Posted: Nov 18, 2013 2:35 pm
Whilst I am unable to make specific comment on this research without having read it in detail I do feel able to make the following more general observations with regards to advanced technological societies;
Such societies usually have complex support mechanisms in place for the sick, the old and and the otherwise compromised. That being the case, it must inevitably be also the case that the rigour of natural selection will have been relaxed compared to less technologically advanced times. This, in turn, will have allowed a certain degree of genetic drift to enter a population on all manner of things ranging from fertility rates, inherited diseases of various sorts etc. There is no reason, in principle then, to suppose that such drift may not also occur in the functions of the human brain, it being merely another aspect of our physiology that may be subject to natural selection pressures.
I see no logical reason, therefore, why there should be an evolutionary get-out-of-jail-free-card for the human brain
Such societies usually have complex support mechanisms in place for the sick, the old and and the otherwise compromised. That being the case, it must inevitably be also the case that the rigour of natural selection will have been relaxed compared to less technologically advanced times. This, in turn, will have allowed a certain degree of genetic drift to enter a population on all manner of things ranging from fertility rates, inherited diseases of various sorts etc. There is no reason, in principle then, to suppose that such drift may not also occur in the functions of the human brain, it being merely another aspect of our physiology that may be subject to natural selection pressures.
I see no logical reason, therefore, why there should be an evolutionary get-out-of-jail-free-card for the human brain