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By TheophileEscargot (Sat Oct 04, 2008 at 08:14:06 AM EST) Reading, Listening, MLP (all tags)
Reading: "Children of Prometheus: The Accelerating Pace of Human Evolution". Listening: "Something Rotten". Web.

What I'm Reading
Children of Prometheus: The Accelerating Pace of Human Evolution by Christopher Wills. Slightly dated book (1998) arguing that human evolution is speeding up.

He finds a bit of evidence to support the claim, pointing at the differences in adaptation to altitude amongst people in the Andes and the Himalayas (the Sherpas seem better adapted). He also points out that the sickle-cell anaemia and malaria thing suggests that its a recent adaptation, being so harmful for such slight protection. He fingers the change from hunter-gatherer to agriculture as part of the culprit, the latter lifestyle leading to many more mosquito-breeding pools and puddles.

Not totally convincing though, and he points out that most of the evolution is boring differential selection between existing alleles, not exciting new mutations.

Found a couple of things interesting. Trivial things like skin pigmentation changes seem to evolve very quickly: if a population find themselves at a latitude without much sunshine, it can happen pretty quickly that the enzyme tyrosinase which produces melanin mutates enough to reduce its functioning.

He points out that people of 400,000 years ago were thought to be primitive based on their crude stone tools, but once wooden spears were uncovered they were found to be pretty sophisticated, with the centre of mass a third of the way from the point, just like a modern javelin. The Sima de los Huesos people were interesting too.

He also recounts an non-human incident from a researcher called Gage who was trying to compare the behaviour of lab mice with a strain of wild mice. One of the standard experiments was to get them to swim through a maze to a raised platform. The lab mice made it fine, but when the wild-strain mice made to the platform they managed to leap straight to the floor and make an escape attempt. Also when it came to maze-learning: the lab mice tended to explore and learn, but the wild-strain mice just went to sleep as soon as they found there was no food around. He speculates that lab mice have evolved to solve mazes.

Overall, a fairly interesting book but not unmissable.

Listening
Finished the audiobook of Something Rotten by Jasper Fforde. Fourth in the metafictional Thursday Next series, where the eponymous protagonist wanders in and out of books as part of the Jurisfiction police.

Haven't read the others, but didn't find it too hard to catch up. This one is mostly set in the apparently real world, though Hamlet, Mrs Tiggywinkle and a few other characters turn up. The "real" world is some kind of parallel universe: there's no UK, croquet is the English national sport, gravitubes and airships replace aeroplanes, and George Formby is president.

Pretty good: fast placed with an eventful plot. Somewhat amusing: might work better in print. Found it slightly annoying the way Next keeps giving little summaries of all the wacky things that are going on, as if to rub your face in how wacky everything is. Still, the excruciatingly punful names make up for things, and there's a huge amount of invention here. Also comes to a surprisingly touching ending.

Will keep an eye out for the others: good fun, nice read.

Also narrator Emily Gray does an astonishing job with a huge variety of character voices: one of the best I've heard.

Coming Soon
Next up on Listening is Teaching Company course Origins of Great Ancient Civilizations. Might look for more audiobooks after that: now that Ealing Central Library is open again there's a bit more choice. Also working on the next Rebus.

Web
Bat vs. frog vs bat.

217 Babel Street (intro) is an evolving interactive fiction thing whose contributors include Jeff Noon. Looks pretty sparse so far but may grow. Not sure if it will be the next 253.

1908 presidential speeches.

This made me want to hit someone has hard as I can. Tyler Durden's Rules of Innovation: how Fight Club can motivate you to become a better capitalist.

Bailout Web
Well, it's over now. Hopefully the Mandy Distraction will prove sufficient and Brown won't feel the need to copy it over here.

El Reg: Your democracy is hurting my consensus.

Mankiw: Wanted: A Good Bernanke Speech.

Marginal Revolution: The bailout consensus is clear.

Incidental Note
I did actually know that do an end run around was not from baseball. Hirez.

< Mexico holiday summary. | Public Servants and the Free Market >

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Children of Prometheus: The Accelerating Pace of Human Evolution (Penguin Science) - Christopher Wills (0 comments)



Something Rotten (Thursday Next) - Jasper Fforde (0 comments)
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Liver and Bacon | 11 comments (11 topical, 0 hidden) | Trackback
Reagan speaches! by ucblockhead (4.00 / 1) #1 Sat Oct 04, 2008 at 11:49:26 AM EST
Typo alert: you mean 1908 not 1980.

It is important to realize that all of the studies that show that we are evolving "right now" are looking at genetic changes over the last ten thousand years.  So they really don't mean that the human race is evolving at this point in time.  They mean that evolution has had an effect during civilized times.  In other words, the human race likely "adapted" to aspects of civilization, like city dwelling, agriculture and the making large-scale war.

However, human society underwent massive changes over the last two hundred years.  One of those changes is that unlike times past, the vast majority of infants born make it well past breeding age, and breeding has, for the most part, become a matter of choice.  Because of this, it is hard to understand how there is any evolutionary pressure in modern times, unless it is pressure against the sorts of personalities that choose not to have children, but it is unclear as to whether that is a genetic trait or not.

A point on alleles vs. mutations: The rate mutations appear is really not an indicator of anything.  More mutations does not mean faster evolution.  The speed of evolution is represented by how fast the numbers of alleles change.

The mutation rate actually varies by gene, and some have even suggested that these rates are themselves selected against.  This means that you see more mutations in traits (like skin color or hair color) where it would be useful for the traits to change quickly in response to the environment.  In other words, evolution selects for selectability.

The mice thing just goes to show that humans can quite easily domesticate an animal without even realizing it.
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ウセーバラケダ


Thanks, changed to 1908 by TheophileEscargot (2.00 / 0) #2 Sat Oct 04, 2008 at 12:36:30 PM EST
One thing he points out is that the change to a modern way of life is a huge one, and it's unlikely we've instantaneously adapted to it.

He thinks that the evolutionary pressures of living in large populations is going to lead to an increased genetic diversity. He uses the analogy of a dense forest: it's advantageous to be a different tree to the others around you since you're less prone to diseases and such; so you tend to get a very diverse ecosystem with a variety of niches filled.

So, he thinks that in cities we will evolve greater diversity to fill different (possibly psychological) niches, take advantage of different roles, and be less prone to concentrated threats.
--
Butch and Petey are harsh and unforgiving in their estimation of female beauty.
[ Parent ]

"adapted to it" by ucblockhead (4.00 / 2) #3 Sat Oct 04, 2008 at 01:16:41 PM EST
I find it hard to see how much selection is going on when people aren't dying prior to breeding age.  It's not just a matter of advantage and disadvantage.  It's a matter of people breeding at different rates due to genetic differences.  Without that, there's no selection and therefore no evolution.  If some people aren't losing out in the breeding game due to genetic traits, there's no evolutionary pressure regardless of how well adapted we are.

To show that we might be evolving at this point in time, you'd have to show that for a particular gene, the number of offspring is different given allele A vs. allele B.  This certainly could be done.  But note that there's no argument about "people aren't well adapted."  That isn't enough.  As an example, the cancer rates are likely much higher than in primitive situations due to all of the modern chemicals, etc. that are flowing around in our air and water.  We are not adapted to that.  However, since cancer generally kills people after they've bred rather than before, there is little evolutionary pressure to bear and therefore this is unlikely to change.  It is an area that we are not adapted to and yet can't adapt to.  (Barring genetic engineering.)

Also keep in mind that the current view is that smaller populations change faster than large populations.  This is because a small population is clearly maladapted while a large population is clearly not.  In this sense, the argument also fails as in the evolutionary sense, "adapted" means, "is able to breed successfully".  In other words, the fact that the human race is growing a tremendous rate and filling all environments on the planet shows that from an evolutionary standpoint the human race is very well adapted to its environment.  Note that "adapted" in the evolutionary sense doesn't mean we are comfortable, happy or pain-free.  It merely means that we are popping out kids faster than we are dying.

Now there could certainly be selection in an increasing population, but personally I think that differential breeding in humans is driven more by cultural differences than genetic ones.  There's always sexual selection, but given how fast tastes seem to change in the modern world (boyish flapper, voluptuous Marilyn Monroe, etc.), I doubt that this has much of an effect.

More likely what you would see right now is simple genetic drift in perhaps not great directions as a lot of the selection pressures of the past has simply vanished.  For example, the increasingly complex infertility treatments (and therefore, the increasing number of poor fertility genes that are passed) have dangerous implications for the future of the human reproductive system.

His argument really sounds like an airy, new age view of evolution that really has little relation to the concrete theory of natural selection.  There's this tendency to view evolution as adapting to anything regardless of situation that is a flat-out misunderstanding of how natural selection works.  Of course, I haven't read the book so I can't really critique.
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ウセーバラケダ
[ Parent ]

People still die before reproductive age by TheophileEscargot (2.00 / 1) #4 Sat Oct 04, 2008 at 01:56:33 PM EST
And it only takes tiny differences in death rates to produce evolutionary changes. Sickle cell anaemia is an example: it only actually provides a small degree of protection against malaria. And people reproduce at different rates.

I think people find the idea that humanity has found its final form in themselves appealing, but it seems pretty unlikely.
--
Butch and Petey are harsh and unforgiving in their estimation of female beauty.
[ Parent ]

Death by ucblockhead (4.00 / 2) #6 Sat Oct 04, 2008 at 02:25:57 PM EST
Do they die differentially due to culture or genetic differences?  It is not enough to say "people die at different rates".  You have to show that the differences are due to genes, not culture or random chance.

Differences in death rates can be swamped by "random" noise (i.e. cultural differences.)  More importantly, the difference in death rates directly determines the "speed" of evolution.  A large difference means fast evolution while a small change means slow evolution.  So if the differences are "tiny", then the current evolution of the human race isn't "faster than every", but quite a bit slower.  Since it is generally thought that smaller populations evolve much faster than larger ones, this is not surprising.

The thing with sickle cell anemia is that those genes had may millenia to evolve.  Also, given that malaria is currently treatable, any evolutionary effect is gone.  People die differentially to malaria today entirely due to cultural differences.  (i.e. being in a poor country vs. a rich one.)  Using it as an example exhibits the same general fallacy I was talking about, that is, assuming that the evolutionary pressures on the human race from 40,000 BC to 1600 AD are the same as they are now.  Given that now we have modern medicine and modern farming methods, this is assuredly not the case.  The environment you and I find ourselves in today is more different from our ancestors circa 1600 AD than that environment was from the environment of humans circa 5000 BC.

I'm not suggesting that humanity has found its "final" form.  However, there are some gross misunderstandings about how evolution by natural selection actually works in the general public.  For instance, it most certainly does not say that species perfectly adapt themselves to whatever environment, and especially not on as short a time-scale as modern civilization.  (i.e. a century or two.)
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ウセーバラケダ
[ Parent ]

I think by TheophileEscargot (2.00 / 0) #11 Sun Oct 05, 2008 at 02:55:04 AM EST
"Culture or genetic" is a bit of a false distinction. Genes and environment intertwine in complicated ways. Environment influences which genes will be passed on, the influence of genes is mediated through the environment.

But it's pretty clear that on a statistical level, genes do influence behaviour. It seems pretty likely that they're having an effect. For instance, there seems to be a genetic component to alcholism; alcohol is more effortlessly available in modern society; it seems likely that that's creating a selection pressure of some kind.
--
Butch and Petey are harsh and unforgiving in their estimation of female beauty.
[ Parent ]

More explicit by ucblockhead (4.00 / 1) #10 Sat Oct 04, 2008 at 04:33:32 PM EST
To be more explicit: I don't deny that humans might be evolving.  I just dispute that we are a) evolving more quickly than in prehistoric times and b) that studies examining changes over many thousands of years of human history are applicable to the last hundred or so.
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ウセーバラケダ
[ Parent ]

Not just early deaths by Alan Crowe (4.00 / 1) #7 Sat Oct 04, 2008 at 02:39:15 PM EST
Other things being equal evolution is driven by family size, the larger the better, and also by the age at reproduction, the younger the better. Obviously other things aren't equal and you get more great-grandchildren by waiting until you are old enough to care for your own children well, and  not sabotaging it with a large but neglected brood.

One oddity is that concerns about dysgenic mating focus on worries that the really brainy are not having enough children. When people talk about the Flynn effect they are quick to discount the idea of rapid evolution towards higher levels of intelligence. You can see why. University professors are not breeding like rabbits.

But what of the bottom end. Stupid people are tucked away on peripheral housing schemes to rot with the drug addicts and the squalor. Nobody thinks about them, but I bet that modern society is increasingly cruel to the very stupid. As a peasant in a village your fiancee need never know that you were stupider than the average labourer. The difference between being illiterate because you never had the chance to learn and being illiterate because you are so slow that you are painful to teach is never exposed.

In modern life even the factory worker is expected to mark up the statistical process control charts and have a clue what it all means. The bottom of the heap has its pecking order and the really stupid are exposed, by things such as filling in benefit forms, and probably frozen out of the dating game. I would not be surprised if the human race is evolving due to fierce competition in parts of society from which the comfortable off usually avert their eyes.

[ Parent ]

Birth rates by ucblockhead (4.00 / 2) #9 Sat Oct 04, 2008 at 02:56:19 PM EST
Perhaps at the very bottom, but if you use income as a proxy for societal "success", the correlation with sex and birthrate is very weak.  The quintiles with the highest birthrates are the richest and the second lowest.  So if the rich have the highest birthrate, the upper-middle-class the second lowest, the lower-class the second highest, the very poor the lowest, it is hard to say which way the selective pressure is.

Because the human species is relatively monogamous and has a balanced sex ratio, few people are left out of the breeding game due to mate selection.

Society may be cruel to the poor, but do the poor have troubles mating?

And, of course, you also have to answer a scary question: does societal success today actually differ genetically?  The rich may out breed the poor, but if the rich and the poor do not differ genetically, then there will be no selective effect.  Given that movement between economic classes is relatively common even in societies we consider "rigid", I'm not sure you can make a good case for genetic differences being the cause.  Barak Obama is rich.  His half-brother is very poor.  The root difference is likely not genes but that one grew up in the US and one in Kenya.  Pure chance.

But I do think you have to go to the root of it: selective pressure is highest when the species is small and declining and lowest when the species is large and growing.  Humans are surely in the latter class.
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ウセーバラケダ
[ Parent ]

Hybridisation by Vulch (4.00 / 1) #5 Sat Oct 04, 2008 at 02:16:49 PM EST
Up until 200 years ago most people lived and died within walking distance of their birthplace and married a near neighbour. Industrialisation, mass transport and migration to the cities gave most of those small gene puddles a good mixing and now easy international and intercontinental travel are giving things a further mix.

Maybe this means that the War on Tourism, rising fuel prices, climate change and the economic collapse are evolutions way of saying "Right, time to go back to isolated villages and give these new combinations a chance to work through".


[ Parent ]

this is by cam (4.00 / 1) #8 Sat Oct 04, 2008 at 02:46:58 PM EST
straight from a cartoon book:
The idea that the state should bail out feckless private enterprises offended both conservatives and libertarians, who take moral responsibility seriously. The left wanted their traditional adversaries put in jail, not given a gift of new lease of life with the public's money.
And mostly bullshit. People dont like it because it stinks. You dont have to be politically active or occupy a nice stereotypical axis of the left-right continuum to recognise that.

cam

Freedom, liberty, equity and an Australian Republic


Liver and Bacon | 11 comments (11 topical, 0 hidden) | Trackback

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