‘Western Man has Stopped Evolving’?

we may not be evolving as much physically, but we will always continue to evolve mentally, morally, and emotionally (or de-evolve as the case may be!) LOL

Is there anyone still believing the tale of evolution…? It is proved wrong, it goes against the scientific laws…! Come on kids…!

“Evolution” never ends.
It is a long-standing assumption that selection pressure is not as strong as it was when we were being eaten by lions (fairly obvious, really).
Genetic drift will always occur, even if “men are having children at younger ages.” It is an interesting theory that it might lower the mutation rate, however.
I assume Jones would probably agree with all that, if you pinned him down, but that woudn’t get him as much attention.

raven: Thanks for supplying the URL – I needed a laugh at this point in my day. That report was clearly written to support a preconceived outcome. Every point it makes can be explained without the need to invoke some super-hot outside accelerant (note the strong but subtle suggestion of thermite). The author(s) overlook much simpler explanations, such as the spherical globules that can be formed when melted, but not boiling, lead is thrown skyward or has its base support suddenly removed.
As is often the case, when you set out to find “facts” to support your conclusion, rather than letting your conclusion flow from the facts, all manner of things are possible. I’m quite sure these same people firmly believe that the entire 9/11 episode was engineered by GeeDubya as a pretext for going into the Middle East to steal Arab oil.
Remarkable.
P.S. Have you noticed that the conspiracy buffs give GeeDubya credit for having enough intelligence to engineer the whole 9/11 attack, doing such a superb job that even now no one involved (there had to have been dozens in various occupations) has even hinted about the true cause. This presumes that not one of those involved has had second thoughts, or wanted his/her name in the news, or wanted to cash in on the most $$$$$$-worthy story in at least a thousand years!
P.P.S. These same people also tell us long and loud how stupid GeeDubya is. Which is it? Brilliant enough to stage this and get away with it, or too stupid to know which side is up? They can’t have it both ways.

Fools…there was never any such thing as evolution in the first place! Duh!!!

I pity those who ridicule evolution. That one word explains the entire creation of our universe after the big bang. It explains the creation of our solar system, our planet, and all the lifeforms thereon. Evolution is the only theory we need.
Those who blindly believe the apocryphal bible are ignorant indeed.

Cue “if we came from monkeys, why do monkeys still exist?” in 5…. 4…. 3….

The real truth is that evolution is the best explanation to date. It doesnt bring the sillyness of creationism and doesnt harm any religion belief. And it does offer explanation for many things, it might be true or might not, or might need polishing… but it does explain a lot of things and much better than the bible… which I find that it tries to explain it on its own way… without any support!!! Now taht is silly

I can’t believe people still believe in a Theory that has no proof what so ever. Humans didn’t stop evolving because we never started in the first place. Name one solid fact or proof of evolution please, or are the facts still missing?

What were we gonna evolve to? Were we gonna sprout wings or grow gills? Stopped evolving…please! Let me guess, he was figuring this all out on public money…at least it was Englands money.

The increase in genetic mutations is increased by the soft life we ahve becuause people surive to breed who would have died young in a harsher world. So genes that would ahve died out naturally survive.
A more important evolution mechanism of our soft life is selective breeding. Beutiful people can find other beautiful people and athletes can find athletes. We will eventually evolve sub-species of models, actors, runners, swimmers, ball players, etc.

Yeah… those who dont support evoulution over the bible… are well… like in the dark ages: blind
While its not a perfect theory, its the best THEORY… meaning that its the best explanation to date, rather than Adam and Eve…

Humans did not evolve from animals. We were made by God in his image read (Genesis in the Bible) and have a soul that lives for all of eternity. It would be impossible to evolve from animal to human and somehow “grow” a soul.

In the beginning God created…
The natural age of death is the same now as it was is the year 1500! Check the books and records, I did. Check Genesis Chapter 8, verse 22, and you will see that Global Warming is a manufactured crisis. The Educational crisis is manufactured (In this case they, Socialist, created it). Wake Up America! You have been dumbed down.

Jim Honeycutt, when was the last time you bothered to read a book on the subject of evolution? Or take a class? Have you EVER done it?
There are plenty of solid online sites that will answer your question. Just type in “evolution” and “evidence.”
I agree with the poster who suggested that we are continuing to evolve mentally. New technologies require successful adaptation as much as physical environments do and will continue to do so. It may also be that humans are evolving in ways we cannot yet perceive in order to adapt to environmental changes and hazards, such as rising pollution levels. In the short term, these problems will have deleterious effects on many of us; but ultimately, nature may select for features that help some humans withstand those effects and pass on their genes.

Note from Ned Potter–
Hello to Wolf (and all others who’ve posted comments). In your comment at 2:04 PM you raise a good point on which, in fact, Jones has been challenged. Human beings in the past had lower odds of surviving infectious diseases, getting nutrition, being safe from predators, and so forth — but it was not impossible for people to live to advanced age. Jones argues that such elders would have been honored, and their offspring (with or without mutations) would have been welcomed. Jones’ detractors say he’s exaggerating the importance of this pattern.

Total BS. Humans will keep evolving. Maybe not physically since we don’t need to survive in the jungle, but intellectually. Technological advances mean that humans need to constantly absorb more knowledge in each successive generation. Mental development also comes from better nutrition. We are in effect becoming smarter faster, although sometimes the opposite may seem true.

Evolution theory or what-have-you is a direct insult to my intelligence.

Evolution is a lie. We were created by God alone.

You know what? Who cares if someone believes in Evolution or not. If we continue to argue about it then what good is there to be done? Can’t we all just accept that other people believe and don’t believe the same things? No ones forcing anybody to accept evolution or religion here. Choose what you believe in and leave it at that. There is no purpose in arguing, there has never been a resolve.

I would have to disagree that Western man has stopped evolving, perhaps it is a matter of semantics, but I rather prefer the connotation of adaptation over evolution as a progression/regression cycle. As for those species that fail in adaptation will simply perish with the regression of nature.
As for the evolution and Christian religion arguments, both arguments are figments of the imagination of Western man. Neither heaven nor hell exists, we are not separate from the natural world as it is or from the constant influx and flux of change in the greater universe.
As for the past, present and future, we are slowly adapting to change of our environment, until the day we cannot adapt to something greater than our own survival capabilities, then we simply perish.

CommonSense,
It does matter that these bible thumping people are using old fairy tales to suppress science. We cannot be competative in the world if our sceince is hindered by ignorant people living in a fantasy world.

Who said that Christians don’t believe in evolution? Obviously we do, the human race started with Adam and Eve so obviously there has been some adaptation and evolution going on.
Threeriverscrossing… how do you know that our DNA can be traced back millions of years? We’ve already discovered that carbon breaks down faster the older it gets so c14 dating could have missed the mark by millions of years.

David
Actually, a great many Christians agree with biological evolution as well, because there is nothing about Christianity that says you have to close your eyes to the real world.

I don’t think anybody’s proved Evolution yet. So it’s kinda hard to prove non-Evolution if there’s no Evolution. It’s still a theory, and not a very good one. They don’t have the missing link: they don’t have any links. Which monkey did we come from? We didn’t. I have more respect for the Big Bang than I have for “evolution” because evolution seems to be pure fiction, to me. The Big Bang is a teensy bit different. Scientists think there was a Big Bang because the universe is moving outward. I think that’s a huge leap in conclusions, but at least it’s truly based on a scientific observation.

It’s still the same tired old drawing of the monkeys, it’s been that way for 50+ years already and not one ounce of progress on proving it. They found a skull in Africa that they think *might* be part of the chain but they haven’t proved it. Biological Evolution: yes, I know that germs morph into new germs. Happens constantly. But in order for Evolution to work, the morphing has to IMPROVE itself along the way and I don’t think I’ve ever heard of any improvements that happen naturally, of their own accord. It’s all been downhill, for a long time. Those of us who were born in the 40′s and 50′s have seen a huge decline in human “evolution”, because there are soooo many children now who are damaged by autism, Obsessive Compulsive disorders, and much more. We didn’t see any of this when we were kids. Why is it happening now? We’re changing: but not for the better. We have the ability to go downhill. That’s not evolution.

With enough population there will always be survival pressure to direct evolution. In societies, such as Western Europe, where there is no population pressure, evolution will be directed by traits that increase the chances of people having and raising children which in long run should result in the return of population pressure.

According to President Bush and his little sister Sarah Palin, there was no evolution, so there cannot be a devolution either, allthough Bush and Palin definately prove the opposite.

Perhaps so (I agree). But the new evolutionary pressures may come from society and institutions as determinants of which member of the gene pool are well-adapted enought to dominate.

I get a kick out of the people who pretend to not believe in evolution. I guess Noah put pairs of millions of species on that tiny little boat. I would love to have a pic of that.
Christians are no different from people of any religion. They all believe that every other religion’s beliefs are ludicrous, but their equally ludicrous beliefs make perfect sense.
Science on the other hand presents physical evidence to support theories that can change over time. Good scientists are not rigid and do not insist that they are right about every thing, but instead constantly seek more clarification.
Issues such as the Big Bang, evolution, etc. are scientific theories based on physical evidence, but their descriptions do change with more study.
Despite all the questions we still have about the universe, there is zero reason to believe there is or ever has been a god.

“But the new evolutionary pressures may come from society and institutions as determinants of which member of the gene pool are well-adapted enough to dominate.”
Perhaps, but they do not currently exist in developed societies. Dominance and evolution are two distinct matters. A ‘minority’ of the gene pool can and often does dominate a society. That condition should not alter who continues to reproduce at the greatest rate.

Cory:
Evolutionary forces are cetainly at work in certain nations, especially in war-torn African nations where surviving to reproduce is a dicey matter.

aliens created blueeyed adam and eve -
Researchers in Denmark have found that every person with blue eyes descends from just one “founder,” an ancestor whose genes mutated 6,000 to 10,000 years ago. Before then, everyone had brown eyes

Well, I am a christian and I see absolutely no dissent between evolution and christian belief. The creation stories (yes stories, because there are 2) in the bible dissent much more among themselves. In the first there are animals before humans, and in the second there is human before animals. (Just read the first 2 chapters in the bible and you will see). So there is no purpose in the creation stories of the bible to be scientific.

Bubby:
Evolution often means nothing more than a change in the gene pool. I can produce that in the lab in a matter of months by subjecting insects to some pressure (e.g., exposure to a level of insecticide that kills most but not every individual). In an infinitesimally small time (evolutionarily speaking) I can produce a population, most of which, is tolerant of that insectidice.

ChristianKirk:
I know a lot of people try to find compatibility between Christianity and science. As a former very active Christian and church leader, I know the struggle. But as a scientist as well, I cannot find any compatibility.
Without the Bible as an authoritative source, what is the basis of your beliefs? Please do not respond with “faith” as so many do. Faith is just another way of saying “I am going to believe this although there is no evidence for why I should.”
I’m not dissing you. I’m sure many people are attemtping to reconcile these matters.

@ Kirk
? an exact timeline in creation? where do you see that?… You yourself sound like a literalist… I could easily make the same counter-claim that while you wish to have latitude for incorrect interpretation regarding some points… you wish to be rigid on one that you cannot back up… One who reads what is essentially a spiritual book from a stictly physical perspective does not see that spirit always preceeds physical manifestation… If one believes in God and reads the Bible with discernment (not the same as maleable personal interpretation) then everything becomes quite clear. The spirit was created before the body was formed… the Hebrew meanings of the original verbs is further proof of this…

@Bugg: Well, of course the bible is an authorative source. For example when Jesus was struggling with pharisees because he and his friends were working on the field on sabbath day – Jesus said that people were not made for sabbath but sabbath was made for people (Marcus 2,23-27). This sentence is fundamentally important on reading laws and rules inside the bible.
In that matter I see the bible as an authorative source. For me the bible is no dead book filled up with outdated laws, rules and restrictions. For me, the bible is also no scientific book. There is no right to press god inside one’s own kind of reading the bible. God is more, and the bible is telling that to everyone, even in the two different creation stories – there is a reason why they dissent each other. It is like “Hey reader! You are not reading a scientific magazine!”

@Bubby: You wrote:
“If one believes in God and reads the Bible with discernment (not the same as maleable personal interpretation) then everything becomes quite clear.”
Well, that is rediculous. I could say exactly the same to you… but I won’t do that because I am not in the mood of abusing the spirit and the bible for my own rhetorical games. I believe you feel under pressure at the moment and therefore you didn’t really want to exalt yourself. So we better forget about that.
Well, I have to leave anyways… have a good night.

Bugg
It is true that a literal interpretation of the Bible is incompatible with science, but that is just for fundamentalists. There are many people who can still have faith in God without having to ignore the world around them.

You people have a serious misunderstanding of the time scale of evolutionary processes! The five skeletons at the head of this article cover roughly 5 million years of the evolution of primates. The so-called “comforts” of Western Civilization have only been around for a century or two at the most.
This is not to say that we do not change over time (which is the definition of evolution). Anybody who has checked out a collection of suits of armor from 500 years ago will clearly note that very few modern men are small enough to fit inside of those suits of armor. But is that just changes in nutrition? Or is that evolution? Or is nutritional change one of the drivers of evolution (cause and effect style)?
The so-called “common ancestor” of all humans alive today is back somewhere around 250,000 to 500,000 years ago. In other words, humans as a distinct species have only existed for about 500,000 years worth of the about 5 million years worth of primate evolution illustrated at the head of this article. We won’t be able to say with any clarity that there has been a change in evolutionary forces affecting humanity until we have a period of at least several 10s of thousands of years of records available to us for study.
It is frankly quite likely that humanity will self-destruct within the next 500 years (or less), either through nuclear war, pandemic disease, climate catastrophe, or some other disaster. It is a virtual certainty that Western Civilization, which was founded in roughly 800 CE by the Emperor Charlemagne, will cease to exist as a viable cultural construct long before another 500 years goes by.
Oswald Spengler wrote his book “The Decline of the West” almost a century ago. In that time, The West has continued to decline, largely along the lines predicted by Spengler. Civilizations exist for far too short of a period of time to affect something as long-range as “evolution.” The data just isn’t there to make that kind of an argument.

The problem I have with their theories about mankind: they’ve never found even one of those skeletons in that progressive lineup. We have lots and lots of skeletons of dinosaurs, but early man isn’t showing up anywhere. It’s mostly all lizards: very big ones. Where is everybody else: Evolution of all and any of the rest of the living species? Just a buncha huge lizards and the wooly mammoths. Adding millions of years to the puzzle still doesn’t fill in any of the gaps. Actually, we could say, WHAT GAPS? There’s nobody in the queue at all. If Evolution is a fact, I would think there would be evidence and proof galore, but it’s simply not there. The lineup of little Monkey-Men doesn’t exist. And we can’t find evolutionary trails of other species either.

Obviously, J. Steven Jones can’t see the forest for the trees. World records in sports are constantly broken, man’s adaptation to new and more complicated machinery and the world-shaking changes of the “Industrial Revolution” are evidence of his continued evolution. The only way mankind might stop evolving would be to begin cloning himself on a worldwide scale. Even then, considering the advances in genetic engineering, I’m certain he would manipulate his offspring to cope with the future.
As for the naysayers who refuse to believe in evolution, I offer you the dog as incontrovertible proof. 10,000 years ago dogs, as we know them, didn’t exist. Since then, all breeds we know have evolved through genetic selection of survival of the fittest to cope in Mans world. Rat Terriers, wolfhounds, Afghan hounds, German Shepherds all evolved into their present form reacting to an ever-changing world. I.e.: Afghan’s who attacked a large cat, a Tiger for instance, and survived, bred with other survivors to create the dog we know now. A long legged, barrel chested, dog with a long snout that was perfect for running fast and killing in a pack.

Annie
What are you talking about? The drawings in the diagram are drawings of existing fossils, and they are only a small sample of the fossils we have in the human family. I can’t keep up with the numbers, but there are probably at least 25 humanoid species in the fossil record, many of them with multiple fossil specimens. All together, there are over 250,000 species of fossilized organisms discovered so far, from every known animal group, from single-cells to insects to fish to mammals. And yes, a lot of lizards, even though dinosaurs were not actually lizards.

But I guess I see what you mean…. terror cells are evolving…

Let;s just say it’s definitely better to KNOW than to BELIEVE

Annie
Now that was funny.
Jock
She is absolutely right, we never do find them lined up like that.

Ned
That picture is wrong for other reasons. I suggest reading Dr. Filler’s papers for an idea as to why.

Stopped? No.
Slowed down because the less natural selection thanks to science & technology? Possibly

How ridiculous, believing that the intricacy inherent to the complex machinery that comprises a cell could come into existence on it’s own…
…only the conceptually illiterate could fall for such drivel
science continually proves itself wrong…

Annie: ” I think the only TRUE objective scientist also could and should consider God as a potential part of the equation. ”
Science only deals with the natural world (aka reality). The supernatural is a irrelevant for science, or you could just as well say that lightening is caused by Zeus.
Saying God dit it is just answering a questiong with another question; it doesn’t explain anything.

Here’s an enigma for the scientific minded. We talk about the advancement of species through evolution and yet argue with the same fervor that all systems, including the universe, are subject to entropy and the inevitable reduction toward chaos.

@ Carroll
I would call the changes that you described adaptation rather than evolution… there is no msnifestation of new traits only changes in existing ones…
@ Casey
? our planet has found a way ?
and exactly what then do you consider not a “closed” system ? The Universe?
The Milky Way Galaxy?, Our Solar System?, This Ecosphere? All exist in tandem… and are therefore not truly “closed”… So you refute entropy on what basis again?
“Oh wise and all-knowing planet… what is the meaning of life?”

No one here or anywhere (for that matter) has ever sufficiently answered the question of “How or why the intricacy and dependent/interdependent nature inherent to the complex machinery that comprises a cell could or would ever come into existence on it’s own…”
I have heard some very lame attempts to explain this but none were truly plausible.

Bubby, show me a biologist who actually claims that a fully functioning cell will pop into existance on its own (aka spontaneous generation). We’re well past the 17th century by now.
(Bio)chemistry shows us that simple organic molecules can react with eachother to form more complex molecules, which in turn can react further.
For example, phospholipids can spontaneously form lipid bilayers which is a basic component of the cell membrane. Amino acids can be easily made in the right conditions
For the hypothesis of abiogenesis, it goes something like this
1A. formation of small organic molecules (amino acids, nucleic acid bases,…),
1B. and these combine to make larger biomolecules (proteins, RNA, lipids,…),
2A. which self-organized, by a variety of interactions, into a semi-alive system
2B. that gradually transformed into a more sophisticated form, a living organism.
There is no truly “standard model” of the origin of life though. Several models could be possible untill more is known.

Casey – Thanks for the post. I got so excited after thinking about it, I was ready to unload on Marilyn vos Savant and ask her the “Ultimate Question, what’s it all about: Life the Universe and everything.” Whew, that was close.
Don’t worry about the grad students. After posting my question I went rummaging through some of my books and found Michio Kaku in “Parallel Worlds” offered the same explanation as you did. He writes, “At first it seems that the existence of complex life forms on Earth violates the second law (of Thermodynamics.) … Some have taken this miracle to imply the hand of a benevolent creator… entropy still increases, because additional energy fueling life is constantly being added by the Sun.”

Mankind is still evolving. Since people with all levels of ability survive to a reproductive age, even the most incapable can reproduce a large number of offspring and keep their DNA in the pool. More intelligent folks tend to have fewer kids – so their DNA are becoming more scarce. Basically, humanity is evolving into something more stupid and incapable. Humanity is past it’s peak.

Reading some comments I picture Artie Johnson poking his head out of the bush with his WW II german helmet and spouting his “very interesting” remark.

Sounds like the Creationism Cult is alive and well based on some of the comments here. Science goes hand in hand with the bible so what ever you say really does not matter. All you have to do is believe. Remember we will always be evolving. We have better health care, food, living conditions which changes the way we are. That in itself is evolution.

there is no reason you can’t be religous and believe in evolution, but evolution is a scientific theory with an enormous amount of scientific evidence to support it. If those that mock evolution would take the time to learn about the theory and the facts that support it maybe they wouldn’t riducle it so much. hundreds of years ago people also challenged those crazy scientific theories like the earth revolving around sun . . . . for those who want to educate themselves about evolution instead of mocking something they don’t know anything about check out pbs. /evolution . . . it would also be helpful to understand what “science” is and why intilligent design is not a scientific theory

To all those who say life had to had a designer, then who designed God? After all he would be even more complex? The usual answer is “he always existed”, which is a dumb answer. The bible makes “humans” a key part or god’s plans but why did he wait so long to make us. Its beyond a doubt from all evidence the universe and earth have been here billions of years but somehow God waited to create us recently.

Anon
Likely a case of mistaken identity in the case of the hebrew bible. They were backwards nomads that encountered much more advanced civilizations in Babylon and Egypt.

The many different skulls that have been found… how do we know they are not deformanties, do we all look the same today? Are there not little people and bigger people who is to say that one skull determies a whole race? – if the race even exists, why do people fight the bible? Is this not what happened to Jesus? Didn’t the Jews cruicfy him because, they didn’t believe he was the true messiah?
This makes way more sense than anything I’ve heard on here.

Amy
It’s not just about skulls but skulls make identification easier. In order to get from a mouse-like creature to a modern human every bone in the body had to change.
Paul
That’s not quite true. My house has evolved invisible spiders because cobwebs still appear despite my killing all the ones I find.

What an interesting view.

OK let’s end this debate once and for all. Evolution is a fact and creationist is a fact. How do I know? Because we exist and we’ve evolved. Period.

Suppose this is correct, so what? Should it be “bad”? Or “good”?
Should we make Sparta rules and kill the weak? Is this impied, or expected by the author? If not, then why does it matter?
We live, we die. Evolution is extremely slow process compared to our rate of scientific reasoning right now. I doubt we can evaluate it. And even if we could, there’s nothing to do about that.
So all this is a waste of time.