Lecture 23: Human Evolution

This last lecture of the course investigates the recent evolutionary history, and the evolutionary future,
of our own species. Are humans still evolving? Are we speciating? And why are we so intelligent?

Lecture outcomes

Arguments for and against the idea that human are no longer

evolving.
Yes we are evolving:
Darwin said that human always keep on adapting. New is always the best.
Changing Environment leads to strong selection pressure leads to evolution
There is always room for improvement since we are never fully adapted to our living
environment.
Sexual selection is always going on
Modern environment is highly mutagenic than ever. Mutations Increase genetic variation
which is whats needed for selection.
Populations are much more connected now. (Easy travel, gene flow)

No we are not:
Stephen Jay Gould: said that there has been no biological change in humans for 40,000 years.
(we are changing, but we are not changing genetically.) (we have the master of everything)
We are becoming emancipated from the struggle for existence.
Modern medicine is freeing us from that struggle.
99% of the people survive and make it to adulthood. (In Canada)
Maybe humans no longer subject to that pressure?
THAT'S NOT THE CASE EVERYWHERE THOUGH. (Worldwide problem.)

Evidence for recent evolution in humans

Long term study ( study of a few individuals throughout their whole life)

Selection in modern day North America: a study on thousands of women in Massachusetts:

On average, more fertile women: shorter, fatter, lower blood pressure, cholesterols, and
longer reproductive life-span (earlier and lasts longer).
Maybe thats where female human are headed?

Genomic evidence for adaptive evolution since the Paleolithic: (look for selective sweep)
Selective sweep: adaptive mutations increase in frequency, and adjacent stretches of
DNA come along for the ride (hitch hiking.)
(So the temporarily increase based on how close they are to another beneficial mutation,
and not because themselves are beneficial)
 Newly selected SNPs have little variation at surrounding sequence; anciently selected
SNPs have more surrounding variation due to recombination and reshuffling. (at first its
going to all look identical, however, time changes everything)
By this we can actually estimate how long the sweep has happened. Whether it is caused
by recent selection.
Detect selective sweeps, and estimate age, by analyzing sequence variation around SNPs
(International HapMap Project)
They found prof: lots of genome has accelerated in terms of adaptive evolution.
7% of human genes show evidence of fast, recent evolution (Like a flash!)
It is 100 times faster than 40,000 years ago, WHY?
Population size (More of us) and Mutation.
Changing environment and selection.
Vary geographically.

Costs of large brains

Energetically (2% of mass, 20% of energy) (like the dick, small in size, but does all the work)
Logistics of childbirth. (Big brain, indicates big head, if you are born with enormous head,
Your Mamas hoo-ha wont take it.) Lots of women die of child birth.
There has to be a benefit outweighs the cost.

Possible advantages of large brains as proposed by the "utility

hypothesis" vs. the "mating mind hypothesis"

Utility hypothesis:
Have a big brain, you know how to communicate (language), build weapon (tool use)
and conspiracy (planning) and YOU SHALL SURVIVE.
Since big brain needs to be at use all times, we need to make jokes, procrastinating on
the internet, paint a picture or compose music (A side product of having big brain).
Is it overkill?
We have a large vocabulary 60,000 100,000 words (10 new words per day from 1-18)
Do we need it to survive? What is the point?

Mating mind hypothesis:

Maybe it is a sexual selection that promotes this big brain, big head development.
Big brain leads you to be humorous, artistic and able to compose music will increase the
mating success. (Girls DIG that.)
Since men and Women are intelligent, WHY? (Isnt it sexually dimorphic when it comes
to sexually selected traits?) (One is trying to impress, the other is just choosing.)
BECAUSE we are monogamy, both sex are choosy in terms of long term strategy, (both
sex invest heavily in offspring.)