Re: Are We Still Evolving?

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preno@Phoenix.kent.edu (Philip Reno) wrote:

->Alex Duncan (aduncan@mail.utexas.edu) wrote:
->: In article <46mf3a$p6r@larry.infi.net> Kaushik Banerjee,
->: banerkx@news.infi.net writes:

->: >Are we still evolving?

->: Yes.

->Yes, but I'll submit to you that in currently 99.9% of human
evolution
->is cultural while only small amounts of changes that effect human
->survivorship si due to natural selection and its effects on the
human
->genome.

Of course, with such controlled environments as our homes, workplaces,
even our places of entertainment (ok, except the ski slopes), true
genome adaptation is not likely to occur. But as our world becomes
more and more contaminated (or *changed* may be a better word), don't
small, and likely unnoticable, changes still occur frequently? How
about evolution of a fat (or cholesterol) reducing gene, or an
adaptation that allows for more hair in the nostrils and throat
allowing for the removal of toxins and infectious agents (that are
more likely to be encountered due to transportation technologies
creating a more homogenous population)? These adaptations wouldn't
draw as much attention as say a prehensile tail, but they're still as
important (as mutations go).

-Tod

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