Broadly speaking, evolution simply means the gradual change in the genetics of a population over time. From that standpoint, human beings are constantly evolving and will continue to do so long as we continue to successfully reproduce.
evolving. Once upon a time, we had to evade predators, compete with other hominid species and fight off disease. And thanks to modern society, agriculture, medicine, and technology, we've largely alleviated these physical selection pressures on our species.Perhaps we haven't stopped after all. Broadly speaking, evolution simply means the gradual change in the genetics of a population over time.
In our evolutionary past, women with more narrow hips were more likely to die during childbirth, but thanks to Cesarean sections, slimmer women now have a much higher chance of surviving childbirth and passing on their genes. The practice also relieves selective forces toward smaller head sizes in babies. While this could mean babies will grow to be larger at childbirth, babies of smaller weights, or those that are born prematurely, are also much more likely to survive today than in the past.
“Eating particular foods modifies how natural selection acts on the population, to favor genes that allow that diet to be broken down," says Kevin Laland, a biologist who studies animal behavior and evolution at the University of St Andrews. "Genes involved in the metabolism of proteins, carbohydrates, lipids, phosphates, dairy products and alcohol all show signs of recent selection in response to human culture.
“Our agricultural practices and aggregation into towns and cities inadvertently propagated crowd-borne and animal-borne diseases, such as malaria and tuberculosis, generating strong selection for genes that confer resistance to these diseases,” he adds.
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