Are humans evolving?

[Cimorene]

We are demonstrably continually adapting. To prove evolution requires more than the assertion of adaptive change however.

You say tomayto, I say tomahto. Evolution / adaptation.

That's all evolution is. Small changes that provide a statistical improved chance of reproducing slowly spreading through the population.

Things like intelligence and tool use didn't jump in all at once, they slowly built on earlier adaptations.

We can see traits similar throughout the animal kingdom.

Yep.

 

[Shemjaza]

Didn't 'modern man' burst suddenly on the scene (like T-Rex)? Our evolutionary development would plot like the 'hockey stick' graph wouldn't it, the upward curve coming suddenly, and very recently? Wouldn't metamorphosis better describe our rapid development? We went to sleep one night as cavemen and awoke next morning as modern humans complete with our present features and abilities.

Not at all. There is evidence of modern humans skulking around caves and following herds of animals worn their stone tools for over a hundred thousand years.

If you studied a bestial Homo erectus band versus a very early Homo sapiens I doubt their lives were radically different.

Actually the fossil record supports sudden, not gradual, change doesn't it?

Yes and no.

It's sudden in that it's comes in fits and starts, but we're still talking about sputters lasting tens of thousands of years. But that is only sooner of the time, in many cases it's more like the gradual change Darwin expected.

 

[RDKirk]

I understand evolution does not imply improvement but if the theory is true we should nonetheless be seeing them. This is especially true given the size of the worlds population today.

Not necessarily. Most mutations are on the genetic level that might not even be recognizable without a specific search for them, and most mutations just don't make any difference.

 

[RDKirk]

Since evolution is an ongoing process it would be irrelevant whether it was 8,000 years old, or 80,000 years old. What would be important is when the mutations responsible occurred and how sensitive the benefits/disdavantages were to the environment.

Perhaps not noticeable you, but quite possibly noticeable to natural selection.

The point is that the benefits/disadvantages of skin color are not significant enough to have occurred within the 8,000 years that the human genome record shows it happened. Moreover, it's not just skin color, but a "set" of features that have no significance whatsoever.

But selective breeding will cause it to happen that quickly.

What's even more interesting is that 8,000 years is recent enough to have been captured by oral histories as a specific occurrence.

 

[RDKirk]

This would suggest that melanin-rich people might not be able to camouflage as well in a polar environment. It would make sense if humans were not predators, at the top of the food chain.

Who is running around in a polar environment in nothing but their skin? Any population groups migrating northward would have incorporated the wearing of local animal skins into their cultures long before they got so far north that appearing "white" would make a difference in their survival.

 

[RDKirk]

It's origins, though, are what is mysterious. Maybe Neanderthal played a role?

http://news.discovery.com/human/evolution/neanderthal-human-interbreed-dna.htm

"Neanderthals live on in non-Africans," co-author David Reich told Discovery News. "At least some Neanderthals were absorbed into the modern human population."

No, because that, according to evolutionists, occurred tens of thousands of years ago, while the differentiation of skin color occurred only 8,000 years ago.

 

[RDKirk]

I believe some polar bears are inclined to dispute the role of top predator.

When a group of guys carrying nothing but sharp sticks looks out at blue whale in the ocean and think "We can take him" --and then do it--that bespeaks some pretty serious predator chops.

 

[Cearbhall]

That is not something that anyone could really say is it. But to draw examples from the popular literature on this theme people have posited the following list as definite improvements: telekinetics, reading thoughts, extra strength, healing / cell regeneration after injury, invisibility /camouflage etc etc. All of which are reported in scripture and in the churches today also.

Ok? I don't really see your point. I couldn't care less that homo sapiens don't have these traits.

You cannot say if the process is in a single generation or over several thousand years cause you have no evidence either way. You probably suggest thousands of years because it fits the extended time spans that the theory requires to work in the first place.

Or maybe 'dem scientists use those new-fangled "dating methods," and that's where the time span estimate came from! Just a thought.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

Oh come on none of these are comparable to the development of language or of tool making capabilities and none of them conclusive proof of macroevolution.

Indeed, I quite agree. Fortunately, nobody claimed they were.

 

[durangodawood]

Just wait til we start re-engineering / designing our own genome!

Then human evolution will speed up again, and faster than ever.

 

[Hoghead1]

Just wait til we start re-engineering / designing our own genome!

Then human evolution will speed up again, and faster than ever.

You are probably right. However, I wonder about the ethics of all this.

 

[Cearbhall]

Oh come on none of these are comparable to the development of language or of tool making capabilities and none of them conclusive proof of macroevolution.

What is your superior theory as to how humans (and various other species) exist when they have not always existed?

That's the thing I don't get about denial of evolution. It's like a child looking at his pet cat and asking how it came to exist, and then refusing to believe his mom about sex even though he doesn't have another idea of where a cat could come from. Why would you think to deny it in the first place when all evidence is in favor of the theory and there are no competing ideas?

 

[durangodawood]

You are probably right. However, I wonder about the ethics of all this.

Me too.

But its going to happen regardless. Best not get too attached to "the way things are".

 

[sfs]

Except that genome research indicates that skin tone differentiation is no more than about 8,000 years old--too recent to be the result of evolution, especially considering that it makes very little difference in survival rates.

1) Genome research indicates no such thing about the origins of different skin pigmentation. Some of the mutations involved are shared between Asians and Europeans, and are thus likely tens of thousands of years old.
2) 8000 years old is not too recent to be the result of evolution.
3) How could you possibly know the difference in survival (and equally important, reproduction) rates thousands of years ago?

If it were the case that some huge percentage of melanin-deprived persons in sub-Sahara Africa would die for that specific reason before reproducing, or that some huge percentage of melanin-rich persons in Northern Europe would die for that specific reason before reproducing, then the skin-tone differentiation we see could be ascribed to evolution (essentially, species running into region-specific extinction events).

If by "some huge percentage" you mean 0.1%, then yes, you're correct. Otherwise, no.

Skin tone differentiation is a result of selective breeding and inbreeding, just as in domesticated dogs and cats.

Skin pigmentation differentiation is very clearly the result of natural selection, driven by differences in solar radiation.

 

[sfs]

Didn't 'modern man' burst suddenly on the scene (like T-Rex)?

No.

Our evolutionary development would plot like the 'hockey stick' graph wouldn't it, the upward curve coming suddenly, and very recently?

No.

Wouldn't metamorphosis better describe our rapid development? We went to sleep one night as cavemen and awoke next morning as modern humans complete with our present features and abilities.

No.

Actually the fossil record supports sudden, not gradual, change doesn't it?

No.

 

[Job8]

Is there any evidence of beneficiary evolutionary improvements to human beings?

Humans are devolving, not evolving. Case in point, the recent spate of LGBT activity. Animals are not sexual perverts.

 

[sfs]

But nothing like the scale of the development of human language or tools is being observed

What's you basis for saying this? Tool use developed over several million years. How much do you think it change in any single thousand year period?

 

[Hoghead1]

Humans are devolving, not evolving. Case in point, the recent spate of LGBT activity. Animals are not sexual perverts.

Neither are LGBT people. The age of that kind of sexual oppression, where they were all written off a perverts, is over.

 

[Cearbhall]

Humans are devolving, not evolving. Case in point, the recent spate of LGBT activity. Animals are not sexual perverts.

Obvious troll is obvious.

 

[pgp_protector]

Humans are devolving, not evolving. Case in point, the recent spate of LGBT activity. Animals are not sexual perverts.

Never studied Adélie penguins I take it.