Do you know that we are increasingly becoming different from our ancestors? Nothing strange, isn’t it, as with rapid progress in science and technology, the lifestyle of generations is bound to change. However, things are quite different and genetically we are poles apart from our ancestors who inhabited this planet only 1000 or 2000 years ago.
Henry Harpending a distinguished professor of anthropology of the University of Utah and his colleagues used a new genome technology to study the rate of human evolution. The study found that human beings are evolving rapidly in the last 40,000 years and the pace of evolution has accelerated a lot in the last 10,000 years since the end of the last ice age.
The rapid genetic mutation can be used to explain the transformation of the war loving Viking invaders to the world’s most peaceful Swedish people. Genes are evolving fast in Europe, Asia and Africa, and instead of merging into a single race, we are increasingly becoming different from each other, unique to the continent of origin.
With rapid population expansion, the rate of mutation is also increasing as people with different genetic traits from different environs endeavor to acclimatize. Darwinian Evolution Theory propagates the survival of the fittest. Evolution also determines the economy of a region. Take for example the prevalence of large number of dairies and related products in Europe especially in Sweden and Denmark whereas absence of dairies in China and Africa. The Indo-Europeans had the ability to digest fresh milk better than other races. The milk digesting lactase made the Europeans physically stronger than other races.
Advancement of technology is bringing rapid cultural and ecological change, which contrary to earlier belief is creating races that are more diverse. If evolution results in these races combating with each other to attain superiority then the world might be geared to terrorism that is more global. Will evolution finally bring the downfall of the great human race?
Image Credit: Scienceclarified
Source: PhyOrg
