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That's such an extreme claim. It defies common sense. You'd have to proclaim that there was some event that _stopped_ evolution in humans, universally. How is t
by remarkEon 2mo ago
That's such an extreme claim. It defies common sense. You'd have to proclaim that there was some event that _stopped_ evolution in humans, universally. How is that even possible? Especially 50k years ago. I'd be a little more forgiving if the claim was that evolution stopped in, say, 1999.
- RajT88 2mo agoRather a lot more things about human genomic history are known today compared to 2000. Discoveries about being able to process lactose and when those genes evolved all were after 2000, for example. Does it excuse Gould for making such bold claims? You have to decide I guess. That is a lot fuzzier.
- remarkEon 2mo agoI guess I would need to read more of what Gould wrote. For example, did he claim that evolution in other species also stopped?
- margalabargala 2mo agoI think the claim that humans stopped evolving is an uncharitable reading. Another would be, 50k years is such a narrow window that evolution cannot be observed across it.
- t0mpr1c3 2mo agoIt's not an uncharitable reading if Gould stated his claim unequivocably. Your alternative claim is just factually wrong. The population frequency of an allele under selection pressure can change within a few generations. For example the HbS allele, that confers both sickle cell trait and malaria resistance, became less common among Africans transported as slaves to regions where malaria was not endemic.
- asdff 2mo agoYou can observe evolution on much narrower timescales. People were following how covid was evolving after all. Evolution just means some changes to dna. Even identical twin children have some differences between them.
- johnthewise 2mo agoIt's more of a function of selection pressure applied to genes per unit time based on some environmental factor, so you'd expect to observe less evolution in narrower timescales simply because it takes few decades for humans to pass on genes versus bacteria or viruses. In the same fashion, if some gene pool is locally optimal(?) against the environmental pressures, it may just stop evolving meaningfully. E.g, If male baldness were reversed easily with a pill or something, the environmental pressure to select those genes would decrease rapidly.
- asdff 2mo agoYou can have evolution even within your own lifetime. Cancer progression, for example, is governed by selective pressures on the tumor.
- retrac 2mo agoEmphasis should be placed on "everything we call culture and civilization". There is a thought experiment that might help. Imagine we had a time machine, and no scruples, and we could go back and pluck babies from the past to experimentally raise them in modern American families. I'm pretty sure Gould would have argued that babies from 40k years ago would grow up to be behaviourally indistinguishable from modern humans.
- remarkEon 2mo agoWell, evaluating the nature of this thought experiment reveals what you actually believe about human evolution and development. I find it extremely hard to believe that someone from 40k years ago would be indistinguishable from humans today. Believing this requires you to imagine that there are no genetic selection pressures for things like intelligence, behavior, physical ability ... 40k years ago had Earth as an almost entirely different planet. Europe was frozen for most of the year, for example. There were no trees. Very, very hard to believe that people born back then could grow up to sit in front of a laptop today.
- seszett 2mo agoAll we know basically is that their skeletons are undistinguishable from ours, with a brain the same size as ours (slightly later on average iirc) and what they left, tools and paintings, look just like what we can do as well (behavioural modernity, thought to arise some time between -100 000 and -40 000). You can find it hard to believe, but I think most people in that field agree that humans from the last 40 000 years would grow up as modern humans without problems.
- remarkEon 2mo agoSorry, you're claiming that people who lived in a desolate tundra 40k years ago are the same as you and me. Can you be more specific? There's both a hardware and firmware element to this. Perhaps the hardware element is transferable.
- 2mo ago
- inigyou 2mo agoSounds like they just meant evolution takes longer than that? To some degree it's true. We have all sorts of variable parameters that are probably different from back then (eg. Average height) but we still have the same body shape, etc