This is it.The evolution of Homo sapiens is complete, says British geneticist Steve Jones—not because we’ve reached some pinnacle of perfection, but because we’ve run ourselves into an evolutionary dead end.Jones argues that the structures of contemporary society have jammed the three main drivers of evolution: natural selection, mutations, and random change.
He spoke yesterday at the University College London, delivering a lecture entitled “Human Evolution is Over” (in case you had any doubts as to his hypothesis). Here are his three main points:
1) Fewer early deaths. If everyone lives to reproductive maturity (in the developed world, nearly 98 percent of people survive to the age of 21), natural selection can do little work.
2) Fewer elderly fathers. As a man ages, the likelihood of genetic mutations
in his sperm increases dramatically. It used to be common for men to father many children with many different women well into ...
