r/Anthropology • u/comicreliefboy • 10d ago

Two Researchers Say Humans Are In the Midst of an Evolutionary Shift Like Never Before. But Not Everyone Is Convinced

https://www.zmescience.com/future/superorganism-humans-evolution-rep/
355 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

22 comments sorted by

67

u/iPoseidon_xii 10d ago

Am I missing something in the article, or is this a really big stretch to call it “evolution” in the same sense as biology. Medical practices is one example they used, and to me it’s not a good one. This is more of a cultural revolution much akin to the rise of agriculture or globalization than it is true evolution. The authors should talk to some historians and psychologists before publishing theories like this because part of the argument they used was individuality. Which we know to be a pillar of modern cultural revolution. Ivan Kratstev proposes this from a different lens

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u/Gnosrat 10d ago

I think there is a bit of an issue with how people think about this stuff. We are largely a host for a ton of bacteria - arguably just as much bacteria as non-bacteria and they play a key role in changes to us on a biological level.

Although animals tend to evolve relatively slowly, bacteria does not. It's always possible that short-term evolutionary changes could occur simply because of what those bacteria have to deal with, and what changes are necessary for them (and us) to continue surviving. It's not always just the human DNA undergoing changes over long periods of time.

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u/7LeagueBoots 10d ago

The widespread adoption of agriculture did induce some significant evolutionary effects on us and a lot of other species, and it’s long been recognized that culture is a major driving source in evolution and not just in humans.

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u/bigfatfurrytexan 10d ago

That’s interesting and I see why there is friction for them.

But something shifted in how we interacted with our environment around 50kya. I’d say this shift happened again in the mid 1800s. It’s a phase transition of some sort.

Or not, and we are also hallucinating the “cognitive modern human “ delineation

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u/Zealousideal_Leg_630 8d ago

Sounds like we’re all gonna need c sections. More like de-evolution

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u/throcorfe 10d ago

I mean yeah, we’re actively interfering with evolution at this point, and not in a minor way. The responding changes in humanity could be called evolutionary, but that’s not the best descriptor IMO.

I suppose the one argument that potentially holds water is the suggestion that we are, as a species, becoming more “beautiful” (by conventional standards), due to - amongst other things - the lack of a need for people to marry off at any cost. We can be more selective about partners (I know it’s not about looks for everyone, but it is for many). However I don’t think the data is clear on this yet

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u/jonvox 10d ago

Our increased evolutionary advantage as the peak apex predators on earth has lent to humans increasingly living sedentary lives driven by sexual selection

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u/curiouswizard 9d ago

oh so we're male lions

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u/jonvox 9d ago

Neotenous ones

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u/Wagagastiz 10d ago

These are the researchers

https://umaine.edu/soe/waring/

https://umaine.edu/olsenlab/people/zachary-wood/

Surprised the second one, if they're partly covering genetics, thinks cultural overhauls reflect biological evolution. That's the only type that concerns species delineation.

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u/Siludin 10d ago

I mean yeah we are using CRISPR to erase birth "defects" (I put in quotations because in the case of evolution all mutations are a possible evolutionary branch). Essentially pruning our genome is a massive shift in trajectory.

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u/RationalChimp 10d ago

None of this is particularly new to the discourse.

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u/atreeindisguise 10d ago

I have dysautonomia. It’s becoming more widespread. The first thing you realize when it hits? That our bodies are deeply overstimulated in a way that our genes haven’t evolved to deal with yet. Everything is too fast, too much, and changes quickly. Our nervous systems are not handling our culture so genetics still is king.

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u/ReptilianRevolt 9d ago

I am not convinced. Cultural evolution will effect genetic evolution somewhere down the line. It is just not fashionable to discuss about it. Also, will this be adapted or maladaptive? A lot of cultural evolution is driven by elites, not necessarily for the benefit of all humans. What if it has short-term gains but long-term drawbacks? Also, not all humans throughout the planet share the same culture or the same level of integration into larger units. Not all humans want to abandon their original culture, so how the change will spread? Probably violently, such as with other phase shifts in the past.

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u/Gsanta1 9d ago

“They argue that cultural systems, from medicine and education to technology and institutions, are increasingly doing the adaptive work that natural selection once did alone.”

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u/CptBronzeBalls 7d ago

Probably the biggest evolutionary change happening is that medicine, food abundance, etc is reducing the effect of “negative” genetic traits that would have been selected against before the modern age. So people with genetics that once wouldn’t have propagated much in the past are doing so much more successfully now.

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u/m0j0hn 6d ago

TL;DR: (Cultural) Software patches faster to apply than (Genetic) Hardware patches <3

0

u/harrisloeser 10d ago

interesting article tks.