Just now, BusaDave9 said:

Thank you. You are the first person to admit evolution is much different for humans than wild animals.

From my reading of the thread other contributors would also agree. What has been called into question seems to be your focus on natural selection as opposed to other mechanisms.

But certainly it seems to me we should think about what factors in humanity cause greater or lesser rates of reproduction. In many countries, reproduction rates are now below the mean rate of 2.1 children per woman needed to avoid population decline. But this is a recent development. Given the very slow rate of turnover of human populations (only 3-4 generations per century) one would expect change due to heredity to be an extremely long term effect. So it is probably unwise to extrapolate much from recent social change.

33 minutes ago, BusaDave9 said:

Thank you. You are the first person to admit evolution is much different for humans than wild animals.

And you can't count.
Just about everyone has...

35 minutes ago, BusaDave9 said:

Thank you. You are the first person to admit evolution is much different for humans than wild animals.

You go from "you don't understand evolution" to "you're stating the obvious".

What are the implications? At first you'd think humans are evolving at a much slower rate than wild animals but that doesn't seem to be the case.

What's driving human evolution if not natural selection?

Read my very first post and tell me what wasn't clear.

Why do you say humans do not seem to be evolving more slowly than wild animals? I should have thought it likely that we are, though I have not seen any data on it.

24 minutes ago, exchemist said:

reproduction rates are now below the mean rate of 2.1 children per woman needed to avoid population decline

Countries like South Korea, Japan and Taiwan, where the birth rate is not affected by economics and immigration is low, will be in trouble in less than 100 years.

Doomsday scenario

Humans have blown themselves to bits in a nuclear war and caused the sixth great mass extinction on Earth.

Cockroaches, having evolved to be more resistant to both radiation and other effects of nuclear explosions have inherited the Earth.

Back to the present day

Humans have not evolved to extract the oxygen microbubbles in water, nor photosynthesise from using the sunshine.

In fact humans haven't evolved to live without the results of this photosynthesis.

Humans and other life forms have trod different paths.

5 minutes ago, studiot said:

Humans have not evolved to extract the oxygen microbubbles in water

Kevin Costner did in Waterworld.
(big flop so not too many saw it, but I liked it )

9 hours ago, exchemist said:

Yes we all agree it is different for humans.

I disagree with that statement, at least the way it can be interpreted. In evolutionary sciences it makes zero sense to try to rank selective forces. Those are relative quantities. Assume for example a population where predation is the strongest shaping force. Now, suddenly all predators are gone. What happens is not that suddenly evolution stops, but instead the other evolutionary elements contribute more to the changes in the gene pool. Extremely strong selective sweeps can keep the gene pool a bit more narrower, as for example a particular trait might become essential for survival. But once that is gone, other traits may rise, which could open up the pool more and give rise to other positive traits that otherwise may not have appeared in the first place. Both are are evolutionary processes which cannot be ranked as OP desires to. Moreover, "wild animals" covers a huge range of very disparate population with wildly different conditions that shape their evolution. Stating that humans are categorically different is, in my mind, a very anthropocentric claim.

The mechanisms may be different, but tool use and tech just creates a different environment where other forces (selective or not) impact our evolution. Similarly to how other organisms impacted our world. Things like oxygen production has massively changed the world in the past and way more profound to what tech is doing to us, for now at least.

The fact that humans practice birth control, also has impact on the evolution, in multiple ways. On the one hand, one can thing about it as creating bottleneck structures in the gene flow, as only a small subset (below replacement level, for instance) of folks reproduce. But then in recent times, economic stability seems to be associated with reproduction. And while wealth is not associated with genes as such, generational wealth runs in families. So one can speculate about how that impacts our gene pool (with emphasis on speculate).

1 hour ago, exchemist said:

Why do you say humans do not seem to be evolving more slowly than wild animals? I should have thought it likely that we are, though I have not seen any data on it.

In terms of rapidity, human evolution seems to have accelerated and this is documented both, on the fossil as well as the genetic level. Changes in skull shapes and brain development seemed to have happened faster than in our cousins. There are multiple hypotheses, including the ability to learn better use of resources, with allowed dispersion of human population followed by massive shifts in selective forces. Some of the most obvious genetic examples we find in text book are changes associated with diet, as well as climate adaptation, which happened very fast. But with urbanization we also see a lot adpatation related to pathogen exposure. One of the challenges of modern life is that we are connected (in case folks forgot about the annual influenza pandemic or COVID-19). All those are selective forces that OP neglects.

Likewise, because of our changes in diet, certain populations are now at higher risk of metabolic syndromes, severely impacting reproductive success. And yes, those with more resources might have a better chance to address some of them, which has its own accelerating impact, as I mentioned earlier.

Also, the examples of OP have given earlier, such as Klinefelter, Angelman, Downs etc are under negative selection, so it doesn't really add to the their argument.

My bigger point is that the idea of comparing wild vs human is not really feasible as selection is a relative force action on the gene pool under a given environment. If humans change the environment, they change selective forces, but again, unless they are able to create conditions approaching the Hardy-Weinberg scenario, the pool will shift and functionally there is little difference if the environment is caused by technology, or a beaver dam or biochemically (e.g. oxygen production).

Now the respective consequences are different, of course, but for that you would need to compare specific populations rather making a wide claim. And perhaps rather symptomatic, when folks talk about natural selection for some reason they do think about sweeps of disorders, and assume that strong selective forces somehow keep the gene healthier (in a eugenic sense) but forget that what it also means is that the gene pool is likely narrower. As such, when talking biology, rather than social sciences, it makes little sense to frame it around the concept of disorders, but one has to take a view on the shape of the gene pool as a whole. After all, we do not really categorize alleles as unequivocally good or bad, nor does it really make biological sense. A gene might reduce your performance is some way, but provide resilience to a certain pathogen. Is that good or bad? In the absence of the pathogen, it might show up as a negative, in the presence it is a positive.

26 minutes ago, CharonY said:

I disagree with that statement, at least the way it can be interpreted. In evolutionary sciences it makes zero sense to try to rank selective forces. Those are relative quantities. Assume for example a population where predation is the strongest shaping force. Now, suddenly all predators are gone. What happens is not that suddenly evolution stops, but instead the other evolutionary elements contribute more to the changes in the gene pool. Extremely strong selective sweeps can keep the gene pool a bit more narrower, as for example a particular trait might become essential for survival. But once that is gone, other traits may rise, which could open up the pool more and give rise to other positive traits that otherwise may not have appeared in the first place. Both are are evolutionary processes which cannot be ranked as OP desires to. Moreover, "wild animals" covers a huge range of very disparate population with wildly different conditions that shape their evolution. Stating that humans are categorically different is, in my mind, a very anthropocentric claim.

The mechanisms may be different, but tool use and tech just creates a different environment where other forces (selective or not) impact our evolution. Similarly to how other organisms impacted our world. Things like oxygen production has massively changed the world in the past and way more profound to what tech is doing to us, for now at least.

The fact that humans practice birth control, also has impact on the evolution, in multiple ways. On the one hand, one can thing about it as creating bottleneck structures in the gene flow, as only a small subset (below replacement level, for instance) of folks reproduce. But then in recent times, economic stability seems to be associated with reproduction. And while wealth is not associated with genes as such, generational wealth runs in families. So one can speculate about how that impacts our gene pool (with emphasis on speculate).

In terms of rapidity, human evolution seems to have accelerated and this is document both, on the fossil as well as the genetic level. Changes in skull shapes and brain development seemed to happened faster than in our cousins. There are multiple hypotheses, including the ability to learn better use of resources, with allowed dispersion of human population followed by massive shifts in selective forces. Some of the most obvious genetic examples we find in text book are changes associated with diet, as well as climate adaptation, which happened very fast. But with urbanization we also see a lot adpatation related to pathogen exposure. One of the challenges of modern life is that we are connected (in case folks forgot about the annual influenza pandemic or COVID-19). All those are selective forces that OP neglects.

Likewise, because of our changes in diet, certain populations are now at higher risk of metabolic syndromes, severely impacting reproductive success. And yes, those with more resources might have a better chance to address some of them, which has its own accelerating impact, as I mentioned earlier.

Also, the examples of OP have given earlier, such as Klinefelter, Angelman, Downs etc are under negative selection, so it doesn't really add to the their argument.

My bigger point is that the idea of comparing wild vs human is not really feasible as selection is a relative force action on the gene pool under a given environment. If humans change the environment, they change selective forces, but again, unless they are able to create conditions approaching the Hardy-Weinberg scenario, the pool will shift and functionally there is little difference if the environment is caused by technology, or a beaver dam or biochemically (e.g. oxygen production).

Now the respective consequences are different, of course, but for that you would need to compare specific populations rather making a wide claim. And perhaps rather symptomatic, when folks talk about natural selection for some reason they do think about sweeps of disorders, and assume that strong selective forces somehow keep the gene healthier (in a eugenic sense) but forget that what it also means is that the gene pool is likely narrower. As such, when talking biology, rather than social sciences, it makes little sense to frame it around the concept of disorders, but one has to take a view on the shape of the gene pool as a whole. After all, we do not really categorize alleles as unequivocally good or bad, nor does it really make biological sense. A gene might reduce your performance is some way, but provide resilience to a certain pathogen. Is that good or bad? In the absence of the pathogen, it might show up as a negative, in the presence it is a positive.

Yes these are all very fair points. Particularly interesting to think about pathogen resistance and metabolic disorders.

On 6/20/2026 at 12:36 AM, BusaDave9 said:

So, what is the main driving force behind human evolution if natural selection has so much less impact on us than animals living in the wild?

Since we have now all agreed that most of us agree with much of what you said, what would be helpful would be if you were to outline what conclusions and implications you draw from your statements.

5 hours ago, swansont said:

I thought it was clear that I can’t decipher what you’re saying, unless this whole thread is about stating an obvious, uncontested fact with no further point.

Yes, we have reduced selection pressure in many ways owing to having intelligence. Individuals survive that likely would not have without our technology. What are you wishing to discuss?

I think swansont has a good point here.

4 hours ago, BusaDave9 said:

You go from "you don't understand evolution" to "you're stating the obvious".

Both statements can be true. You are stating something obvious (people don’t die for the same reasons as they did in the past) and also making misrepresentations about the theory.

On 6/19/2026 at 7:36 PM, BusaDave9 said:

So, what is the main driving force behind human evolution if natural selection has so much less impact on us than animals living in the wild?

Perhaps you could give us examples of the evolution that’s happened that allegedly wasn’t from natural selection.

4 hours ago, exchemist said:

What has been called into question seems to be your focus on natural selection as opposed to other mechanisms.

My point is I believe natural selection is the main driving force for evolution in wild animals. I also believe natural selection plays a small part in the evolution of humans.

This is the biggest difference between human and animal evolution.

2 hours ago, exchemist said:

Yes these are all very fair points. Particularly interesting to think about pathogen resistance and metabolic disorders.

@CharonY filled out some points I and a couple others tried to make earlier about how selective pressures shift with civilization and dispersal into varied biomes. The shift to livestock agriculture and urban life had a selective effect on the immune systems, one might say "smartening" them to wider ranges of pathogens and viral loads (though now the germophobe practices are sort of a step backwards from that, with overly sterile living spaces in some nations)

Some selective pressures, however, are minimal due to not asserting until past childbearing years. We might have Type II diabetes for a long time, or at least the associated alleles, because the effects don't present until mostly after 35, and don't much prevent fertility except in extreme cases.

Edited Monday at 07:16 PM1 day by TheVat

1 hour ago, TheVat said:

(though now the germophobe practices are sort of a step backwards from that, with overly sterile living spaces in some nations)

I would be careful with that. For starters that really only relates to allergies, not the immune system wit large. We had a bit of a discussion those interactions here https://www.scienceforums.net/topic/140127-the-rise-of-allergies/#comment-1303884

Though I am a bit skeptical regarding the explanatory power of microbe-host interaction alone, as our immune systems interact with a host of other antigens, too.

There is also a bit of a misconception that the immune system can be trained like a muscle. It is a fair bit weirder, and certainly your immune system doesn't get better the more often you are sick. Not saying that is your claim, but that is something I keep hearing from some folks and now also students, which is a bit worrisome.

1 hour ago, BusaDave9 said:

My point is I believe natural selection is the main driving force for evolution in wild animals. I also believe natural selection plays a small part in the evolution of humans.

This is the biggest difference between human and animal evolution.

And this is called an assertion, but as mentioned before, it is not one that can be verified. As I mentioned there is no way to quantify that across species. Moreover, such generalizations are almost always wrong (heh). In very small populations, regardless of species stochastic effects are quite a bit more likelier to impact evolution rather than selective sweeps. Moreover, you haven't even begun to figure out what kind of selective forces might be present in humans or animals. It goes way beyond just prey interactions, for example.

Take sexual selection for starters. Do you think in human populations there are no preferences? In many animals this likely contributed to hugely ineffective and even potentially harmful phenotypes (e.g. excessive plumage). Or weird adaptations including loss of the ability to live independently from each other. How would you even begin to try to quantify your claim?

2 hours ago, BusaDave9 said:

My point is I believe natural selection is the main driving force for evolution in wild animals. I also believe natural selection plays a small part in the evolution of humans.

This is the biggest difference between human and animal evolution.

I don't know of any theory or rule that says the time rate of evolution has to be same for all species and can't vary greatly between species.

I have already mentioned the greatest difference have you forgotten it ?

3 minutes ago, studiot said:

I don't know of any theory or rule that says the time rate of evolution has to be same for all species and can't vary greatly between species.

I have already mentioned the greatest difference have you forgotten it ?

Also to add to that, natural selection as doesn't necessarily affect evolutionary rates as such. One huge challenge in determining rate on the molecular side is that certain parameters are invisible and we cannot really quantify them well. For example, mutation rate have a huge impact on the rate of evolution, as they determine overall timing. But quantifying that is difficult, because what we see in the DNA is an interplay between purely stochastic mutational events and cellular mechanisms that affect them (e.g. DNA repair, metabolic rates, reproductive speed etc.). On a higher level, population size further skews results, making it very difficult to accurately determine germline mutation rates.

I.e. comparing the impact of selection between populations only make sense if we assume same mutational rates, and the hypothesis here is that stronger selective factors will increase fixation rates. However, even that can be complicated by the fact that we also have to contend with recombination. Here, some models have shown that if recombination (i.e., sexual reproduction or horizontal gene transfer) are the major sources of diversity over mutation (which is the case for species with sexual reproduction and low mutation rates), then natural selection actually slows down evolution.

That is all to say, that any discussion on evolutionary rates or selection has to look through a population lens. Even among mammalian species evolutionary rates vary significantly and there is ongoing discussion about the determinants for that.

3 hours ago, CharonY said:

Moreover, you haven't even begun to figure out what kind of selective forces might be present in humans or animals. It goes way beyond just prey interactions, for example.

Take sexual selection for starters. Do you think in human populations there are no preferences? In many animals this likely contributed to hugely ineffective and even potentially harmful phenotypes (e.g. excessive plumage). Or weird adaptations including loss of the ability to live independently from each other. How would you even begin to try to quantify your claim?

For sexual selection in humans I think there is strong preference, especially in men. Men are more likely to be attracted to specific women for esthetic reasons. This is especially true for teen agers and into the 20's. At those ages people are more likely to be just out having fun. But then again, humans are the only species that practices birth control. As people mature they are not looking for such superficial traits. I don't have any statistics but I don't think beautiful people have any more children than ugly people.

Across the world people now have about 2.2 children per couple. (1.6 in the USA) This is because people can plan their families.

Now if you don't mind I'd like to generalize. You can always point to specific bird species and say they have developed such a bright colorful plumage that it attracts predators and is a detriment to survival. I don't think we need to analyze the evolutionary balancing act between birds attracting mates and avoiding predators. The viewpoint I am explaining is to compare driving forces in human evolution compared to wild animals.

To generalize, I believe the main driving force in wild animals is natural selection (mutations must be present). You can certainly find exceptions in specific animals.

In humans I don't think natural selection (AKA survival of the fittest) applies nearly as much as of a driving force in human evolution. What is the main driving force in human evolution? I don't know, but I'd love to hear the opinions of others.

3 hours ago, studiot said:

I don't know of any theory or rule that says the time rate of evolution has to be same for all species and can't vary greatly between species.

Of course the rate of evolution isn't the same for all species. I never said anything similar to that.

On 6/20/2026 at 1:57 PM, studiot said:

This is why you can't just say A is imperfect and therefore has a lower chance of survival to reproduce or take one factor in isolation.

The natural selection environment is multi factorial, both for wild animals and humans.

If you measure 'success' by how long has a species survived then:

The most successful creatures on the planet have been present since the earliest times, from even before there was an oxygen atmousphere and can still be found today in isolated places.

I never said anything like this.

I never said "A is imperfect and therefore has a lower chance of survival to reproduce or take one factor in isolation."

I never said I measured "'success' by how long has a species survived"

I have been ignoring many of your posts because you don't even seem to be paying attention.

10 hours ago, BusaDave9 said:

On 6/20/2026 at 8:57 PM, studiot said:

This is why you can't just say A is imperfect and therefore has a lower chance of survival to reproduce or take one factor in isolation.

The natural selection environment is multi factorial, both for wild animals and humans.

If you measure 'success' by how long has a species survived then:

The most successful creatures on the planet have been present since the earliest times, from even before there was an oxygen atmousphere and can still be found today in isolated places.

I never said anything like this.

I never said "A is imperfect and therefore has a lower chance of survival to reproduce or take one factor in isolation."

I never said I measured "'success' by how long has a species survived"

I have been ignoring many of your posts because you don't even seem to be paying attention.

No you did not say any of this.

I said it as your quote clearly shows.

Furthermore it was said in response to one of your posts.

Which was clearly shown in my post, but not yours.

Instead you chose to metaphorically shout a demand that I answer your question, when I had in fact included a lengthy explanation as to why your analysis is not wrong but too simplistic.

The part about 'A is imperfect is my paraphrasing' of your word 'disabilities'.

Why should I answer you question when you avoid answering mine ?

I don't see how you can accuse me of 'not paying attention' when my posts contain your posted text to which I am replying.

Furthermore most of my posts contain requests for clarification since you have been so vague about the basis for your claims.

10 hours ago, BusaDave9 said:

14 hours ago, studiot said:

I don't know of any theory or rule that says the time rate of evolution has to be same for all species and can't vary greatly between species.

Of course the rate of evolution isn't the same for all species. I never said anything similar to that.

Yet you keep ignoring the fact that 'rate' can be measured in many different ways, which is why I specified the 'time rate', as opposed to any other rate.

14 hours ago, studiot said:

16 hours ago, BusaDave9 said:

My point is I believe natural selection is the main driving force for evolution in wild animals. I also believe natural selection plays a small part in the evolution of humans.

This is the biggest difference between human and animal evolution.

I don't know of any theory or rule that says the time rate of evolution has to be same for all species and can't vary greatly between species.

I have already mentioned the greatest difference have you forgotten it ?

You even agree with me that evolution is multifactorial and claim a particular explanation for the agreed difference between humans and animals.

12 hours ago, BusaDave9 said:

In humans I don't think natural selection (AKA survival of the fittest) applies nearly as much as of a driving force in human evolution. What is the main driving force in human evolution? I don't know, but I'd love to hear the opinions of others.

IMO this is wrong. What is true is that the factors applying to natural selection have changed (in some respects by humans themselves) over time. In modern societies, social skills are far more valuable than the hunting and foraging skills required for survival even as short time as 50,000 years ago. (Maybe not the greatest example but should outline my, and I believe the scientific, definition of "natural selection") A good accountant who has never been out of the city or learned survival skills would have been unlikely to survive long enough to pass on their genes at that time. A caveman would likewise almost certainly find themselves killed or incarcerated by authorities for breaking some law or norm they are unfamiliar with today and will thus not be passing on their genes. I would argue that both cases are natural selection (even if some of the conditions are human-influenced) in accordance with the environment either being is exposed to.

Edited 20 hours ago20 hr by npts2020
clarification

39 minutes ago, npts2020 said:

IMO this is wrong. What is true is that the factors applying to natural selection have changed (in some respects by humans themselves) over time. In modern societies, social skills are far more valuable than the hunting and foraging skills required for survival even as short time as 50,000 years ago. (Maybe not the greatest example but should outline my, and I believe the scientific, definition of "natural selection") A good accountant who has never been out of the city or learned survival skills would have been unlikely to survive long enough to pass on their genes at that time. A caveman would likewise almost certainly find themselves killed or incarcerated by authorities for breaking some law or norm they are unfamiliar with today and will thus not be passing on their genes. I would argue that both cases are natural selection (even if some of the conditions are human-influenced) in accordance with the environment either being is exposed to.

In modern times we don't need to be good hunters or be able to find food in the forest. That is not the survival of modern man. If you work hard at school you can become an accountant and make a good living.

Next lets look at someone that has learning disabilities and doesn't do good in school. He has a low IQ and drops out of school. His future doesn't look good. Many would call him a failure in today's society. But he's not a failure biologically. Everyone has a chance to have children even those in the bottom rungs of the social ladder. This is what I mean when I say it's not the survival of the fittest for humans. It's survival of everyone. Almost everyone can have more children than we want. Instead we practice family planning. Our children are expected to reach adulthood at a vastly greater rate than animals in the wild.

If you don't have a job in most parts of the world the government will help you. There are also charities. But you'll still be able to pass your genes on to the next generation.

Edited 19 hours ago19 hr by BusaDave9

14 minutes ago, BusaDave9 said:

Everyone has a chance to have children even those in the bottom rungs of the social ladder.

Is that really true though? There's a whole "incel" culture out there whose very existence is based on the notion that that isn't true.

3 hours ago, BusaDave9 said:

Next lets look at someone that has learning disabilities and doesn't do good in school. He has a low IQ and drops out of school. His future doesn't look good. Many would call him a failure in today's society. But he's not a failure biologically. Everyone has a chance to have children even those in the bottom rungs of the social ladder.

You need to cite some evidence for these sorts of claims. And it's "do well in school" not "do good in school." Adverb not adjective.

3 hours ago, BusaDave9 said:

In modern times we don't need to be good hunters or be able to find food in the forest. That is not the survival of modern man. If you work hard at school you can become an accountant and make a good living.

Next lets look at someone that has learning disabilities and doesn't do good in school. He has a low IQ and drops out of school. His future doesn't look good. Many would call him a failure in today's society. But he's not a failure biologically. Everyone has a chance to have children even those in the bottom rungs of the social ladder. This is what I mean when I say it's not the survival of the fittest for humans. It's survival of everyone. Almost everyone can have more children than we want. Instead we practice family planning. Our children are expected to reach adulthood at a vastly greater rate than animals in the wild.

If you don't have a job in most parts of the world the government will help you. There are also charities. But you'll still be able to pass your genes on to the next generation.

This is again conflating survival with reproductive success. Again, you still misunderstand the basic premise of evolution, in which fitness is not indicated by individual health or survival. Just the reproductive success over generations. This is a very basic mistake and keeps leading the discussion astray, as it is still based on erroneous assumption about what evolution and the role of natural selections (as well as repeatedly ignore, but equally important other factors ) are. Natural selection is not a magical element that purifies the gene pool, nor is it a singular shaping force. Rather, think of it as one of many factor that create a fitness landscape of a population. If we look at the gene pool, different genotypes are associated with distinct reproductive success rates (think of it as the height in the landscape). The landscape is highly dependent on the environment interaction with the genotype. For example in an area where Malaria is highly present, alleles associated with sickle cell disease are going to create hill (higher reproductive success) whereas in areas without, it might create a valley (lower success). The idea of that is that we don't look at singular observations and try to derive a story regarding fitness in population, that fitness is relative, not absolute measure, and it also has other implications (e.g. that gene pools could be shaped by local maxima, but not reaching another higher theoretical peak). Importantly, fitness landscapes are dynamic, that is the relative contribution of a genotype to fitness can change depending on the situation, even the frequency of a given genotype.

So one aspect of the model you are proposing is that in humans the fitness landscape is fully flat or at least flatter than any animal on earth. The latter, as mentioned can of course never be validated as we do not have the means to fully reconstruct this model for all animals, and it therefore remains an assertion that cannot really be discussed (it is equally informative to speculate which favorite superhero would be the other one up). However, what we can address is to assess whether the human fitness landscape is indeed flat. If that is the case, one would assume that the human gene pool is exclusively formed random effects (i.e. there is not fixation). That, of course is not true. Studies in current humans have shown significant selective pressures to make us who we are over the thousands of years or so. The challenge is now that we cannot obviously find any evolutionary signatures for changes in the last 100 years or so.

However, we can go beyond mere assumptions and actually look at the literature. There is a large body on mate selection among humans which includes certain cues (such as the major histocompatibility complex) that affect this rather complex behaviour, which, without doubt continues to happen. If that wasn't the case your are basically stating that humans engage in random mating, which is clearly not the case. Likewise, reproductive success is not equal in all humans, though there are complex factors pertaining to it. As mentioned, but not fully connected, humans engage in deliberate limitation of reproduction. Here, we have to ask ourselves, a) are all humans doing that at the same rate b) if not are there genetic differences between the groups (at scale). In case of b) and assuming there some populations are more fecund in but not connected genetically, we would still see shifts in the fitness landscape, but they are more likely stochastic.

I have to stop here but both, population limitation amplify even weak selective forces due to bottleneck effects and there are selective forces which, while lessened in absolute terms, will still relatively form our gene pool. But the bottom line is a) trying to do a superficial comparison between vastly different populations is going to be exclusively speculative and just-so stories and b) human evolution continues to be shaped by the an environment where cultural aspects have a strong impact but we we there is no evidence that somehow we have approached anything like a W-H equilibrium (or a flat and static fitness landscape).

On 6/22/2026 at 2:30 PM, BusaDave9 said:

My point is I believe natural selection is the main driving force for evolution in wild animals. I also believe natural selection plays a small part in the evolution of humans.

This is the biggest difference between human and animal evolution.

I will once again ask you for examples of evolution in humans — the ones you are looking at to draw this conclusion.

18 hours ago, BusaDave9 said:

Now if you don't mind I'd like to generalize. You can always point to specific bird species and say they have developed such a bright colorful plumage that it attracts predators and is a detriment to survival. I don't think we need to analyze the evolutionary balancing act between birds attracting mates and avoiding predators. The viewpoint I am explaining is to compare driving forces in human evolution compared to wild animals.

I think a problem here is that you are narrowing your field of view on this, but still trying to apply it to a broader conclusion.. Avoiding predators is not the only avenue of natural selection.

Shocking that selection pressures haven’t yet acted upon this thread

11 hours ago, KJW said:

Is that really true though? There's a whole "incel" culture out there whose very existence is based on the notion that that isn't true.

This incel culture is a very minor. When compared to animals we are far more likely to pass on our genes to the next generation. 200 years ago people would have 8 children but most would not make it to adulthood. Wild animals have it worse than that.

So what's the main driving force for human evolution if not reproductive success? Natural selection? I don't think so. Genetic drift? I don't think so.

Most say it's too complicated to give an answer. Some admit human evolution is much different than for animals. Some say I am wrong without even giving an opinion.