Genes: Domesticating ourselves

Russ Abbott wrote:
> Has this been noted yet?
>
> From The New Scientist
> http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=3Ddn8483
>
> [According to Robert Moyzis and his colleagues at the University of
> California, Irvine] around 1800 genes, or roughly 7% of the total in the
> human genome, have changed under the influence of natural selection
> within the past 50,000 years. ... That is roughly the same proportion of
> genes that were altered in maize when humans domesticated it from
> its wild ancestors.
>
> *"Domesticated" humans*
> Moyzis speculates that we may have similarly "domesticated" ourselves
> with the emergence of modern civilisation.
>
> "One of the major things that has happened in the last 50,000 years is the
> development of culture," he says. "By so radically and rapidly changing our
> environment through our culture, we've put new kinds of selection
> [pressures] on ourselves."
>
> Genes that aid protein metabolism -- perhaps related to a change in diet
> with the dawn of agriculture -- turn up unusually often in Moyzis's list of
> recently selected genes. So do genes involved in resisting infections,
> which would be important in a species settling into more densely
> populated villages where diseases would spread more easily. Other
> selected genes include those involved in brain function, which could be
> important in the development of culture.
>
Yes, even the Pee Cee ["there are no differences between the races
and genders"] pushers, can't deny that the races that now suffer
an explosion of diabetes rates, do so because of their genes.

They evolved, under lack of rich food, which now becomes fatal for
them.

OTOH, 50,000 years seems rather short to 'vary' as much as
domesticated maize ? I particularly remember a Pee Cee
professor tell that children of 30,000 years ago would be no different.
Ie. that if infants have the same input, they acheive the same results.
Ie. that there is NO racial component in human mental attributes.

Where do these bluffers hide, now that we've even found the
'homosexual gene[s]' ?

== Chris Glur.



.

Relevant Pages

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