Good News in Evolution - We're Getting Smarter

[Jelly]

although I know it doesn't seem like it :lol

Evolving brains may make humans smarter, studies find

September 9, 2005


BY RONALD KOTULAK
CHICAGO TRIBUNE

Nature apparently thinks you can use more brainpower, according to two University of Chicago studies providing the first scientific evidence that the human brain is still evolving -- a process that may increase the capacity to grow smarter.


Two key brain-building genes, which underwent dramatic changes in the past that coincided with leaps in human intellectual development, are still undergoing rapid mutations, Bruce Lahn and his University of Chicago colleagues report in today's issue of the journal Science.


The researchers found that not everyone has the genes, but that evolutionary pressures are causing them to increase at an unprecedented rate. Lahn's group is also trying to determine just how smart the genes may have made humans.


One of the genes, called microcephalin, began its swift spread about 37,000 years ago, a period marked by an explosion in music, art, religious expression and tool-making.


The other gene, ASPM (abnormal spindle-like microcephaly-associated), arose about 5,800 years ago, right around the time of writing and the first civilization in Mesopotamia.


"People have this sense that as 21st-Century humans, we've gotten as high as we're going to go," said Greg Wray, director of Duke University's Center for Evolutionary Genomics. "But we're not played out as a species. We're still evolving, and these studies are a pretty good example of that."


Just as major environmental changes in the past favored the selection of genetic traits that increased survival skills, the pressures on gene selection today come from an increasingly complex and technologically oriented society, said Lahn, a professor of human genetics and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator.


"Our studies indicate that the trend that is the defining characteristic of human evolution -- the growth of brain size and complexity -- is likely still going on," he said.


"Meanwhile, our environment and the skills we need to survive in it are changing faster then we ever imagined. I would expect the human brain, which has done well by us so far, will continue to adapt."


What's funny is that I recall someone on this board insisting that gene mutation is always a negative and has no advantage to humanity. You were wrong buddy :oops

[SWC Bonfire]

For some reason I keep becoming less intelligent. :drunk

[Jelly]

"The researchers found that not everyone has the genes, but that evolutionary pressures are causing them to increase at an unprecedented rate. Lahn's group is also trying to determine just how smart the genes may have made humans."

In fact, a British study claims that only 70% of us have the genes, so 30% of us will be left behind :depressed

[MannyIsGod]

"People have this sense that as 21st-Century humans, we've gotten as high as we're going to go," said Greg Wray, director of Duke University's Center for Evolutionary Genomics. "But we're not played out as a species. We're still evolving, and these studies are a pretty good example of that."

Amen

[Jelly]

I don't know. I think some of us are a little played out. :)

[SWC Bonfire]

Soon we will all be damn dirty apes.

[boutons]

Specifically:

"They report that with microcephalin, a new allele arose about 37,000 years ago, although it could have appeared as early as 60,000 or as late as 14,000 years ago. About 70 percent of people in most European and East Asian populations carry this allele of the gene, but it is much rarer in most sub-Saharan Africans."

[Obi wan Ginobili]

Hahah ^^^^ let the claims of racism begin.

Bell Curve anyone?

heh

[Cant_Be_Faded]

What's funny is that I recall someone on this board insisting that gene mutation is always a negative and has no advantage to humanity. You were wrong buddy :oops



that person was talking about the hypothesis that most mutations are silent, and stupidly changed the word most to all


BTW it is super funny how they talk about how some people think evolution has stopped for humans.

[scott]

The researchers found that not everyone has the genes, but that evolutionary pressures are causing them to increase at an unprecedented rate. Lahn's group is also trying to determine just how smart the genes may have made humans.

Might there be an overlap of those without the gene and those who believe evolution is part of a left-wing conspiracy to eliminate all references of God from our country?

[jochhejaam]

Well that settles it, evolution is no longer just a theory it's now a law. If Bruce Lahn said it, it has to be true. :rolleyes


Originally posted by Jelly: You were wrong buddy :oops

When you read these articles have you ever thought about doing some research to study dissent or do you just blindly and wantonly believe that everything that tickles your ears is fact? A little research and study never hurt anyone and it may save you the embarrasment you thought you had brought upon others.

Other scientists urge great caution in interpreting the research.

That the genetic changes have anything to do with brain size or intelligence "is totally unproven and potentially dangerous territory to get into with such sketchy data," stressed Dr Francis Collins, director of the National Human Genome Research Institute.

Aside from not knowing what the gene variants actually do, no one knows how precise the model Lahn used to date them is, Collins added.

Lahn's own calculations acknowledge that the microcephalin variant could have arisen anywhere from 14,000 to 60,000 years ago, and that the uncertainty about the ASPM variant ranged from 500 to 14,000 years ago.

Those criticisms are particularly important, Collins said, because Lahn's testing did find geographic differences in populations harboring the gene variants today. They were less common in sub-Saharan African populations, for example.

That does not mean one population is smarter than another, Lahn and other scientists stressed, noting that numerous other genes are key to brain development.

"There's just no correlation," said Duke's Wray, calling education and other environmental factors more important for intelligence than DNA anyway.

The work was funded by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

http://johnhawks.net/weblog/reviews/genetics/brain/lahn_2005_aspm_microcephalin_science.html

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David Goldstein in the New York Times -- my candidate for the "not even wrong" award:

Another geneticist, David Goldstein of Duke University, said the new results were interesting but that "it is a real stretch to argue for example that microcephalin is under selection and that that selection must be related to brain size or cognitive function."
The gene could have risen to prominence through a random process known as genetic drift, Dr. Goldstein said.

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Mark Stoneking in Science:

"The case for selection acting on [the genes] is reasonably strong," says anthropologist Mark Stoneking of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. "However, there is absolutely nothing in either paper to relate the signature of selection to any brain-related phenotype."

http://johnhawks.net/weblog/reviews/genetics/brain/lahn_2005_aspm_microcephalin_science.html

[Trainwreck2100]

Will we be able to break into ATMs like that episode of Mighty Max????

[Jelly]

[QUOTE=jochhejaam]

When you read these articles have you ever thought about doing some research to study dissent or do you just blindly and wantonly believe that everything that tickles your ears is fact? A little research and study never hurt anyone and it may save you the embarrasment you thought you had brought upon others.

QUOTE]

hehe..Sounds like I hit a sore spot :lol And to think I was gracious enough not to mention your name even though I knew it was you who said that.

Yeah, I do read what I can from scientific journals. The overwhelming majority of which supports evolutionary theory. I am not particularly interested in those few dissenters, as every group must have a fringe and I only have so much time in the day. Certainly not enough to entertain radical theories like Creationism. Sorry. Not interested in that "debate". Especially the way I've seen you cloud the subject by going off on irrelevant, wild tangents and copying and pasting entire dissertations of barely related subjects in an effort to prove...what exactly?

Yes, I believe in evolution. No, I don't want to get mired in a boring, futile Creationist/Evolution debate which in my mind was put to bed by science a long time ago.

[jochhejaam]

Originally posted by Jelly: hehe..Sounds like I hit a sore spot :lol And to think I was gracious enough not to mention your name even though I knew it was you who said that.

No need to be gracious, no one else on the board is. :lol And no, you didn't hit a sore spot, as I said in my post your intent was to prove a point and you failed miserably to do so. But if at first you don't succeed... :lol

And I'm not interested in a debate about evolution vs creationism either, I believe we just covered that thread ad nauseum. :lol





Jelly: I am not particularly interested in those few dissenters,

You're not interested in a few dissenters which make up a greater portion of the scientific (not creatonism) community that Lahn and a few of his colleagues from the U of Chicago...interesting. How Tim Duncanesque, lalalalalalala, I'm not listening, lalalalalalala :lol




Jelly: I've seen you cloud the subject by going off on irrelevant, wild tangents and copying and pasting entire dissertations

Yet Copy and paste is exactly what you did. :lol
It's easy to generalize about what is alleged to have been posted in the past, either be more specific or substantiate what those wild, irrelevant tangents were. You failed to do so in the past. And I'm sorry that what is clear to many is cloudy to you. Ask questions in the future and I'll help you to understand what it is that confuses you...or go ahead and walk around in cloudiness if you prefer. :lol

[Vashner]

I think we are "willing" our breeds to look better. I mean old people look fucking ugly... but these kids are all good looking. Maybe that's just selective breeding or just a will for like boobs to grow bigger? (wait that's implants)?

I confused myself.

[scott]

Me thinks the answer is yes!

[Cant_Be_Faded]

Another geneticist, David Goldstein of Duke University, said the new results were interesting but that "it is a real stretch to argue for example that microcephalin is under selection and that that selection must be related to brain size or cognitive function."
The gene could have risen to prominence through a random process known as genetic drift, Dr. Goldstein said.

i dont know too much about microcephalin, but if its linked to the envirnoment in any way (via a human body) then it not that much of a stretch for it to be selected upon.

Drift is only an important process in small populations. What he says is valid, but i'd like to hear how big human populations were when this gene arose.