Recently a British genetics expert, Steve Jones stated that humans in developed world have stopped evolving, because people there in western countries need not struggle for there survival and the famous theory of Darvin “survival for the fittest” doesn’t come into picture. And he didn’t miss saying that the evolution hasn’t stopped in the developing world, because people there have to struggle for survival.
I am no expert in the evolution theory of genetics, nor have I studied biology beyond matriculation, nor I want to challenge the British expert because I am not qualified enough, but I cant suppress something in me which tend to disagree.
This seems to be a loose statement and I differ and would like to raise some points
He says that humans in developing countries stopped evolving because they need to struggle for survival. Well, I feel this is a very sweeping statement, as not all people in developing countries struggle to survive, many of the people live as lavish life as people in developed countries. So does that mean that in developing countries too some people have stopped evolving? Evolution takes a vast time frame, even for a minor change thousands of years pass. And I don’t think it takes anything more than a century for backward countries to develop, so as per the theory of Mr Steve, nowadays peole of developing countries are subject to evolution and after hundred years they will again stop evolving? It seems Mr Steve has assumed that all backward countries will remain backward in next thousand years.
Or can anyone say it for sure that all people in developed countries need not struggle for survival.
Even if I view it from another point of view, and forget about developed and backward countries as mentioned by Mr Steve, can it be assumed that anyone irrespective of country he lives in, if lives in extreme poverty, then his further generations would also live in extreme poverty so that evolution could take place?
I think evolution theory is not same for humans and animals, as animals can not change their life at their will, they will live in jungle, struggle for survival and in the process, will evolve. But in case of humans, as they have got the ability of change their life due to highly developed mind, their process of evolution should be different. Suppose someone lives in extreme poverty and need to struggle for survival, so is his next generation, so next to next generation, but it’s not guaranteed that his 100 generations will live for sure in extreme conditions for evolution to come into picture. In fact it’s very likey that his next generations live in much better conditions.
One more fault (at least I think so) in Mr Steve’s theory is that he has assumed that if conditions so come, people in developed world will not evolve, and also there wont be any crisis which would call for further evolution of humans.
Evolution takes place in a very vast time frame, but nature has made it sure that even in a very short time frame further generations of living beings may be born with somewhat better profile, by making two sexes in almost all of living beings.
All the species happen to have a tendency to extend their population and two sexes can help the newborn inheriting better of two. This is a natural refinement process of the living beings, but unfortunately we humans waste it because in our civilization marriage is supposed to happen only between equals.
