Old-dad evolution is protecting our health

摘要

We're running just to stay still. A study of more than a million people going back four centuries shows that we are still evolving - not into superhumans, but to stay as we are. Almost all children in rich countries now survive to adulthood. That has led some biologists to suggest that evolution has essentially stopped. The thinking is that if children are less likely to die. those with lots of adverse new mutations are more likely to pass these on, so natural selection is no longer stopping these genetic changes from building up in the population. According to geneticist Michael Lynch of Indiana University in Bloomington, this process could affect our health and intelligence in just a few generations. Some have claimed that our genetic potential for intelligence Is already eroding, and that IQ scores should have risen even more than they have over the past century due to better health and education.