Are Humans Still Evolving?

Several mutations changed our most primitive ancestors into the homo sapien species that we know today, but are these gradual mutations still occurring? Geneticist Steve Jones says, "Human evolution is over. Quite unexpectedly, we have dropped the human mutation rate because of a change in reproductive patterns." There are three factors of evolution: mutation, natural selection, and random change. He argues that as men grow older, the chance of mutation increase, yet most men reproduce at the age of twenty-nine. Fathers older than thirty-five are more likely to pass on mutations. Centuries ago, natural selection had a profound effect on humans. Less than 50 percent of the children would live to age twenty; now, 98 percent children live past twenty-one. Another factor is that all populations of the world are connected. When one goes to college, he can meet and reproduce with anyone from any place in the world. This interracial mating will cause blending of genes and will prevent humans from evolving. Many scientists believe that the blending of our genes will create a uniformly brown skin population.

Some scientists argue that few factors are still driving evolution.. Biologist Christopher Wills believe that intelligence is driving our evolution. The more intelligent one is, the more money the person will have. Money ensures a easier survival, and wealthier people tend to have more children. Scientist Peter Ward believes that evolution will be ceased until humans can introduce gene that benefit our survival. Professor Chris Stringer believes that evolution is always occurring. He says, "Evolution is highly unpredictable. For example, brain size has decreased over the past 10,000 years. A similar reduction has also affected our physiques. We are punier and smaller-brained compared with our ancestors only a few millennia ago."

We need to inform more people about the cessation of human evolution. This is connected to living people because humans may still be the same for several generations. It is interesting that our advancements in technology over thousands of years may have stopped evolutionary forces. If an epidemic creates a bottleneck effect on the human population, will evolution still occur even though the medicine and technology still exists? Are isolated villages in third world countries without modern medicine still evolving? What can we do, as a community, to enusure our surviual in the future without naturally evolving? In adittion, without having evolutiion continuing for the human race, will it threaten our life span as on this world?

Sources:
Jonathan A. Eisen. "Evolution, Genomics, Microbiology."