Leading Geneticist Says Human Evolution Is Over

Human evolution is grinding to a halt because of a shortage of older fathers in the West, according to a leading genetics expert.

Fathers over the age of 35 are more likely to pass on mutations, according to Professor Steve Jones, of University College London.

Read the whole story here.

Comments

[GeorgeKaplan]

Does this included McCain and Palin?

[Eres]

We can look to Palin, McCain and their followers as proof!

[Forester]

humans will come and go,
and the big blue ball will just keep on spinning.
Human existence and consciousness are an amazing bit of luck,
but don't get all metaphysical about it all,
life will continue in some more successful form
after we screw the pooch once too often.

As eric idle so succinctly put it:

The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding
In all of the directions it can whizz
As fast as it can go, at the speed of light, you know,
Twelve million miles a minute, and that's the fastest speed there is.
So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure,
How amazingly unlikely is your birth,
And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space,
'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth.

[Rule Of Law]

With the crap the Republicans allow industry to pump into the environment everyday, the proximity of high power lines, pesticides and herbicides, polluted water, air unfit to breath, to our grade schools--usually in the poorest parts of town, and the chemical additives in our foods, the overprescription of drugs that often act as antagonists to each other and end up in our Water, the breakdown of the ozone and its protection from solar rays, I think we have the perfect evolutionary soup for Mutation.

Go to any twenty year old War Zone in any part of the 3rd world and see what agent orange, depleted uranium, and germ warfare have done to the gene pool.

[Pyrrhus]

Why is this news? The members of the rethuglican party haven't evolved since 1865.

But they have mutated tho...

[grizhead63]

The rethugs are primal proof that evolution can actually reverse itself.

[GeorgeKaplan]

They have devolved since 1865!

[SecondBase]

Human evolution is over?

And we're stuck here with all these republicans?

I want my money back.

PS: We've known for some time that evolution is wrong. This information is generally kept secret, but scientists discovered that God actually made monkeys because he was disappointed in republicans.

[WeAreTheBorg]

We believe that human evolution has ended because humans discovered how to manipulate their environment with tools. Therefore, evolution no longer has the effect that it did on humans.

We are the Borg.
Resistance is Futile.

[stepintothelight]

Now if only all the women looked liked 7 of 9.

[imusintheevening]

What a foolish statement.

A) Life expectancy trends indicate that very few lived past their mid-thirties only several hundred years ago.

B) We won't know for certain of there is any truth to the claim for about 10,000,000 years.

[Paul]

Excellent points.

Besides, natural selection is the mechanism by which mutations are passed down the generations. Spntaneous mutations are not necessarily a function of the parents - outside circumstances like gamma ray intensity also play a part.

[DocSarvis]

Fossil evidence supports the punctuational theory that our species went through long periods of stasis followed by rapid change due to environmental stresses. Steve Jones is not anticipating future events that could influence human evolution. Assuming that in a thousand or ten thousand years the human genetic mutation rate will be what it is today rests on the assumption that human culture and the earth's environment will remain as it is today. Jones has no basis for that assumption.

[Wilbur]

Republicans are proof of this guys claims. Makes sense, cuz they disavow the fact of evolution anyway!

Wilbur

[crayola 08]

republicans are proof that some homosaphiens interbreeded with neaderthals.

[FZliveson]

Right! And they otta cloze that there patent office too 'cause there ain't
nothin new bein' invented neither. What a croc of self-promoting
protoplasmic balderdash. The truth is that Professor Steve Jones probably
had an older father and Professor Steve Jones probably has two noses and
a thumb protruding from his spine, so he wants more to follow suit.
Well my three sons turned out just fine, thank you very much and we are not
going to try to keep up with the "Joneses."

[LMT]

The evidence for the reversal of human evolution can be seen at every Mc.Bush/Flailin' rally--both on stage and off.

[DAE]

This sort of headline grabbing self promotion gives science a bad name. First, species will remain in evolutionary stasis with little observable change for long periods of time when population numbers are large and conditions are stable. Second, evolutionary change usually occurs relatively quickly among small isolates when environmental condition change rabidly. There is still plenty of opportunity for human evolution to occur as we continue to degrade the environment, potentially leading to catastrophic episodes of depopulation.

[DocSarvis]

Absolutely spot-on.

[wadenelson1]

The "Yearning for Zion" folks see this as a real scientific breakthrough, proving the wisdom of their "older guys / younger gals" approach to reproduction.

[wrathofcon]

I was 39 when my child was born so I have done my part but I pretty sure the human race will keep evolving.