Are Humans Still Evolving?

Thanks to all. I found two sites http://www.sciencedaily.com/...ases/1999/01/990125073157.htm and BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | When humans faced extinction . In BBC site, it also states kind of like bottleneck reduction as NosyNed mentioned.It happened around 10,000 years ago. What I can't understand is even though we descended from very few diversity, we should vary genetically in a wide range after those years. 10,000 or 60,000 yrs provide us enough time for genetic variation. I'm so interested in error checking system in meiosis or mitosis. I think we, hunmans, have very effective checking system that hinders us from genetic diversity.
It is said that when human encounter bottleneck, there were just about 2000 people. So, I think sampling error alone or drift+noises(like caldera) could cause that bottle neck effect.

I don't think "many children is a conscious choice".Rather, it mioght be kind of behavior that is favored by selection.well. it might not be a life history trait, but a trait that got favored. so, might be an evolved trait. Just thought. Actually, i'm still confused. But I think it is not a conscious choice.
Thanks.

well now it is (in western culture) thanks to birth control, but i suppose before that, it was more of a trait...

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But the question isn't whether the first few generations that are exposed to new envirnomental pressures would be capable of ontogenetically reverting to characteristics benefical to the orginal environment,

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The thing is, many people currently overweight and unfit would do just fine if they had to suddenly do physical labor, albeit with some injuries and pain to work through.Many of us have the genes already, right now.

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Nobody takes psychology serious, for the most part...

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I disagree.Psychology is a huge, very diverse field.Perhaps you are limiting Psychology to clinical therapists, instead of including research Psychologists into your definition.Have you ever heard of the Psychologist Dr. Elizabeth Loftus? She has done some amazing work with false memory implantation and the unreliability of memory in general, and as a result has changed the way eyewitness testimony is viewed in court cases.In addition, two Psychologists have won Nobel Prizes, despite there not being a Nobel Prize for Psychology.

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Freud, as opposed to Freudian Analysis, did bring to our conscious attention the existence of an immaterial heaven of subconscious mental mediators, seven psychic archetypes.

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Those archetypes are pure philosophy and are about as un-fact-like as you can get.IOW, he made a lot of stuff up to explain what he saw, and since he wasn't using scientific methodology, he got an awful lot wrong.

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This is more important for future contemplation than the study of deceased and unused systems invented immediately after Freud and Jung. It represents an area of human investigation still shrouded by darkness.

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Hardly.See, there's this organ called "the brain", and this organ seems to be very influential in affecting the behavior of humans.The more we understand about the brain, the more we understand human behavior.

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It matters little that there are few Freudians, but much that there is a subconscious Freudian heaven of mental interaction in our own skulls.

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Like I said, Freud made all that up....not that we don't have unrecognized motivations, but they don't follow Freud's descriptions in the least.They are generally more evolutionary or hormonal in nature.

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It matters much that there is an observable motivation behind the actions of others. It matters much that there is a whole group mentality, the Social Groups, based upon these entities. It matters much that there is, at large in our society, institutionalized Social Forces. It matters much that these are subconsciously at work in our world as they are unnoticed in our own mind.

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That's a nice mythology there, but there's no rational basis to believe it. It's all just stuff Freud made up.

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Fat, Short Squatty unattractive people are not as desired as svelt, strong, tall attractive athletic people. There is a reason for this it is biology.

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I think you are letting the current standards of beauty color your thinking.Athleticism in women was considered undesireble in much of western history.The ideal Victorian womean was soft, weak, and fat, because this was seen as very feminine, and having a fat wife in colonial times was considered a status symbol, because in a difficult environment only successful men made so much money that they had an exess of food in the house.Some African cutures prize a really big buttocks in females, too.Cutlure plays a huge role in the invention and persistence of beauty standards, but the only universals seem to be a preferance for facial symmetry and for men to have a preferance for women's hips to be larger than their waists, no matter the size of either.This message has been edited by schrafinator, 06-03-2004 10:14 AM

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my point is that the logic behind 'let me have another baby so the government will pay me' is faulty

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Do you have any evidence or statistics to support your claim that people on welfare have more children to get more money?From what I have read, this is a myth.There is an explanation of the statistics at the following website:Welfare gives mothers an economic incentive to have more children

In many religion Book telling us, that Human Is the perfect of Creation.So when Darwinism Evolution take Part from Pluto, to Mars, and in CAMBRIAN EPOCH the water from MARS make GREAT FLOOD, like NOAH FLOOD.So the FOSIL make CAMBRIAN AGE BIG BANG.HuMAN is the PERFECT, coz Human cannot EVOLUTED again.
Like the chemist element substant that limited.SO Human is LIMITED to evolute, cause by Human GEN already full.
And to make Evolute we need to change the Substance of GEN.But is disaster MUTATING.See dino live at JUPITER, Hanoman and HUMAN in MARS.Try to get the fosil BOY.When you in GOD realm, you will try to find who is the lord of the GOD. But you couldn't do it, coz your brain suck in your body.

It's like reading alphabety spaghetti.

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When you in GOD realm, you will try to find who is the lord of the GOD. But you couldn't do it, coz your brain suck in your body.

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Take that back! My brain does NOT suck!

Ok.
Then, people DO take psychology seriously.That is, they personally favor and validate seriously those parts they, themselves, promote.I meant, people like you,...
... they will give the earliest insights a distainful dismissal in favor of their own particular and perferred psychological research of the moment.As regards the first step in the process, (that was Freud's illuminating revelation that we had such entities as Ego and Self, etc), much work continues.Not only has this identification of seven archetypal sources been long confirmed by 4000 years of human observation, but the work of the Dr. Howard Gardner (Multiple Intelligence) has added another layer to these "creatures" of mind within us. They think differently, one from the other. They are able to, independent of one another, dominate our thinking, to render an intelligent response to the environment.Gardner's recognition, deliniation, and measurement of the very intelligence associated with each of these seven entities gives new meaning to their power in our lives.
They can now be better understood, such as to be capable of "taking control." They think. Their intelligence can be measured. They have motivations, one Libidinal, another perhaps intellectually curious, so on.Yes, you are correct, too. Philosophy is involved here.Not with my suppositions about a host of mediators at work within a sevenfold psyche.'No. I refer not to some arcane personal philosophy of which you accuse.It is in the area of psychological study concerning disposition/personality or social outlook to which I refer. There we are discovering, measuring, and identifying (all basic technical requirements of science) the consequences of mixtures, or dominant pairing, of these archetypes.The Myers/Briggs Test has minor utility and application in aiding with a listing of vocational predispositions. It may be useful enough in personality inventory to accomplish its stated use as a marriage counseling tool, I don't know.But it does seem that this part of psychology, an area you discard, is confirmed again, supporting not only Freud and Gardner, but a whole cadre of investigators who can not come up with other than seven Life Stages (Ericson), and/or heirarchies of seven Human Needs (Abraham Maslow), etc.There is hardly an psychological system which can be found, even to included the authoritative literature of mental illness, that does not find a definitive listing of, say, a dozen mental illnesses.Functional Psychology has very much advanced into the application of Freudian/Jungian archetypal psychology, but, .. I repeat myself, ... "no one takes psychology seriously,"....That's why the Bible made Human Behavior a matter of religion, so it can't be so easily dismissed in every generation, one after tgde last.2 Pet. 1:4-8: Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature (that is, the nature within our soul, our psyche), having escaped {the Physiological Need} the (LIBIDINAL) corruption that is in the world through lust.
And beside this, giving all diligence, to your faith, VIRTUE {in fulfilling Esteem Needs}; and to virtue, KNOWLEDGE {satisfying Cognitive Needs}; And to knowledge, TEMPERANCE {to assure Need for Safety}; and to temperance, PATIENCE {in the Need to Understand}; and to patience, GODLINESS {securing our Need to Self-actualize}; And to godliness, BROTHERLY KINDNESS {accomodating our Need for Belongingness}; and to brotherly kindness, CHARITY {Needlessness in Self-sacrifice}.
For if these things (these psychological entities) be in your mind, and abound (freely together and not in opposition to one another), they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

vishnuxxxDude! Have your doctor either up your meds or quit taking them altogether.

Oh, sorry, I didn't realize you are crazy.I'll leave you alone now.

Well, we know that there are only twelve of those things, the (12) mental illnesses,...
... everyone still believes in that Freudian stuff.I didn't expect to frustrate your intellectual resources so easily.Name calling is ok,...
...that's how you know people have nothing else to work with,... and it confirms that one's argument is non-stoppable in rational dialogue.Rev. 3:7 And to the angel, (that developmental social stage), of the church (of Protestantism) in Philadelphia, write; These things saith he that is holy, he that is true, he that hath the key of
David,... ... he that openeth (the mystery of scripture), and no man shutteth (in rational denial);
...and shutteth (by interpretation), and no man openeth (otherwise);

Um, you didn't address a single point of my post, went on for a while as if I hadn't even replied to you, and then quoted a bunch of Bible verses at me.You come across as a crazy person.