Meet future woman: shorter, plumper, more fertile

[n2doc]

19 October 2009 by Bob Holmes

Women of the future are likely to be slightly shorter and plumper, have healthier hearts and longer reproductive windows. These changes are predicted by the strongest proof to date that humans are still evolving.

Medical advances mean that many people who once would have died young now live to a ripe old age. This has led to a belief that natural selection no longer affects humans and, therefore, that we have stopped evolving.

"That's just plain false," says Stephen Stearns, an evolutionary biologist at Yale University. He says although differences in survival may no longer select "fitter" humans and their genes, differences in reproduction still can. The question is whether women who have more children have distinguishing traits which they pass on to their offspring.

To find out, Stearns and his colleagues turned to data from the Framingham Heart Study, which has tracked the medical histories of more than 14,000 residents of the town of Framingham, Massachusetts, since 1948 – spanning three generations in some families.

more:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17997-meet-future-woman-shorter-plumper-more-fertile.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=online-news

[dmallind]

1. Hmmm. Bit of a leap in his thinking

This will only happen if the difference between mutations in reproduction is significant enough to come to dominate the population. Since more and more of the world (not enough of it, but increasing) now has choice in reproduction, the idea that broad-hipped women with robust physiques and fat reserves will necessarily have more children just because they can on an aggregate basis is unsupported. The very same advances in medicine and nutrition that lead to longer lives and longer biologically productive years are concentrated in societies where it's unusual to say the least - reality show and national notoriety unusual - to maximize your production of children regardless of your genetic ability to do so. If we consider the number of children per woman in these societies, we generally find tall skinny women can produce the norm and beyond quite easily for the most part, and both they and their shorter plumper counterparts are far more likely to choose based on desire than on genetics.

[JoDog]

2. So, I'm not plus size

and short. I'm at the vanguard of evolution!

[RubyDuby in GA]

3. Whoohoo! I am the future.

Now why do I feel like Homer Simpson all of a sudden?

[The Sushi Bandit]

4. Wrong! taller and slimmer

Just go to a womens college volleyball game! girls were never that tall when i was their age!!

[phasma ex machina]

7. +1 Young people, especially women, seem taller than ever. nt.

[cambie]

5. Survival and fertility

are two equally important parts of the equation. In modern society the pressures of survival are gone, but evolution never stops. The future goes to those who reproduce the fastest, starting at the youngest age, and who can use a strategy that feeds their offspring with minimum personal effort. Those are physiological adaptations rather than physical.

Historians will have to face the fact that natural selection determined the evolution of cultures in the same manner as it did that of species. - Konrad Lorentz

[Phoonzang]

6. Since future humans will probably be able to direct their own evolution (so to speak)

I think future women (and men) will be able to look like whatever they want.

[Odin2005]

8. OK with me.

Bony sticks are not attractive.

[Ter]

11. Neither are short and stocky

:)

[nemo137]

15. lol. Yes, I think I'm going to like the future, too.

[Nihil]

9. Mmmm ... more fertile humans ... just what the planet needs!

Though this may prove true, I think the driver is going to be
cultural (breeders with bad habits outnumbering those with
good habits) rather than genetic - i.e., nurture (or lack thereof)
rather than nature.

:shrug:

[Nikia]

10. I thought that women (and men)

Were becoming taller on average.
I don't think that one can draw universal conclusions from data using residents in only one town. There could be reasons that residents might vary from the world or even US population in general.

[HamdenRice]

12. Human evolution will be driven by sexual selection, not reproduction

I think the study's premises are remarkably bad. In the developed world, the population growth rate is rapidly trending toward zero population growth and fertility of just over 2.

In other words, a plurality of women who reproduce are going to have 2 children. Fewer and fewer will have many. Health and other "natural selection" factors will ease.

The main selection factor will be whether a woman has a mate or mates. Same with men.

The main evolutionary pressure for both men and women is going to be what women and men find attractive in each other -- the so called "peacock" effect (peacock's feathers have no evolutionary advantage in surviving, but are simply selected by females as attractive for mating).

Mutation is irrelevant because the genetic diversity already exists within the human community for dramatic changes (eg, the emergence of race types in the past).

[dugaresa]

13. and she looks like this!

<>

[dropkickpa]

14. That's how it is in my family

The women are all short, plump, live very long lives (85+ active years), and have lots of kids. Of course, we're a small subsection of society, Irish farm stock, so we're probably already pre-selected for these traits.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

16. shorter would be OK if they have wide pelves

to make childbirth easier.

Small and small boned and narrow-hipped like me, is not good for having lots of kids. I had to have a c-section for an eight pounder--huge. You cannot have many kids and many C-sections. I know a lady who had three sons and 3 c-sections. I don't know what the limit is but I imagine that eventually you would have a uterine rupture.


I didn't realize that narrow hips are a life or death problem until I got pregnant and delivered a baby the only way possible for me.

Tall women usually have wide enough wheelbases that they can deliver easily.