Is Human DNA as good as it gets?

The reason that our DNA might not have changed much is that we are the first species to look after the lame and the sick effectively, also the advent of modern medicine has kept fault genes in the gene pool, this will lead to a 'stagnation' of the gene pool, and that is why human DNA has not changed much

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Given the relatively recent development of modern medecine it is far too early to say whether it will in any way reduce change in the human species, and certainly too early to say that it has, it may well affect it but it is premature to suggest we know how it will affect it.At the moment there is no evidence of any peculiar degree of stasis in human DNA, in fact a recent paper in PLOS documented a number of loci which are distinct amongst different populations (Voight, et al., 2006).TTFN,WK

In fact there is evidence of evolution going at an accellerated pace in humans compared to other species -- due to sexual selection and\or due to pushing into\creating new environments.Recent articles:
PLoS-Biology Journal, A Map of Recent Positive Selection in the Human Genome Showing evolution in three different branchesand
PLoS-Biology Journal, Clues to Our Past: Mining the Human Genome for Signs of Recent Selection a shorter, more readable review of the same information.One interesting thought is that if we are the fastest evolvingin species, then how do we recognize "macro"evolution?

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RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
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I'm not quite sure why you replied to me referencing exactly the same paper I was referencing in the first place.I'm also not sure that the paper supports your contention about an accelerated rate of evolutionover other species, certainly neither the paper nor the precis article seem to state this. What comparable studies on other species were you thinking of?TTFN,WKThis message has been edited by Wounded King, 15-Mar-2006 09:36 AM

oops. (throws out new glasses, gets old pair). My bad, just found it by other means and was looking for a thread to drop it on. I was also thinking about the study that showed an higher rate of evolution in humans than in chimpanzees. Of course if they used all the genetic differences in humans against all the ones in the chimps since divergence, then the data may be a little confused by the data from this study.
http://www.newsroom.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/display.cgi?id=875 This PLoS study does talk to increased pressure to evolve due to spreading into new environments and adapting to new (pathological) conditions.

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RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
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Its quite a leap from this to humans being the 'fastest evolving species'.That diveregence research appears to be based solely upon the number of ALU repeat insertions. There are any number of other possible metrics which give quite different answers, for instance chimps have 300 new pseudogenes as opposed to 200 in humans since divergence.TTFN,WK

1) well as fair as DNA complication goes i believe that one is handed over to centipede's. They have something like 40ploid structure compaired to human diploid (they have 20 times more DNA in other words)2)as far as as good as it gets, nah there are far more amazing creatures out there than us, physically, instinctively, but not intelligently. our DNA has one strength which makes us far far superior than any other organism (yet it makes you think we also had no super predators such as dinosaurs like T-rex or Alleosaurous chasing us and perhaps we would have relied more on instinct than intelligence, if there were super predators we would have a very slim chance to embrace our intelligence.)3) as far as DNA change, it takes millions of years anyways, but ours will change dramatically as an effect of genetic engineering, our will to play god in our world, will destroy mother nature. (but perhaps not in time for us to pollute the plant or move to another one)

As was already stated, "most complicated" does not neccesarily equal "best".And I would not say that we are biologically "as good as it gets". There are many areas we could be improved upon. (Stronger immune system, more accurate eyes, Gills? etc)I will be interested in (and scared of) the human gene experimentation we might see in the future. I believe it will start with simple things, like modifying DNA to create stronger immune systems. It may or may not build up from there. (Blue-skinned fellow with telescopic eyes? It might happen...)