It has been a question for some time if natural selection is still key in human evolution due to lower birth and death rates. Medicine has been a huge factor causing controversy over this subject; due to medicine more and more babies are surviving to adulthood. Not only this but the average number of children born to each family has been lowered from 5 to about 1.6 children. It seems that despite all of these modern influences on human evolution natural selection still plays a key role.
Researchers at the University of Sheffield in England believe that genetic differences between people continue to drive human evolution. In the 18th and 19th centuries, 4 to 18 percent of genes influenced a portion of the variation between individuals when it came to lifespan, family size, and ages at first to last birth, the rest was influenced by the environment. What this would mean is that these genes can still be influenced by natural selection. They investigated the genetic basis of these traits to continue changing through evolution despite the rapid and dramatic change to the environment and found that modern people still respond to natural selection. This means that genetic differences between people are still being driven by evolution.This research will help to predict population response to many challenges, such as epidemics, decreasing fertility as well as aging populations and many more global challenges that the human population may endure in the future. This article is very interesting because despite all odds of humans not being able to evolve, it seems that the possibilities are endless. Natural selection is defined as the process by which forms of life having traits that better enable them to adapt to specific environmental pressures, as predators, changes in climate or competition for food or mates, will tend to survive and reproduce to greater numbers than others of their kind, thus ensuring the perpetuation of those favorable traits in succeeding generations. When thinking about this definition you would not think it likely that humans would be able to evolve because there is no survival of the fittest when it comes to the human race. Almost every human survives due to the science of medicine. It is refreshing to think that there is a large possibility that humans are still evolving despite all of this.
Link to article: Natural Selection still Key in Human Evolution
Link to article #2: Natural Selection
The terms 'natural selection' and 'survival of the fittest' normally go hand in hand, so it's quite contradicting to say that natural selection is key in human evolution and "there is no survival of the fittest when it comes to human race" in the same thought. People with negative genetic mutations usually don't survive as well as those with normal, healthy genes so the individuals with mutations die out more quickly and are unable to reproduce, which is exactly what natural selection is. I believe everything is still evolving and adapting because our environments are ever-changing.
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