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Comment and Humans

Are humans still evolving? Growing evidence suggests we are

Natural selection was long thought over for humans, but new work relating education and reproductive success indicates it is still at work

By John Hawks

15 July 2016

People at graduation ceremony fling their mortar boards in the air

Derek Davis/Portland Press Herald via Getty Images

It wasn’t so long ago that there was something of a consensus on recent human evolution, or the lack of it. The belief was that culture had elevated our species above Darwin’s “hostile forces of nature”, stopping natural selection in its tracks 50,000 years ago. But that view has increasingly been questioned over the past 10 years.

Those who say selection stopped long ago point to vast improvements in life expectancy. To be sure, life expectancy has increased and many dread diseases have receded. But to pass on their genes to the next generation, people must not only…

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