https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lactase_persistence

However, cultural/society/educational evolution happens much-much faster (but is also much-much weaker, can disappear on just a few weeks).

Maybe if it found selective pressures were still dominating and driving evolution in recent decades in developed nations with low childhood mortality that would be surprising. Though the framing of the article is almost that it would be surprising if mutations were happening at all which is obviously stupid - we haven't figured out how to reverse entropy so mutation rates haven't gone down, evolution by genetic drift is obviously continuing to occur, and with advances in medicine the number of folks surviving with mutations that would have been problematic otherwise is increasing.

Truly disappointing slop. Like obviously humans faced selective pressures during an era when like 8 in 10 kids died of plague or similar things, a biological factor where survival is correlated with genetic factors that influence immunity and disease survival.

Again, super useful science to see exactly what that influence was, but it would only be surprising if we learned we'd somehow managed to turn off entropy and statistics during the black death and we didn't face selective pressures.

Basically, any genetic trait that causes people today to think "You know, I think I'm going to remain childfree" is specifically selected against, and any trait that causes people to want more children will be selected for. I'd argue that the invention of reliable birth control was that biggest change in human selective pressures in history. Evolution made sex highly pleasurable and desirable because it often resulted in passing on your genes. That's no longer true with reliable birth control, and with such a huge environmental shift natural selection will act on other avenues that cause people to have children.

As for humans: I mean, duh? The selective pressures faced by humans have changed radically in the time we've been around.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/bajau-sea...

we all are not quite freediving most of our waking lives, but the daily pressures of modern urban living must be exerting a similar level of evolutionary pressure on us.

"Anything that, in happening, causes itself to happen again, happens again."

I like how this is not even specific to life nor genes, and it's not hard to add to it the idea of happening-again in ways that make the thing better-or-worse at happening again.

Personally I think this applies to all coherently-causal systems.. still trying to figure out whether to believe QM is fully causal or not! (Currently seems like it might be a mixture?)

(Disclaimer: The rest is a personal theory with zero scientific support.)

This begs the question: selection based on what? In many bird species it is the complexity of the male's song, or the colourful beauty of his feathers. There are "dances" and courtship rituals in many animals, including even insects.

Humans almost certainly also subject to evolution caused by the evolutionary pressures of mate selection!

This is best said by Anthony Hokpins in Westworld: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjsGJOXhPGU

"I read a theory once that the human intellect was like peacock feathers. Just an extravagant display intended to attract a mate. All of art, literature, a bit of Mozart, William Shakespeare, Michelangelo, and the Empire State Building—just an elaborate mating ritual.

Maybe it doesn't matter that we have accomplished so much for the basest of reasons. But, of course, the peacock can barely fly. It lives in the dirt, pecking insects out of the muck, consoling itself with its great beauty."

Which is a good bit of drama, but... if true, what are the consequences for the evolution of the human species?

Assume for a moment, that yes, women are attracted to male intelligence, which men show off with music, art, and "great works".

The obvious immediate effect is that this causes the average intelligence of Homo Sapiens to increase over time.

But the secondary effect is more interesting: judging intelligence benefits from more intelligence! As the next generation of women inherit greater intelligence, they become better judges of male intelligence, more picky and precise. This forces male intelligence to increase ever faster to keep up with the "rising demand". Rinse and repeat.

I can't prove, but strongly suspect that this is the case.

Birds of Paradise become "more beautiful" on the scale of aeons because more beauty in the males doesn't improve the judgement of the females.

Humans become more intelligent on the scale of mere millenia because more intelligence does improve the judgement of the females.

Thank you for mentioning the Artists of so ineffably magnificent works:

- https://luisajung.com/