleles allowed a fraction of people to survive the dread illnesses better."
By looking for wide swaths of genetic material that vary little from individual to individual within these sections of great variation, the researchers identified regions that both originated recently and conferred some kind of advantage (because they became common rapidly). For example, the gene known as LCT gave adults the ability to digest milk and G6PD offered some protection against the malaria caused by Plasmodium falciparum parasite.
"Ten thousand years ago, no one on planet Earth had blue eyes," Hawks notes, because that gene—OCA2—had not yet developed. "We are different from people who lived only 400 generations ago in ways that are very obvious; that you can see with your eyes."
Comparing the amount of genetic differentiation between humans and our closest relatives, chimpanzees, suggests that the pace of change has accelerated to 10 to 100 times the average long-term rate, the researchers write in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA.
Not all populations show the same evolutionary speed. For example, Africans show a slightly lower mutation rate. "Africans haven't had to adapt to a fundamentally new climate," because modern humanity evolved where they live, Cochran says. "Europeans and East Asians, living in environments very different from those of their African ancestors and early adopters of agriculture, were more maladapted, less fitted to their environments."
And this speedy pace of evolution will not slow until every possible beneficial mutation starts to happen—the maximum rate of adaptation. This has already begun to occur in such areas as skin color in which different sets of genes are responsible for the paler shades of Europeans and East Asians, according to the researchers.
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43 Comments
Add CommentHow does being "humane" play a role in drastic changes? - Such as allowing inferior genetics to reproduce. (meaning, physical or mental retardation)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat about the propogation of mutations? It may be true that a larger population is more likely to produce a mutation, but that population is also bound to be more resistant to the spread of that mutation through sheer bulk.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"And this speedy pace of evolution will not slow until every possible beneficial mutation starts to happen". . . "This has already begun to occur in such areas as skin color in which different sets of genes are responsible for the paler shades of Europeans and East Asians, according to the researchers." You seem to indicate that lighter skin color is somehow "better"; yet the article you reference indicates lighter skin color makes one more prone to skin cancer which would indicate lighter skin color is detrimental to health - What's up with that? And how do you know no one on earth had blue eyes thousands of years ago? Methinks you are wearing little white pointy hats.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEvil Eye. What do you mean by "interior genetics"? Certainly lots of people are alive today that would have died up until recently. A lessening of selection pressure results in more alleles in the population.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is exciting stuff. Nothing in history has the potential to be more revolutionary or revealing than the study o fgenetics and culture and how they feed back on each other. History is an open book written in our genes now. In combination with archaeogical records, this is powerful stuff. History is genetic. Learning to read the genes is to read the book of life.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFantastic stuff, but I predict future analyses will either amplify or water down some of the original authors' conclusions. (Specifically the claim that the rate of fixing new mutations in the population accelerated). See here for a breakdown of their methods:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.gnxp.com/blog/2007/12/notes-on-evidence-for-acceleration.php
All life is subject to Natural Selection. Sexual Selection is Natural Selection on speed.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs Darwin noted, we owe our diversity to Sexual Selection.
This report superbly supports Darwin's truly scientific theory of lateral evolution through natural selection, i.e. intra-species "evolution". This process must be fully differentiated from the speculative vertical or inter-species evolution, i.e. formation of more complex from simple inorganic or organic molecules (e.g. primordial mud to maggots evolution on a megamillennial time frame that I assume has been permanently debunked by Louis Pasteur) contradictory to natural laws not mere theories. Hence, vertical evolution invoked in the descent of man is not scientifically supportable. There is a widespread confusion of these two types of evolution, one scientific the other extrapolated philosphical speculation. In fact, a reverse evolutionary vertical process resulting in loss of higher faculative processes by cumulative negative selection is a more logical scenario and indeed has been recently been reported.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHerman Rutner, M.S., industrial R&D scientist, retired
Interesting but evolution requires mutation plus differential rates of reproduction. Technology and medicine have changed the drivers of evolution radically.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe last poster pointed out the obvious. Evolution in humans is now skewed. Humans with genetic illness or flaws that might have been terminal now breed. Humans with greatest intelect have less of a tendancy to reproduce. We also start running into politically incorrect stuff ... the article started down the African path then quickly veered off. With respect to modern humans, this article has missed the scientific mark.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisInteresting article. I can see that the change of food source (agriculture) and development of village/town communities (around markets) would be important to evolution over the last 10 000 years, but there have been at least two other significant changes in the way humans live -- rapid transit (if you count horse-, camel-, or yak-back as rapid, and of course boats), and organized warfare involving thousands of combatants, all using fairly efficient metal weapons, and sometimes bent on conquest. I think both behaviours increase the chance that novel mutations will spread rapidly, whether they are notably beneficial where they arise or not. Mutations are less constrained by geography if they have mobile carriers, and can move around until they find a location where they are beneficial. (For example, a mutation for light skin might arise in Africa or south Asia, where it would be selected against, but still be transmitted north by a mobile carrier, and find itself beneficial there.)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have a major problem with articles such as this that don't emphasize enough the implications of these findings for common man. In my experience as a scientist and researcher, I have found that the majority of the non-academically trained population attach value, where it doesn't exist, to such things as evolution. The articles should clearly emphasize that "more evolved" does not necessarily mean superior or more "valuable". It only means "better able to survive and reproduce" in the current environs. As an example, if the earth's temperature were to suddenly increase by 50 degrees, a random mutation that causes greater IQ will be less valuable compared to another mutation that bestows increased thermal tolerance. Indeed, the IQ generating mutation would be perceived as "de-evolution" in this case.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs to whether it makes sense to talk about a more "mentally advanced" humanity is something I hope to address in an upcoming essay.
the_piano_man, I think you're prematurely crying foul about the article. I'm not reading into the insinuation you are. Light skin color isn't the best adaptation for very sunny climates, as you implied in your note about skin cancer, etc. However, couldn't it be possible for light skin color to be an appropriate adaptation for other climates not as sunny as Africa, such as Europe and East Asia? I don't see how the article implies that light skin color is the superior trait, just that it's an appropriate adaptation in the areas where the selection occurred.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDo we really have enough evidence of human genes of yester years to say that genes are changing. I still think its humanly impossible to perceive these changes until we study these changes for hundreds of years. Are these changes transmited from generation to generation to make a mark in the new individual, the evolved man?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPianoMan, you have missed the target on this one. All that is being suggested is that lighter skin is an implicitly better adaptation to the environment in the specific region in which lighter skin evolved, as by the "laws" of evolution, it must. There is no implied assumption that lighter skin is a better adaptation in general, and indeed, you have given reasons as to why it may be a poor (harmful) adaptation in every other environment. I might also point out that there is an implicit lag involved in evolution, as it is inherently reactive (to environmental conditions in a given timeframe), so ergo, there is no guarantee that such an adaptation is still a useful one, and indeed, it may have become harmful (ie: the environment which produced that adaptation may no longer favour that allele). Having said that, applying any racist (ie: superiority) judgement to any allele is fundamentally ethnocentric and shows a failure to apprehend the primary drivers of the evolutionary mechanisms. So, do agree, there is no value judgement of any value available to light skin, but concurrently, nor am I convinced that any was implied here. :)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs I recall, the human genome doesn't have 3.9 millions genes. Shouldn't an article on evolutionary theory distinguish genes and alleles, which may be what they really meant?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSee now Language Log: http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/005207.html
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thiscertainly the human genome has far more than 3.9 million genes. i thought i had made it clear that this was the HapMap data (to give it its proper name) or an analysis of the areas of the much broader genome where variations are common.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisand, as others have noted, i was not making a value judgement about particular mutations such as lightening skin color. simply noting what the research suggested about how these adaptations, perhaps better for local environmental conditions, may have evolved.
really?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDP
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this--
Edited by d4nnyb0y02 at 12/13/2007 11:26 AM
Evolution of man over millions of years is a hoax. We have been "evolving" ever since God made us fully formed likely much less than 10,000 years ago. We were created w/ this ability to adapt and change, as was the rest of all creation. Like it or not it is the truth.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this--
Edited by d4nnyb0y02 at 12/13/2007 11:26 AM
Mr Biello,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnyone who thinks there are 3.9 million human genes has no business writing science columns. You are off by approximately two orders of magnitude. If you get paid for this please return the money.
Thankfully I don't think there are 3.9 million genes. Does that mean you'll send me money geneguy?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"... Africans show a slightly lower mutation rate ..." Why? This phrase seems unsupported by the article, which talks more about selection pressures due to culture and environmental conditions. Are these same factors also influencing mutation rates?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisActually the African sample showed more selected regions than the other samples and they were older in Africa. Fits, since the number of ancestors of Africans was greater long ago, say since 100 kya to 10kya, at which time the numbers of Europeans and Asians, with agriculture, exceeded the numbers of Africans, hence more recent selected mutations outside Africa.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere is no possible way that humans evolved from a rock over 6 billion years ago. Impossible.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBecause culture is largely transfered to children through parents, does it follow that evolution has been slowed by the fact that half of US children lose one or both parents through divorce and separation before they become adults. If so, how is this measured and how much is the damage?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt seems that we humans have so sped not only our own evolution along, but microbial evolution as well. When you think about how fast microbes are selected out with new vaccines and medicines, it's all we can do keep ourselves going as a species.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis result implies a far faster rate of human speciation than previously accepted. Evolution and speciation are simply two names for the one process, if breeding populations are separated geographically or – it now seems – culturally.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTalk about a politically-incorrect result! I expect the social scientists will shut down this discussion as soon as they wake up to it, and then attack human evolution through social engineering policies. Or have they already started?
Human evolution is not speeding up, as least if you consider evolution the process by which a species is modified in order to survive changing conditions. The evolution being discussed is more an accumulation of mutations, many of which are accomodated only by way of our increasingly sophisticated technology. Take that technology away and many of the changes seen in the rapidly changing human genome will be found to have no survival value. Considering how much time, money, and effort is being expended to keep some people alive, those new genetic modifications would be the direct cause of death of many in a non-technical world. The right word is devolution. nonnmy through adaptation i
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisVery interesting article
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI wonder of the limits of adaption. The Earth's climate has certainly induced genetic changes, but how will this process keep up with what we do to ourselves, e.g., our changing diets and diseases assocoated to them? Time will tell.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe year was 15000BC . At this point there only 33 breeding women in the human race due to an extinction( probable a valcano's toxic fumes and and an acidic ocean caused by valconic ash). From this channeling of humanity came our very common dna. Interesting brother! I think common language is the basis of human advancement. And if I must assume the internet to be a common language, than man will advance as quickly as the population has grown. One language, one mind, sounds kind of familiar -like an ant pile!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAmaizing... I thought human evolution ended up 10000 years ago when the survival of the fittest process was deleted by the agricultural revolution!!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI would be very interested in seeing possible future human appearances and physiological traits. Seeing where we've been would probably fascilitate in projecting where we're going.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOn Culture and on Life
WHAT IS CULTURE
Culture, A Ubiquitous Biological Entity
A Recapitulation
1. General comprehension of evolutionary biology is an essential pre-requisite to the study and comprehension of cultural anthropology.
2. Culture is a basic biological entity. It is the ubiquitous elaboration- extension of the sensing of and reactions to, by the genome, to the goings-on beyond the outermost membrane of its housing, the cell, and of multicelled organisms, to the totality of their outer and inner environments.
Culture has been selected for survival of the genome as means of extending its exploitation capabilities of the out-of-cell circumstances, consequent to the earlier evolution and selection of the genome's organ, its outermost cell membrane (OCM), for control of the in-cell state of the environment.
3. Every cultural element is an organism's artifact that involves biological intra-/inter-cell expression and/or process. Biological and cultural domains are not ontologically distinct. Culture inheres in biology.
4. Culture And Intelligence
http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-P81pQcU1dLBbHgtjQjxG_Q--?cq=1&p=247
The core (wordnet.princeton) definition of "intelligence" is "the ability to comprehend, to understand and profit from experience". These surviving abilities are different for the different phenotypes within a genotype, therefore each phenotype has its own meaning of "intelligence".
Intelligence is to culture approximately as essential amino acids are to proteins. Culture evolves in response to circumstances only by use of intelligence and to the extent and scope feasible by the extent and scope of intelligence.
5. In human cultures ethnocentrisms are phenotypic cases of anthropocentrism; biologically both are normal Darwinian biological survival phenomena. Ethnocultures are human phenotypic survival tools.
6. Life is a phenomenon of temporary energy constraint. It pops in out of its matrix, the energy constrained in Earth's biosphere by Earth's organisms, which are the many varieties of genomes, the communal interdependent life forms of the primal, once-independent, genes, the formers and conservers of life's energy on Earth.
7. Culture is the universal driver of genetic evolution
The major course of natural selection is not via random mutations followed by survival, but via interdependent, interactive and interenhencing selection of biased genes replication routes at their alternative-splicing-steps junctions, effected by the cultural feedback of the second stratum multicells organism or monocells community to their prime stratum genes-genome organisms.
8. Science is a human cultural artifact, a tool of human survival
During the recent several centuries in the course of human history Science has been evolving at an accelerating rate as a provider of convincing, ever closer approaching, approximate models of the real world. We understand that Science is one of the components of our Culture, the totality of our capabilities to observe the environment, react to it and exploit it for our satisfaction and survival. There is a distinct, even if still small, growing spreading tendency to accept the findings of evolving Science with ever increasing respect and appreciation, especially in the realms of all forms and types of its progenies - technology and life disciplines.
9. The crucial 21st century question facing humanity is how much further and into which additional disciplines may or should Science be welcome and adopted by society at large, with what hopes and with what expectations.
Which doctrine(s) may or should be welcome and adopted, with what plans or hopes and with what expectations?
Life is a temporary affair. It is temporary on all scales at all levels.
Life's purpose is ours to decide and ours to fulfil. The arguments about life's doctrines should ensue from our choices of life's purpose.
Dov Henis
http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-P81pQcU1dLBbHgtjQjxG_Q--?cq=1
=========================================
Life's Manifest
Recapitulation of some earlier notes on
The Drive, Nature And Purpose Of Life: Scientific Comprehension
http://www.the-scientist.com/community/posts/list/54.page
A. Uniqueness Of science among human artifacts
ALL aspects of our culture are, of course, anthropoartifacts, including science. Yet among those artifacts science has a distinct uniqueness for us.
During the recent several centuries in the course of human history humans have been developing science at an accelerating rate as a provider of convincing, ever closer approaching, approximate models of the real world.
B. The drive and nature of life
Life Genesis, formation of first genes, was a phenomenon of serendipitous occurrence, in a supportive environment, of 'favourably-directed' energy potential between in-coming sun's radiation and polymerizing RNA-related oligomeric configurations.
Life Genesis, formation of first genes, was a phenomenon of serendipitous occurrence, in a supportive environment, of 'favourably-directed' energy potential between in-coming sun's radiation polymerizing RNA-related oligomeric configuration.
The drive of life and of its evolution is to enhance the functionality and survivability of the genes, in order to maintain and enhance Earth-biosphere's temporary constrained energy storage and to maintain it BIO as long as possible.
It is the genes, life's prime strata organisms, that evolve, and the evolution of genomes, the 2nd stratum of life, and of the 3rd life stratum cellular organisms, is an interenhancing consequence of their genes' evolution.
C. The nature of life
Earth Life: 1. a format of temporarily constrained energy, retained in temporary constrained genetic energy packages in forms of genes, genomes and organisms 2. a real virtual affair that pops in and out of existence in its matrix, which is the energy constrained in Earth's biosphere.
Earth organism: a temporary self-replicable constrained-energy genetic system that supports and maintains Earth's biosphere by maintenance of genes.
Gene: a primal Earth's organism. (1st stratum organism)
Genome: a multigenes organism consisting of a cooperative commune of its member genes. (2nd stratum organism)
Cellular organisms: mono- or multi-celled earth organisms. (3rd stratum organism)
D. Update of underlying life sciences conception is thus feasible
- First were independent individual genes, Earth's primal organisms.
- Genes aggregated cooperatively into genomes, multigenes organisms, with genomes' organs.
- Simultaneously or consequently genomes evolved protective and functional membranes, organs.
- Then followed cellular organisms, with a variety of outer-cell membrane shapes and
functionalities.
This conception is a scientific, NOT TECHNOLOGICAL, life-science innovation.
It is tomorrow's comprehension of life and of its evolution.
IT IS FRAUGHT WITH INTRIGUING DARWINIAN EVOLUTION IMPLICATIONS.
IT IS FRAUGHT WITH INTRIGUING TECHNOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENTS POTENTIALS.
E. The purpose of OUR, human, life
The purpose of OUR life and its promotion is ours to formulate and set. It derives solely from our cognition.
Suggesting,
Dov Henis
http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-P81pQcU1dLBbHgtjQjxG_Q--?cq=1
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOn Culture and on Life
WHAT IS CULTURE
Culture, A Ubiquitous Biological Entity
A Recapitulation
1. General comprehension of evolutionary biology is an essential pre-requisite to the study and comprehension of cultural anthropology.
2. Culture is a basic biological entity. It is the ubiquitous elaboration- extension of the sensing of and reactions to, by the genome, to the goings-on beyond the outermost membrane of its housing, the cell, and of multicelled organisms, to the totality of their outer and inner environments.
Culture has been selected for survival of the genome as means of extending its exploitation capabilities of the out-of-cell circumstances, consequent to the earlier evolution and selection of the genome's organ, its outermost cell membrane (OCM), for control of the in-cell state of the environment.
3. Every cultural element is an organism's artifact that involves biological intra-/inter-cell expression and/or process. Biological and cultural domains are not ontologically distinct. Culture inheres in biology.
4. Culture And Intelligence
http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-P81pQcU1dLBbHgtjQjxG_Q--?cq=1&p=247
The core (wordnet.princeton) definition of "intelligence" is "the ability to comprehend, to understand and profit from experience". These surviving abilities are different for the different phenotypes within a genotype, therefore each phenotype has its own meaning of "intelligence".
Intelligence is to culture approximately as essential amino acids are to proteins. Culture evolves in response to circumstances only by use of intelligence and to the extent and scope feasible by the extent and scope of intelligence.
5. In human cultures ethnocentrisms are phenotypic cases of anthropocentrism; biologically both are normal Darwinian biological survival phenomena. Ethnocultures are human phenotypic survival tools.
6. Life is a phenomenon of temporary energy constraint. It pops in out of its matrix, the energy constrained in Earth's biosphere by Earth's organisms, which are the many varieties of genomes, the communal interdependent life forms of the primal, once-independent, genes, the formers and conservers of life's energy on Earth.
7. Culture is the universal driver of genetic evolution
The major course of natural selection is not via random mutations followed by survival, but via interdependent, interactive and interenhencing selection of biased genes replication routes at their alternative-splicing-steps junctions, effected by the cultural feedback of the second stratum multicells organism or monocells community to their prime stratum genes-genome organisms.
8. Science is a human cultural artifact, a tool of human survival
During the recent several centuries in the course of human history Science has been evolving at an accelerating rate as a provider of convincing, ever closer approaching, approximate models of the real world. We understand that Science is one of the components of our Culture, the totality of our capabilities to observe the environment, react to it and exploit it for our satisfaction and survival. There is a distinct, even if still small, growing spreading tendency to accept the findings of evolving Science with ever increasing respect and appreciation, especially in the realms of all forms and types of its progenies - technology and life disciplines.
9. The crucial 21st century question facing humanity is how much further and into which additional disciplines may or should Science be welcome and adopted by society at large, with what hopes and with what expectations.
Which doctrine(s) may or should be welcome and adopted, with what plans or hopes and with what expectations?
Life is a temporary affair. It is temporary on all scales at all levels.
Life's purpose is ours to decide and ours to fulfil. The arguments about life's doctrines should ensue from our choices of life's purpose.
Dov Henis
http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-P81pQcU1dLBbHgtjQjxG_Q--?cq=1
=========================================
Life's Manifest
Recapitulation of some earlier notes on
The Drive, Nature And Purpose Of Life: Scientific Comprehension
http://www.the-scientist.com/community/posts/list/54.page
A. Uniqueness Of science among human artifacts
ALL aspects of our culture are, of course, anthropoartifacts, including science. Yet among those artifacts science has a distinct uniqueness for us.
During the recent several centuries in the course of human history humans have been developing science at an accelerating rate as a provider of convincing, ever closer approaching, approximate models of the real world.
B. The drive and nature of life
Life Genesis, formation of first genes, was a phenomenon of serendipitous occurrence, in a supportive environment, of 'favourably-directed' energy potential between in-coming sun's radiation and polymerizing RNA-related oligomeric configurations.
Life Genesis, formation of first genes, was a phenomenon of serendipitous occurrence, in a supportive environment, of 'favourably-directed' energy potential between in-coming sun's radiation polymerizing RNA-related oligomeric configuration.
The drive of life and of its evolution is to enhance the functionality and survivability of the genes, in order to maintain and enhance Earth-biosphere's temporary constrained energy storage and to maintain it BIO as long as possible.
It is the genes, life's prime strata organisms, that evolve, and the evolution of genomes, the 2nd stratum of life, and of the 3rd life stratum cellular organisms, is an interenhancing consequence of their genes' evolution.
C. The nature of life
Earth Life: 1. a format of temporarily constrained energy, retained in temporary constrained genetic energy packages in forms of genes, genomes and organisms 2. a real virtual affair that pops in and out of existence in its matrix, which is the energy constrained in Earth's biosphere.
Earth organism: a temporary self-replicable constrained-energy genetic system that supports and maintains Earth's biosphere by maintenance of genes.
Gene: a primal Earth's organism. (1st stratum organism)
Genome: a multigenes organism consisting of a cooperative commune of its member genes. (2nd stratum organism)
Cellular organisms: mono- or multi-celled earth organisms. (3rd stratum organism)
D. Update of underlying life sciences conception is thus feasible
- First were independent individual genes, Earth's primal organisms.
- Genes aggregated cooperatively into genomes, multigenes organisms, with genomes' organs.
- Simultaneously or consequently genomes evolved protective and functional membranes, organs.
- Then followed cellular organisms, with a variety of outer-cell membrane shapes and
functionalities.
This conception is a scientific, NOT TECHNOLOGICAL, life-science innovation.
It is tomorrow's comprehension of life and of its evolution.
IT IS FRAUGHT WITH INTRIGUING DARWINIAN EVOLUTION IMPLICATIONS.
IT IS FRAUGHT WITH INTRIGUING TECHNOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENTS POTENTIALS.
E. The purpose of OUR, human, life
The purpose of OUR life and its promotion is ours to formulate and set. It derives solely from our cognition.
Suggesting,
Dov Henis
http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-P81pQcU1dLBbHgtjQjxG_Q--?cq=1
And what about American Indians? They lived independent of this agricultural change the researchers write about. Does this make them inferior? I have the feeling that much of this is bunk. Most archaeologists know that hunter-gatherers lived healthier, happier lives.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd what do these researchers have to say about gene extinction? There is evidence that the gene for red hair is getting rarer and rarer.
Pragmatic, I appreciate your comment.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf I understand evolution, it requires genetic diversity and differential reproduction that over time changes the overall genetic makeup of the population.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe case is well made for an increase in the genetic diversity of the human population, but there hasn't been any real pruning of the population leaving the surviving members possessing a meaningful subset of the ancestral population's genetic diversity.
Our success at surviving has provided the opportunity for evolution even as it has inhibited or stalled its actual occurrence.
Come on, grow up "pragmatic". By the way, what are you doing reading SA? you should be hitting the Bible...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou mean DNA sequences. You did it again LoL
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn response to the skin colour thing:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDark skin is very beneficial in Africa to protect from the dangers you say.
Evolving pale skin in Northern Europe however happened because we get very little sunlight compared to the equator, and we need to let light through our skin to synthesize vitamin D. Also producing lots of melanin when we are not in danger of sunburn is a waste of resources, so we evolved to produce much less. Therefore paler skin is a 'beneficial mutation' in less sunny regions.