Evolution within Humans.
Up until recently in was easy to see evolution at work on human populations through natural selection; there was high mortality, selection of those who survived, our gene ratios changed.
In Shakespeare’s day, four hundred years ago, only one in three babies survived long enough to reproduce. There was a huge mortality rate. The ‘unfit’ were weeded out through disease, bad conditions, lack of sanitation, malnutrition, violence or mere bad luck. To survive you needed the right genes and the wit to be in the right place and do the right thing.
Nowadays 95% survive. The ‘unfit’ (and I use that term scientifically, not unkindly) are not weeded out. Health and Safety, medicine, sanitation and cleanliness have created a situation where nearly everyone survives to have children.
So is evolution no longer occurring in human populations?
The answer is probably ‘not much’.
What is clear though is that because infant death is no longer prevalent we are increasing in numbers at an alarming rate. For now the selection pressure is off. At some point it will come back on and our numbers will be drastically reduced.
Maybe it will be a virus?
What will the future generations of humans be like? Who will have evolved to lay claim to the future?
We can but hope.