can human evolution be monitored?

Question

I mean are there characteristic's of humans that have changed over recent times that are observable?

Answer 1

Evolution Of Man - Scientific Evidence
The theory of evolution of man is supported by a set of independent observations within the fields of anthropology, paleontology, and molecular biology. Collectively, they depict life branching out from a common ancestor through gradual genetic changes over millions of years, commonly known as the "tree of life." Although accepted in mainstream science as altogether factual and experimentally proven, a closer examination of the evidences reveal some inaccuracies and reasonable alternative explanations. This causes a growing number of scientists to dissent from the Darwinian theory of evolution for its inability to satisfactorily explain the origin of man.

One of the major evidences for the evolution of man is homology, that is, the similarity of either anatomical or genetic features between species. For instance, the resemblance in the skeleton structure of apes and humans has been correlated to the homologous genetic sequences within each species as strong evidence for common ancestry. This argument contains the major assumption that similarity equals relatedness. In other words, the more alike two species appear, the more closely they are related to one another. This is known to be a poor assumption. Two species can have homologous anatomy even though they are not related in any way. This is called "convergence" in evolutionary terms. It is now known that homologous features can be generated from entirely different gene segments within different unrelated species. The reality of convergence implies that anatomical features arise because of the need for specific functionality, which is a serious blow to the concept of homology and ancestry.

Answer 2

Look up cystic fibrosis. There is evidence that while it is a horrible disease, it has been kept alive in the human genome because it gives protection from cholera. Have we evolved one disease to combat another? Or did only people who carried the cystic fibrosis gene survive all the epidemics of cholera? I don't have the correct number of teeth of an adult human. I only had 3 wisdom teeth and I never got all my lower permanent teeth after my baby teeth fell out. When I asked my dentist about it, he said that more and more people are showing up with less teeth than normal. I'd like to see some data compiled on that. Our food is less trouble to chew now, so if we don't need them, why grow them?

I think most of the evolution that is going on is not so much a visible physical evolution, but evolution on a much smaller scale, like how our bodies respond to the pollution and food additives. Like more people with weight problems and diabetes.

Answer 3

Most certainly, we have gotten taller in the last several hundred years.
Evolution is merely a change through time, usually stemming from environemtal pressures, and not necessarily the "survival of the fittest". Evolution is better described as"survival of he who has the most successful babies".
Humans are going to be hard to observe evolution in modern times as there are many artificial ways in which we are controlling our environement and our breeding (ie, in vitro fertilization, selevtive breeding, etc)

Answer 4

Of course, as strict evolution is just change in allele frequency over time in a population. Pick a phenotype change of your choice that has shown evolution within the last, oh say, 1000 years. Wisdom teeth comes to mind.

Answer 5

People in the western world are getting fatter. Is that evolution? Evolution of our attitude towards physical objects perhaps?

Answer 6

I think so. We can see the differences in just the past hundred years through pictures. Imagine what we could document if we had the time to access medical record of height weight and measurements, etc.

Answer 7

yes of course there are, like for example, a few hundred years ago humans were much much more shorter than we are today. we have grown, and there is scientific proof of that. i went to a muesum type of place and the doors were very short we all had to duck to get in and it was because people back then were very small so they made smaller doors.

Answer 8

humans don't evolve much anymore, because there's no survival of the fittest. Animals evolve to adopt to their environment. Humans change their environment to suit them.
Evolution requires certain physical attributes to better the chances of procreation. Like the strongest lion gets to have children, so lions get stronger as generations pass. Any human is allowed to have children so we're not forcing any one trait over another.