Am busy ahead of deadlines today, but I did want to share this story: http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=culture-speeds-up-human-evolution
There are other articles on the internets about this covering various angles (including reactions to potentials for racism from this study), though I chose one that I thought treated it comprehensively and fairly. I am unsure what to offer in the way of comment at this time, lacking proper understanding of genetics, but from the fact that people tens of thousands of years ago were moving into new climates with new circumstances the species hadn’t yet faced, and yet managed to both survive and thrive in greater numbers, it would seem to follow that there was considerable evolving and passing along of acquired traits. Making the connection from the movement from tribe to city-state (and from Africa to Europe and Asia) to biological evolution seems like a leap though, but that could be those post-Industrial Age sensibilities kicking in.
But I still have to wonder, if evolution sped up in the periods of migration and settlement in new places where the species wasn’t acclimated, have we slowed down our own development down by occupying every spot on the Earth’s surface, and if so what’s it going to take to speed it up again? Underwater settlements? Colonizing the Moon? That’s interesting to consider.
