Journal Scrameustache's Journal: Human evolution and the hubris of it's denial 2
I often hear people say that humans are no longer subject to natural selection.
They mention hospitals, cripples being taken care of, prenatal care, and they ignore the fact that two thirds of the people of this world have no access to these luxuries.
Not only is most of the population of the earth still dying young from malaria, tigers, hippos, and all manners of natural disasters, but we are reminded regularly that people in the industrial nations die everyday from man made predators. In 1830, William Huskisson ushered in a brave new world of everyday deadliness. I still see rail safety campaign posters, aimed at kids, in the 21st century.
Even medical science isn't saving people indiscriminatly of their genetic heritage. Most of the healing is left to the patient's body, and the treatment themselves work better on some and not as well on others: Survival of the easiest to treat.
Human evolution hasn't stopped: We aren't mighty enough to rise above natural selection.
We don't eliminate everything (Score:3, Interesting)
Do we have a whole new set of selectors to contend with? Of course- diseases such as you speak of are parasites. And parasites will ALWAYS evolve to attack successfull species, because that's where the food is.
Survival of the species can't be won entirely- there will always be a new species trying to knock you off the top of the food chain. But eliminating selectors that kill lower species helps immensely.
My dearest friend Scratchmustache (Score:1)