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Comment by grondilu | Hacker News Reader

Does it go on, though?

Maybe: There is this "disorder" called Marfan Syndrome where your limbs, fingers etc become longer than usual. And it seems to help with physical and Musical performance, e.g. Phelps is suspected of having it, Paganini had it, and guitar virtuoso Paul Gilbert (who I'm very envious of) also does. Now the question is, does superior athletic and musical performance lead to higher reproduction? Also, Marfan's is linked with a risk of heart disease, so this might hinder progress. It's definitely an experiment that evolution currently performs.

Both Paganini and Gilbert had only one son. Not exactly a huge reproductive success. Though arguably successful artists have many female fans and possibly lots of illegitimate children.

Marfan Syndrome takes away much more than it gives. I think it's an evolutionary advantage NOT to have it. It's a real disease.

The rules of evolution for humans have changed,ie, we are aware of it.

Erstwhile successful mating traits have chiefly been replaced by financial and social status.

Yeah, for now. But what if we live in Water World a few decades from now with climate change? Seee?!

> does superior athletic and musical performance lead to higher reproduction?

Is this really the relevant criterion here? As long as it doesn't lead to badly reduced reproduction, these properties will remain within our human gene pool, and that's all we need to evolve.

> Is this really the relevant criterion here?

I'm not sure it's the relevant criterion, but it probably is one.

For instance in the original article, they talk about lactose tolerance and how up to 30% of the adult population currently tolerates lactose. They would not have mentioned this ratio it if it were not important.

If new mutations show up and barely keep existing without gaining any predominance, isn't it more genetic drift than evolution?

Yes. One of the signatures of evolution/selection on a gene is it spreading far faster than any random walk. For a single variant to go from 0 to up to 30% in a few thousand years is extremely fast, so that instance of human evolution was detected early on.

But there are many other instances where it's a whole set of variants affecting a particular trait, all of which get slightly increased in frequency to collectively sculpt humans to their local environment; this is much harder to detect because the increase in each variant is much smaller. But it's still doable, especially with whole genomes, so look forward to more discoveries in the next few years.

In the end it comes down to "local" conditions.

Phelps, Michael Phelps?!? No one thinks he has it, that's crazy. Can you provide a source for that claim??

Fake, I mean Fox News!

http://www.foxnews.com/story/2008/08/21/michael-phelps-unint...

Of course.

Strictly in the scientific definition of evolution.

Certain genes proliferate more effectively in their environments. Therefore the population evolves.

People imagine evolution to be faster/stronger/better/smarter. Sure, often it's related to that - but it is not necessary.

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