I feel like this needs to go in some high-level FAQ somewhere:
Genetic natural selection is done operating on people. There is no need to speculate about its future effects.
I think it is pretty obvious that natural selection is as we speak having massive effect on the frequencies of various alleles and consequently phenotypes. Among other things we are currently experiencing a massive genetic pruning comparable in scope to the Black Death in the form of exposure to modern contraceptives (as I mention elsewhere) .
Genetic natural selection takes tens of thousands of years to operate, and it is incredibly unlikely, short of some planet-wide catastrophe that sets back technology thousands of years, that it gets tens of thousands of years to operate without our either starting to seriously re-engineer our own genomes, or abandoning the genetic game all together.
In this context, not really, especially considering I find among other things Henry Harpending and Gregory Cochran argumentsconvincing.Unless you are a firm believer in the singularity being here before 2040, there is still time for marked changes in what genetically constitutes the “average” human.
I’m very interested in your reasoning though, since considering you seem to at least be familiar with the arguments in favour of recent evolutionary change brought about by the advent of agriculture and civilization, I may be missing something here. :)
I think it is pretty obvious that natural selection is as we speak having massive effect on the frequencies of various alleles and consequently phenotypes. Among other things we are currently experiencing a massive genetic pruning comparable in scope to the Black Death in the form of exposure to modern contraceptives (as I mention elsewhere) .
In this context, not really, especially considering I find among other things Henry Harpending and Gregory Cochran arguments convincing.Unless you are a firm believer in the singularity being here before 2040, there is still time for marked changes in what genetically constitutes the “average” human.
I’m very interested in your reasoning though, since considering you seem to at least be familiar with the arguments in favour of recent evolutionary change brought about by the advent of agriculture and civilization, I may be missing something here. :)