Comments on: The Driver of Human Evolution Isn’t the Climate Around You, It’s the Worms Inside You

By: Brian

Brian — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 03:46:11 +0000

I need a dictionary to get through this article. I can appreciate a wide vocabulary, but this is almost borderline flaunting…

By: winkle

winkle — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 16:37:36 +0000

A fine piece of science writing here. With concision and verve Mr. Khan tears off a dispatch to the laity.

It’s always invigorating to re-contemplate that it’s parasitic churn which is the primary fluidizing-hence-lubricating mechanism that allows for a quicker slide of evolutionary metamorphoses along the planes of time.

Viva la Kaleidoscope! Great image. Enriching.

By: Mark

Mark — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 20:49:59 +0000

“Humans adapt to local biological forces, not to the local natural environment.” But aren’t local biological forces interrelated with the local natural environment? You are implying that there is no connection.

This point confuses me and I would like more clarification on this.

By: Mike Magee

Mike Magee — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 20:35:52 +0000

It may be that worms are more important than external physical factors in human beings, but we are the most generalized of animals, able to live in widely different and often hostile environments because of our intelligence. The case will be different for animals the more specialized they are. In any case, the environment is not just the physical environment of climate, geography, medium, and so on, but anything that affects the species, and that includes other animals within the species, and in other species, whether symbionts, parasites, predators, prey, rivals, etc, etc. We are all a point in a sort of multidimensional space made up of everything else, from which we are cutting out slices to examine.

By: Chris

Chris — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 20:31:26 +0000

Fascinating. I never thought of it that way. Thanks!

By: Matt Gruner

Matt Gruner — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 17:09:22 +0000

Does natural selection drive the elimination of harmful parasites or the easing of defenses against commensals to out compete the harmful parasites? How does parasite diversity correlate to host diversity?

By: judith weingarten

judith weingarten — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 13:36:21 +0000

I think that this kind of study is due in no small part to the work of Lynn Margulis, who died last month. A short tribute (and explanation) at Gaia is a Tough Bitch

By: Harville

Harville — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 20:43:29 +0000

“Humans adapt to local biological forces, not to the local natural environment.” I believe this should say “Modern humans” because we now adapt to our environment, but the aborigines are physically more fitted to their environment than any population not living in a similar climate. Also look where a climate is colder, the native people have shorter appendages and a thicker midsection to conserve body heat. The native population of an area is the key in finding evidence of Physical Evolution. Cultural evolution should be looked at through a psychological perspective (how the society that is evolving is interacting with itself). Though biological evolution is interesting and very valid.