Human Evolution is Coming to a Standstill

A leading geneticist in England says modern times, changing reproductive patterns and weakened natural selection has slowed down human evolution.

By Jaya Jiwatram Posted 10.09.2008 at 10:14 am 11 Comments

Come to a Halt?

Our future may be uncertain, but leading geneticist Steve Jones at the University of College London says he knows one thing for sure: we're not going to change much on the evolutionary ladder. That's because human evolution is coming to a standstill, he claims. Jones says that the three main drivers behind evolution—natural selection, genetic mutation and randomness—don't hold as much anymore in the survival of the fittest race.

Reproductive patterns, for instance, have changed considerably over time and have resulted in fewer older fathers in the West. This has had an effect on evolution, says Jones, because fathers who have children when older than 35 have a higher rate of genetic mutations to pass down the line. A 29-year-old father—the mean age of reproduction in the West—has approximately 300 divisions between the sperm that made him and what he passes on, while a 50-year-old father has well over a thousand divisions.

Weakening natural selection and decreased randomness are other factors that have slowed the process of human evolution. In the past, Jones explains, only children with genetic mutations that made them fitter lived past the age of 20. But now those genetic mutations don't matter as much because better living conditions, especially in the West, have given way to higher rates of survival and longer life spans, reducing natural selection. As the world becomes increasingly connected, humans are not as likely to lose genes either (in small populations change happens more randomly as genes get lost). In fact, Jones argues, humans are 10,000 more common than they ought to be as a result. Whether people want to believe that is a whole other matter.

Via Times Online

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11 Comments

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NOLAcylon

10/09/08 at 11:56 am

It seems like hubris to declare we have managed to avoid the countless behaviors and pressures that contribute to evolution.

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BeccaMilfeld

10/09/08 at 7:51 pm

I wonder if monkies will keep evolving until they are more evolved than us . . . probably not, but it's a thought. AND THEN Planet of the Apes will really come true.

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Everyday Normal Kid

10/09/08 at 9:04 pm

yea.....-.-

Our human race will probably be wiped out by the time the happens.

-THE KID

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Portillo

from piscataway, NJ

10/10/08 at 10:02 am

So biological evolution in humans is coming to a standstill. I think evolution needs to be looked from a technological sense. If you think of it in that way, evolution is happening really really fast. One of my teacher's from high school thinks the next stage in human evolution is the synthesis of technology and biology. Thats why I love coming to this website, so much stuff that's really gonna change the way we live, isn't that what evolution is?

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Enigma567

10/11/08 at 1:39 am

we need fewer people *looks up bioweapon page*

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householdutensils

10/12/08 at 3:57 pm

I've been saying this for years. Biological evolution is a thing of the past for the human race. When we encounter an issue, we don't adapt our bodies or behaviour patterns, we just build something to help us overcome it...or destroy it. From now until some undefined time in the future when the variables change, our evolution will be purely technological in nature.

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householdutensils

10/12/08 at 3:57 pm

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taking

04/01/09 at 2:49 pm

Maybe never did evolve evolution is only a theory not fact and if it was a true fact there would be insects that can talk the way we do and there are fossils of frogs the same as present day frogs and it turns out some so called primitive man fossils are ape fossils.

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imongi

04/03/09 at 8:29 pm

I think it's obvious we don't adapt physically, we build things to adapt to our problems. Our physiology most likely won't change much if we don't phycially do more challenging things. Becoming obese is most likely a sign that we're not doing enough to change physically. It sounds like a logical pattern. You have to actually DO more to change physically, and do it often for thousands of generations. It's not going to happen overnight. ...the article says later reproduction from older males lends itself to more mutations, meaning the person has been through more... again.. same idea just a different way to say it...

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supergeek1694

04/05/09 at 6:47 pm

so what if we don't evolve. the fact that we aren't evolving shows that we don't NEED to evolve anymore. If we are surviving well enough without evolving then there's not much of a reason to evolve, is there? And the whole reason that there aren't talking insects is because the (a) they haven't been around long enough or (b) the mutation that would allow them to talk doesn't help them survive and reproduce. I think it's some combination of the two. They haven't been around long enough to find a successful mutation that brings them to human-like intelligence.

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mikeoramy

08/03/09 at 4:51 pm

If "humans are not as likely to lose genes", we ought to be in a better position to advance since we have more genetic information to work with. Although you would need to gain new genetic information somehow, or reverse the balance of bad/good mutations to the point where good mutations are the norm.