Homo sapiens have been around for 250,000 years - surely long enough to have become fully evolved?
It was thought that the dramatic extension of life spans during the 20th century eliminated natural selection, but new evidence shows that to be false.
Will selection always be natural, or could postmodern also mean posthuman?
http://fora.tv/2009/03/26/Professor_Christopher_Dye_Are_Humans_Still_Evolving
Scientific American Editor in Chief John Rennie discusses the special January issue of the magazine, which focuses on evolution—2009 being the 200th anniversary of the birth of Darwin and the 150th anniversary of the publication of The Origin of Species. Subjects in the issue include the importance of natural selection, the sources of genetic variability, human evolution’s past and future, pop evolutionary psychology, everyday applications of evolutionary theory, the science of the game Spore, and the ongoing threat to science education posed by creationist activists. Plus, we’ll test your knowledge about some recent science in the news.
http://www.sciam.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=the-evolution-of-evolution-09-01-07
February 12 marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin, certainly the most important biologist in history and one of the great figures in science. Darwin, of course, spent his life developing the theory of evolution by natural selection, which has become the foundation for the understanding of biology. In the 1960’s evolutionary biologist Theodosius Dobzhansky said that "nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution," and that’s a statement with which few biologists would argue.
To honour Darwin’s birthday, we’re devoting our program to a discussion of the life and work of Charles Darwin, and to a discussion of his impact on modern science, with three special guests.
Richard Francis discusses the new scientific field of epigenetics, the study of how stress in the environment can impact an individual’s physiology so deeply that those biological scars actually can be inherited by the next generations. In Epigenetics: The Ultimate Mystery of Inheritance he explains why researchers believe that epigenetics holds the key to understanding obesity, cancer, Alzheimer’s, schizophrenia, autism, and diabetes.