It’s so weird the appendix isn’t the go to example instead of whiteness and milk drinking…
Up until a few hundred years ago it was vital as a reserve for gut bacteria when everyone was always getting dysentery and diarrhea. It still burst occasionally but it was a net positive. People without one likely died before it would have burst.
Then we got indoor plumbing and food safety, we stopped needing it so much which changed the evolutionary pressure. People without one never had it burst, so it flipped.
Then we discovered how to do an appendectomy ~300 years ago, and removed all the evolutionary pressure.
So it’ll stay a random percent where some people do and some don’t.
But everybody always wants to talk about whiteness and milk drinking
SamuraiBeandog@lemmy.world 6 days ago
This article doesn’t address the point that modern society enables most individuals to live long enough to have children regardless of their genetic advantages or disadvantages. Sure people with light skin are not well suited to living in very hot climates, but in the modern world that isn’t going to make them less likely to procreate than people with dark skin in that environment.
I_Has_A_Hat@lemmy.world 5 days ago
Yes, but being an anti-social, shut-in can contribute to not procreating. There are definitely both physical and psychological characteristics in humans that have a better chance of procreation than others. Even if people aren’t dying from nature, Darwin will get his due.
SamuraiBeandog@lemmy.world 5 days ago
I’m not saying that genetic changes aren’t happening at all, just that the article doesn’t address that modern society creates a very different environment for natural selection, compared to humans in subsistence level environments in the wild.