Archived Massive genetic study shows how humans are evolving (nature.com)
submitted ago by ChillyHellion
Posted by: ChillyHellion
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Archived on: 12/10/2017 10:00:00 AM
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Archived Massive genetic study shows how humans are evolving (nature.com)
submitted ago by ChillyHellion
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[–] greycloud 0 points 2 points 2 points (+2|-0) ago
we have entered the area of "legal selection" (a term i just coined), wherein the law has effects on who has children and thus impacts evolution. this is partly why we have an obesity epidemic and why the movie "idiocracy" is coming true.
to study evolution, don't look at people who no longer reproduce. this is a MAJOR error in methodology. long lives are a side effect of something else. evolution only selects for people who have children (and against those who do not). the "grandmother hypothesis" mentioned in the article is a hypothesis that grandparents take care of children born to their own children and help raise them freeing up mothers to have more children more quickly. which holds more water with families that have more children than the mother could take care of on her own.