Matt, Let me just qualify my remarks by saying that I am not an evolutionary biologist. I have some exposure to evolutionary theory, but any delusions of grandeur that I may have once had on the subject were utterly destroyed by the folks in the cladistics labs back in graduate school.
There have been plenty of knee-jerk answers posted (I appreciate the humor of them), and in the spirit of fair play let me post my own: "Yes, I guess there are natural selection pressures on humans, even in developed countries." Of course I have no data on the subject, nor have I read any relevant studies... which bring me to my point: I believe this is a very serious field of study but I have not seen any truly serious replies (in the scientific sense). If you are truly interested in this (yes) very broad) question perhaps you could educate yourself some on the study of natural selection in humans. I did a quick search on 'human "selection pressures"' and came up with many interesting and informative webpages (as well as some entertaining ones) before I gave up ever trying to adequately understand the topic in a short period of time. I say this because your original post didn't give me the impression you had. I posted a list of the ones I enjoyed browsing below; there were thousands more. Best of luck, David Thomson http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_selection http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_selection http://www.unm.edu/~psych/faculty/music.htm http://www.apa.org/divisions/div10/articles/feist1.html http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/001713.html -----Original Message----- From: Ecological Society of America: grants, jobs, news [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Buffington, Matt Sent: Friday, February 10, 2006 10:01 AM To: [email protected] Subject: current natural selection pressures This is another very broad question that has been bothering me lately. = Are there any current natural selective pressures on humans? I'd say = this is mainly for developed countries. I see lots of people that are = old enough to reproduce that never would have long ago. I hesisate to = list things that may have led to an early dimise but there are lots of = them. As far as I know, there are no lions, bears or wolves hanging out = in my office building waiting to pounce on the old, very young, infirm, = or stupid. Just curious. =20 Matt Buffington Indianapolis, IN
