undefined | Better HN

0 pointspatrec6y ago0 comments

Exactly -- Lactose tolerance is a common counter example to the strange notion that evolution in humans has somehow stopped either literally or practically (given supposedly glacial timescales).

0 comments

2 comments · 1 top-level

chrisweekly6y ago· 1 in thread

You're both right, of course. I was thinking in terms of evolutionary psychology and neuroanatomy -- areas where the timescales are "glacial" compared to the rise in lactose tolerance over a handful of generations.

bobcostas556y ago

There's nothing inherently slow about selection on psychological traits. To give just one striking example, there is extremely rapid selection against intelligence in advanced societies going on right now, at a rate of about 0.25-0.3 standard deviations per century.

US: https://www.pnas.org/content/suppl/2016/05/25/1523592113.DCS... (Table S11)

Taiwan: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01602...

Iceland: https://www.dropbox.com/s/9vq5t6urtu930xe/2017-kong.pdf

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse