[Flipside]

Well, the Megalodon is only about 1.5 Millions years extinct and were mostly killed off by geographic change cutting off its food supply, as well as climactic upheaval nowhere is totally secure, and larger creatures are dependent on sea temperature to a higher degree, that's why the largest sea-creature in the modern world regulates its own heat, because it's a lot better at coping with temperature changes.

[Mika]

And here I thought this was about urbanization and people doing more work in sitting position 

As a thought experiment, if current development towards sitting work continued, what would be the most likely adaptive step human body would take? Weaker lower limbs? Curved back? Smaller frame? Decreased brain volume?

[Flipside]

I'd say, in general, an increase of Intelligence and Dexterity, but you'll probably lose some Strength and Endurance points.

In truth, it's difficult to say because mankind does such a vast variety of things, sitting in a chair all day won't really do much to affect evolution on a global scale, because somewhere there's a guy wrestling sharks. I think an increase in brain size is likely, and an increase in Dexterity, those two aspects together are the real tools we've used to make every other tool, and, coontrary to popular belief, we as a race enjoy exercising our minds, and our ability to create, to degrees far beyond any other species. However, our concept of laws and social structures that go against our own primal 'conditioning' means that for humanity, natural selection doesn't really apply in the same way.

[General Battuta]

If it doesn't affect reproductive fitness, it's not likely to cause any changes.

[Flipside]

That's the thing, our way of laying out society means that our reproductive fitness is increased, in a way, almost every male/female in the species gets an opportunity to reproduce, there's no mentality as there is with many pack-forming animals of a single dominant male who gets the mating rights. So because that structure changes the variables somewhat, it makes it a lot harder to make any kind of guess as to our evolutionary path.

Edit: Basically, we've removed to a large degree, natures way of removing genes that are not advantageous at the time, whether that's a good or a bad thing is something only time will tell, I guess.

[General Battuta]

Oddly, sexual selection in evolution is generally driven by female choice; male power is the exception, not the rule. (Just an interesting note.)

[Flipside]

Oddly, sexual selection in evolution is generally driven by female choice; male power is the exception, not the rule. (Just an interesting note.)

That's why I think we could learn an awful lot from Bonobo monkeys, not only do they have a Matriarchal structure, but they also employ similar breeding philosophies to humans some ways, there is far more diversity in their mating habits and choices, which is a trait that very few species share with humans. I think they'd give us some good clues to the path we took at the very least.

[brugger]

I've only heard of 2 human traits that can be proven to be evolving since humans started the whole civilization thing.
 
1. Men are getting bigger, the average ancient male Egyptian mummy was 5'2" compared to today the average has got to be close to 5'10"?

2. Women are getting thinner and more attractive. I recently heard of a study that shows women who are considered attractive are more likely to have multiple children and more likely to have baby girls, opposed to baby boys, who will be more likely to grow into attractive women and continue the cycle. The thinner thing can be explained partially by cultural pressure, but its a pressure thats been around for a few generations and seems to be catching on in a genetic way.

[General Battuta]

Don't...think that's true. Notions of attractiveness change considerably with time, much more than phenotype does. The Rubenesque woman used to be considered the ideal.

Men do prefer a specific waist-to-hip ratio in women which I believe has remained fairly constant.

Men and women are getting taller, but that's up to better nutrition, in no small part. Don't know how much of that is genetic. Would want MP-Ryan to comment.

[brugger]

When I said attractive I wasn't talking about size. There certain facial features, body shapes, lack of hair in certain areas, skin health and symmetry that have always been part of female attractivness. I qualified my statement about size.

[General Battuta]

Symmetry, a point-seven waist-to-hip ratio, and skin health are evaluated in sexual selection - two of those traits for men and women. I see no reason why women would be getting more attractive any more than men would, though. Data?

[brugger]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article6727710.ece

not the particular story that read about the study but all the major points are there.

Basically says men only want a hotty while women consider more factors when choosing a mate.

[General Battuta]

There's a lot of junk reporting and oversimplification in that article.

Even he, however, might have been surprised by the subtlety of the effects now being detected by researchers looking into human mating.

This, for instance, is garbage; Darwin wrote about sex selection quite extensively.

Moreover, the article fails to make the fundamental tenet of sex selection clear. People are not becoming more beautiful because beautiful people have more children; people are beautiful because they're genetically inclined to have more children. What we perceive as 'beauty' is a set of phenotypic signposts for reproductive potential and good health.

Reading that article, one might conclude that the beautiful people are getting more action and having more babies, but the opposite is (sorta) true; people who have healthy children tend to appear beautiful.

And this quote in the last paragraph

“For women, looks are much less important in a man than his ability to look after her when she is pregnant and nursing, periods when women are vulnerable to predators. Historically this has meant rich men tend to have more wives and many children. So the pressure is on men to be successful.”

is unsubstantiated evopsych bull****. There are no testable predictions in that statement; it's an evolutionary just-so story.

In short, be deeply suspicious of articles like this in popular outlets. Although they do often get at some interesting points, they're generally misrepresented, oversimplified, and sexed up, giving credence to a lot of the crap postulates that evolutionary psychology has produced.

(This is not to say that the science of attractiveness is invalid. There are dozens of studies that objectively measure what people find attractive, and it tends to focus on symmetry and certain proportions. However, to assert that people are more attractive now than they were fifty, a hundred, or five hundred years ago is a deeply dubious assertion, because there's little way to untangle the genetic changes from all the changes in health and nutrition that have occurred.)

[Bobboau]

you could test it to see if it's predictions are true. like rich men having more children and poor men having fewer.

oh, wait...

[Flipside]

Well, that creativeness has allowed us access to contraceptives etc, so it's difficult to do a direct comparison.

[da1edwin]

you could test it to see if it's predictions are true. like rich men having more children and poor men having fewer.

oh, wait...

Funnily enough, that leads to an interesting thought - since it's the poor people in this world who tend to have the most children as well as endure the most evolutionary pressure, does this mean that the poor sections of society will continue to evolve while the rich people's gene pool stagnates? (Assuming that scientists don't figure out in the near future how to modify genes on demand and take over from natural selection, which would cause the rich gene pool to change rather rapidly.)

[redsniper]

I realize this is anecdotal but... I see PLENTY of ugly people around here having kids...

[Kosh]

you could test it to see if it's predictions are true. like rich men having more children and poor men having fewer.

oh, wait...

Funnily enough, that leads to an interesting thought - since it's the poor people in this world who tend to have the most children as well as endure the most evolutionary pressure, does this mean that the poor sections of society will continue to evolve while the rich people's gene pool stagnates? (Assuming that scientists don't figure out in the near future how to modify genes on demand and take over from natural selection, which would cause the rich gene pool to change rather rapidly.)

On the other hand life expectancy is significantly lower, and only child mortality is obscenely high, at least in the poor countries.

[General Battuta]

you could test it to see if it's predictions are true. like rich men having more children and poor men having fewer.

oh, wait...

Funnily enough, that leads to an interesting thought - since it's the poor people in this world who tend to have the most children as well as endure the most evolutionary pressure, does this mean that the poor sections of society will continue to evolve while the rich people's gene pool stagnates? (Assuming that scientists don't figure out in the near future how to modify genes on demand and take over from natural selection, which would cause the rich gene pool to change rather rapidly.)

The idea that humankind has stopped evolving is a bit silly. Allele change is actually proceeding more rapidly than ever due to a lot of 'interracial breeding' (races don't exist on the biological level). So to say that some will 'continue to evolve' while others won't is a bit odd, since access to a wider pool of mates is making the human population evolve faster than ever.

Whether natural selection is at work is another matter entirely, however.

[Colonol Dekker]

Assuming the more active humans among us succeed in breeding more by getting up off our butts, going out and meeting women and generally keeping trim. Doesn't that negate the withered leg avenue?