Comment by mindcrime | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mindcrime | Hacker News Reader

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Then their superior genes are passed on, etc... However, this is no longer as much the case.

It's still absolutely the case... it's just that the fitness function has changed. Now evolution isn't testing to see who can outrun a wooly mammoth or sabre-tooth tiger, or survive without food for 27 straight days, or to see who has the strongest immune system. Now it's testing to see who can navigate their way through high-school, get into a good college, choose a valuable major, get a degree, and get a job making beau-coup money. Since it is still the case that those with more money (on average) have more reproductive opportunities, get better medical care, live longer, etc.

All of that said, let's not ignore that the physical stuff still matters as well. Unless a lot has changed in the 20 some odd years since I was in high-school, the jocks on the football team are still getting laid more than most guys. And being bigger and stronger and more physically fit is still correlated with success in the worlds of business and politics. I don't have the reference handy, but I'm pretty sure I've seen studies showing that taller men are more likely to be elected in political races. And having political power, again, tends to lead to more reproductive success, etc.

I think you're unfortunately wrong on this point. While high earning well educated people may live longer, at least in the US they aren't reproducing more. Most of the educated/high-earning people I know are either not having kids at all, or are having 1-2 kids. Most of the lower educated, lower earning people I know have 3+ kids and have them at a younger age, which in turn leads to larger descendant populations in a shorter time period. Medical care is good enough (at least here in the US) that virtually all of those children are making it to adulthood, and then reproducing.

That's a fair point... that we live in a world with birth control, and where people are more likely to make a conscious decision to not have kids does change the dynamic.

But I still don't think that any of that would lead one to think that "evolution has stopped". Even if you step back to only focus on what you describe as "the lower educated, lower income" people, there's still competition for reproductive success within that group. If nothing else, sexual selection is still a factor, even if survival selection isn't as much a factor.

Another thing to consider is the "red queen" theory that human evolution and the evolution of pathogens are locked into a (more or less) permanent "arms race". I don't know that anybody knows for sure that that theory is true, but if it has merit, that's another reason to believe that we are still evolving on some level.

Evolution hasn't stopped, but it's failed to move in any direction we can call forward. We've long since hit the age of Devo [1], where the selection pressure of genetics and the things we consider progress as society are at odds. I'd be hard pressed to find anyone among even my conservative friends (and I'm fairly far freaking right as far as HN is concerned) who would consider the Quiverfull[2] movement/cults to be the preferred future of humanity, but they're growing fast. Likewise, inner-city welfare-queens are a real thing, albeit fringe.

The alternative is to actively promote reproduction of the successful... which sounds, quite rightly, like eugenics. It's a nasty paradox.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d43gKl9xIME [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quiverfull

Evolution hasn't stopped, but it's failed to move in any direction we can call forward.

That may be, but evolution doesn't answer to our conscious desires and ideas of social good or progress. It really is just "the blind watchmaker". What we evolve into isn't "good" or "bad", it just "is". Or at least that's the way I look at it.

Those are societal/cultural things, which is a separate issue from genetic evolution. Those groups may still be selecting healthy (physically, mentally, economically) mates from the pool, even if they're not a culture that you think is desirable.

Another thing to consider beyond which subgroup is reproducing more is to what extent the subgroups are inter-mating. Who is to say we don't diverge into different species completely in the distant future?

> Since it is still the case that those with more money (on average) have more reproductive opportunities, get better medical care, live longer, etc.

That's nice. Financially secure people tend to have way less children then the working class/poor. Remember, viable offspring is that which lives long enough to reproduce.

Financially secure people tend to have way less children

That's a fair point, but then we also have to ask "do they have fitter children in turn"? Sexual selection would suggest that more fit individuals seek out and mate with other more fit individuals, as each tries to maximize the fitness of the vessel carrying their genes. If that's the case, I wonder what the effect of that is, carried over multiple generations. I haven't spent a lot of time thinking about this, and I really don't have an answer, but it's worth pondering.

Remember, viable offspring is that which lives long enough to reproduce.

Just living long enough isn't enough, you also have to be able to attract a mate to reproduce with. I suspect it is the case that in modern times, sexual selection is more of a factor in human evolution than survival selection.

Nonetheless, you guys do make a good point about the wealthy/educated having less children. We humans have complicated things by creating things like birth control and by evolving our thinking minds which (in theory) allow us to override the imperative of our "selfish" genes. :-)

I think it's really, really easy to have sex. Like, be young or/and drunk, and it will happen by accident. But the part that's not opinion is that once sex is in play, birth control requires additional energy and resources that positively affect those with less social power.

e: i think i meant to say birth control (evolutionarily) negatively affects those with more social power

Ugly loser bores may not be able to attract funny successful beauties. But they can still attract each other.

But is this a new thing? Or unique to humans? I'd think if humans in a stable, wealthy community today have fewer children than those in a high-risk community then perhaps early humans who were living in a comfortable environment also had fewer children than those who were fighting against predators and famine.

We should be able to find other species populations that exhibit the same relationship between infant mortality and frequency of birth.

Yes, being tall, in good health, physically well-built and smart gives you, on average, more success in career and with members of the opposite sex. But does it give you more offspring, which is the important thing for evolution? In our times having a lot of sexual partners or one partner with a lot of sexual activity doesn't mean you have a lot of children.

To be clear: do rich and successful people have more children than poor ones? Someone has any source on that?

To be clear: do rich and successful people have more children than poor ones? Someone has any source on that?

Two thoughts on that:

1. They almost certainly have more opportunity for mating. But they may not always take advantage of that opportunity (especially since they may have child-less sex through various birth control measures)

2. It isn't just a question of the number of children, it's also a question of the fitness of their children. If "fit attracts fit" then the most fit females tend to pair up with the most fit males, and their children average out as more fit than others.

But now we're back to the idea that we no longer know exactly what "fit" means in this world. I guess the answer is "it's complicated". But I still don't see any reason in any of that, to think that no evolution occurs.

But the rich and successful aren't having kids.

What we are currently selecting for is people who have lots of kids and let society pay for their upbringing.

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