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Ruchira S. Datta to Ruchira's feed, The Life Scientists, Science News
Humans continue to evolve. http://www.nytimes.com/2010...
"Many have assumed that humans ceased to evolve in the distant past, perhaps when people first learned to protect themselves against cold, famine and other harsh agents of natural selection. But in the last few years, biologists peering into the human genome sequences now available from around the world have found increasing evidence of natural selection at work in the last few thousand years, leading many to assume that human evolution is still in progress." - Ruchira S. Datta
You can point this out the next time someone tries to advocate supposedly paleolithic living (diet, lifestyle, behavior). Especially supposed evolutionary psychology. - Ruchira S. Datta
This book provides many more examples: http://www.amazon.com/000-Yea... - Colby
not all of them, unfortunately ... - Michele
"supposed evolutionary psychology" suggests paleolithic living? - Eivind
I always hated the "humans have stopped evolving because we developed technology and modern medicine" arguments. Inevitably it is always uttered by people with a very minimal knowledge of what evolution actually is. All we did is change the fitness landscape. - Daniel Gaston
Eivind, it's usually the supposed evolutionary psychologist's imaginary version of paleolithic living. - Ruchira S. Datta
I actually enjoy evolutionary psychology and have thus read a decent amount of it, but generally class it as entertaining just-so stories. - Ruchira S. Datta
From http://amzn.to/dpqI2U : 'The distinction between fact and fiction gets more easily blurred in evolutionary psychology than in any other discipline, a problem that is exacerbated by the fact that most "ev-psych" explanations are completely untestable: You can't run experiments to prove or disprove them. Some of the proposed theories--that we have genetically specified mechanisms to help us detect fertile mates or that women suffer from morning sickness to protect the fetus from poisons in foods--are ingenious. Others are ridiculously far-fetched. One afternoon, in a whimsical mood, I sat down and wrote a spoof of evolutionary psychology just to annoy my colleagues in that field. I wanted to see how far one could go in conjuring up completely arbitrary, ad hoc, untestable evolutionary explanations for aspects of human behavior that most people would regard as "cultural" in origin. The result was a satire titled "Why Do Gentlemen Prefer Blondes?" To my amazement, when I submitted my tongue-in-cheek essay to a medical journal, it was promptly accepted. And to my even greater surprise, many of my colleagues did not find it amusing; to them it was a perfectly plausible argument, not a spoof.' - Ruchira S. Datta
I feel like a lot of these malformed explanations are due to the misconception that every single trait must be an adaptation to selective pressure. - Victor Ganata
The "Why Do Gentlemen Prefer Blondes?" essay in Ruchira's comment: http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~sousa... On the other hand, it doesn't appear to have many serious citations, and the one that I looked at referred to it as satire: http://scholar.google.com/scholar... - Simon
Ah, okay, Ruchira. Thanks for explaining. I just thought I detected a bit of hostility toward EP in your comment :) - Eivind
Eivind, I admit to being annoyed when it's used as a trump card to advance a conservative political agenda. - Ruchira S. Datta
Humans continue to evolve? Speak for yourself. - Jim Norris
"The distinction between fact and fiction gets more easily blurred in evolutionary psychology than in any other discipline, " -- well, except economics. - Andrew C (✔)
++Andrew - Eivind
Jim, I know some people enjoy acting like cavemen. :) - Ruchira S. Datta
For an example where, IMHO, it's done right, see Sarah Hrdy's _Mothers and Others_ http://amzn.to/bZFwvj which seeks to explain humans' relative lack of aggression towards strangers (compared with other primates). To see the wide-ranging ramifications of this quintessentially human trait, see Paul Seabright's _The Company of Strangers_ http://amzn.to/bc3g0a - Ruchira S. Datta
Andrew C, don't get me started about economics. See my ancient blogpost http://ruchiradatta.blogspot.com/2005... welcoming Samuel Bowles's _Microeconomics_ http://amzn.to/9C1RNu and quoting from its Prologue: "Making little reference to the specifics of time, or place, or indeed any empirical facts, the Walrasian paradigm deduced a few rather strong predictions concerning the outcomes likely to be observed in the economy." - Ruchira S. Datta
I just want to add that a hypothesis trying to explain certain aspects of human behavior or culture doesn't make said behavior or cultural aspect acceptable. We don't tolerate racism/nationalism/tribalism just because skepticism of outgroup members may have been an evolutionary advantage at some point, and religions aren't true just because our agency detection circuits tells us somebody made all of this. - Eivind
Eivind, I agree with all of that (including your last statement, though I am myself a theist). Hrdy's book has next to nothing about how we *should be* now, except a diffuse worry at the very end that since the circumstances selecting for empathy no longer hold, we may eventually lose it. - Ruchira S. Datta
I'm glad to hear it. Re: empathy: http://ff.im/nZgVU - Eivind
In any case, evolution, or any scientific theory for that matter, can't tell you anything about what "should be." They can only tell you what is, and maybe sometimes, what was, and what will be. I think anyone who says otherwise is trying to sell you something other than science, - Victor Ganata
John Hawks who is involved in a lot of this research commented about this article today on his blog: http://johnhawks.net/weblog... - Colby
For some examples of EP controversy, see http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll... and http://www.babelsdawn.com/babels_... . - Daniel Mietchen