Man continues to evolve, say genetics
MOSCOW, 5 sen — RIA of news. Large-scale genetic analysis of the DNA of people in the UK and USA shows that the biological evolution of mankind has not stopped and that the number of carriers of the “bad” versions of genes associated with disease, continues to fall under the action of natural selection, according to an article published in the journal PLOS Biology.
“Traces of this was very hard to find but we have found hints that natural selection continues to work among modern human populations,” said Joseph Pickrell, geneticist of Columbia University in new York (USA).
Today biologists and evolutionists actively debating about stopped if human evolution after our ancestors invented tools and moved on to life in large societies of their own kind.
Some scientists believe that biological evolution has slowed down or even stopped, as the survival of individuals and their likelihood to continue their family began to depend not on the quality of the genes, and intelligence, wealth and social status.
Other evolutionists doubted it, and over the past two decades, there have been several experiments and studies in which researchers have tested how changing the genome of humanity as a whole for several hundreds or thousands of years. These observations often led to conflicting results that did not add confidence that the evolution continues.
Pickrell and his colleagues found new evidence that Darwinian selection still continues to work in humanity, analyzing the genomes of more than 160 thousand inhabitants of great Britain and the United States, recently participated in various genetic studies.