NORWICH, United Kingdom — Charles Darwin’s natural selection theory is being put to the test. Darwin’s theory expounded that organisms which can better adapt to their environment are more likely to survive and produce more offspring. However, a new study by British researchers reveals natural selection may be making society more unequal.
Researchers from the University of East Anglia find that natural selection is favoring poorer people with little education. The study “shows how natural selection effects are stronger in groups with lower income and less education, among younger parents, people not living with a partner, and people with more lifetime sexual partners.”
On the flip side, natural selection “is pushing against genes” associated with highly educated individuals, people who have more lifetime earnings, those who have a low risk of ADHD or major depressive disorders, and those with a lower risk of coronary artery disease.
“Darwin’s theory of evolution stated that all species develop through the natural selection of small, inherited variations that increase the individual’s ability to compete, survive, and reproduce,” says lead researcher David Hugh-Jones, a professor from UEA’s School of Economics, in a university release. “We wanted to find out more about which characteristics are selected for and against in contemporary humans, living in the UK.”
‘Polygenic scores’ prove Darwin’s natural selection theory no longer valid?
Researchers analyzed the polygenic scores of more than 300,000 people in the United Kingdom, taken from the UK Biobank, which is a long-term project investigating the contributions of genetic predisposition and environmental exposure to the development of disease. The polygenic scores estimate a person’s genetic liability, a prediction of their health, education, lifestyle, or personality.
Researchers then used data on two generations of people living in the U.K. by looking at their number of siblings and number of children.
“We found that 23 out of 33 polygenic scores were significantly linked to a person having more or fewer children over their lifetime,” explains Hugh-Jones. “Scores which correlated with lower earnings and education predicted having more children, meaning those scores are being selected for from an evolutionary perspective.”
Meanwhile, researchers say scores correlating to those with higher earnings and better education predicted having fewer children, “meaning that they are being selected against.”
“Natural selection could be making society more unequal, by increasing the correlation between income and polygenic scores, including scores that predict health and education outcomes,” the study author continues.
Using the economic theory of fertility, researchers say those with higher earnings can afford more children. However, since it is costly to spend time on childcare instead of their job, they will miss out on higher wages.
“The first effect leads people to have more children, the second effect leads them to have fewer,” Hugh-Jones concludes.
The study is published in the journal Behavior Genetics.
This is the worst article I’ve ever read. I never comment on things but this is so bad, had to share.
r vs k
Natural selection and equality of outcome are diametrically opposing concepts. Evolution could not occur if all organisms were subject to equality of outcome.
This article is intellectually dishonest, and seeks to drive a narrative about equity. There is no logical association behind the idea that poor people reproduce more, therefore, natural selection is promoting those genes. What matters is the genes being promoted across humanity as a whole. Poor folks tend to have poorer health, shorter lives, and don’t tend to make societal changing impacts on humanity. Rich, educated folks, on the other hand, tend to have better health, live longer, and do, in fact, drive major societal changes that promote humanity. Focusing on the birth rate and associated socioeconomic class of those with highest birth rate proves nothing more than the idiocy of the writers axe to grind with the leftist stupidity about equity
“There is no logical association behind the idea that poor people reproduce more, therefore, natural selection is promoting those genes”
Your statement is wrong by the definition of evolution.
Those who are superior at reproduction are the ones favored by evolution.
“Evolution does not necessarily reward intelligence. With no natural predators to thin the herd, it began to simply reward those who reproduced the most, and left the intelligent to become an endangered species.” You should watch “Idiocracy” movie, it seems to have more common sense than this research.
Don’t believe anything you hear from University of E. Anglia. Their fingerprints are all over the global warming hoax.
you mean the global warming hoax that is currently melting the polar ice caps, and causing the south western U.S. to revert back to Sahara like desert conditions?
Fortunately denialist fools like you will soon be extinct.
It proves Darwin’s theory, a species evolves via attrition or by uninhibited growth. Dumb people breed like rabbits, thus there is more stupid people. More stupid people make even more stupid people, thus diluting intelligence in the gene pool. The movie Idiocracy had it right.
There have always been stupid people. You know like the inferiors who founded America.
But their numbers -globally- don’t appear to be increasing. Although the number of Low IQ Americans is now at unprecedented levels.
American stupidity is willful stupidity, it is stupidity that results from intellectual laziness and sloth.
The Failure that is America is a result of American Cultural failure not genetics even though America was settled by intellectual inferiors.
In the US very successfull people pay 50% in taxes while the bottom half pays 0%. If you want natural selection to apply the rules have to be the same for all, the top subsidizing the bottom is anything but natural. Applications for colleges/jobs are now based more on race/sex/age than merit.
If the NFL/NBA implemented the same equal opportunity programs so they weren’t 90% black males, do we think the skill level would go up or down? Do we think it would have a net positive effect for ANY of the sports/players/fans in the long run?
Liar.. Liar.. Pants on fire…
The poor may pay no federal tax, but they do pay local and state taxes, and consumption taxes, and taxes in the form of licenses etc.
So why do you feel a need to lie about it?
Darwin is full of sh*t and anyone who believes him is as well.
And yet Evolution is the bedrock of all biology.
What does that say about your willful scientific illiteracy?
So the scientists just went and watched “Idiocracy”, and went after low hanging fruit to get a grant. Cool.
LMAO
It’s interesting how, natural selection leads to chosen selection, leads to Preferred selection, leads to Preferred race, which leads to a master race. Only Nazis believe that they have the right to say who should be born and who should not. Avowed racist and KKK sympathizer Margaret Sanger wanted to get rid of all of the undesirables in the world, she called it the Negro Project. It morphed into Planned Parenthood. I think I would rather let nature take care of itself, than have Royal inbreeding, and end up with a bunch of freaks who look and act like Prince Charles of England.
John Whalen should not be allowed to pass his stupid genes on to future generations.
Yes, because facts don’t matter to democrats. lmao… maybe you can get your GED someday, Vendick. Your projection is complete.
Fitness is about who passes on more genes in the long run. That’s all. Natural selection assumes that varieties better adapted to their environment will win out in the long run, but there are other forms of selection as well (sexual selection, kin selection, etc). Moreover humans have largely removed themselves from the driving force of adaptation to their environment as we have learned to adapt our environment to our needs, and transmission of knowledge and culture has more impact on “success” than our genes do. Darwin is still secure, and this is just drivel.
What an awful click-bait title. Absolutely nothing in this study “upends Darwin’s theory”. The only thing this study shows is that natural selection is still occurring, but modern society is interfering with it’s results. Anyone with a High School diploma could figure that out for themselves.
It would appear that most American Republicans posting here don’t have a high school diploma.
As opposed to the Canadian Republicans? lmao… sheesh… you’re projecting, sport.
Oh? Please elaborate on your claim.
Love to know your thoughts on how you came to this conclusion.
The better races theory of Darwin is exactly what pushed Hitler. Darwin and anyone that believes his lies are just racists.
Natural selection does not work when society guarantees the survival of every single moron.
For natural selection work, we need adversity – like famine and wars – roving gangs fighting for survival. Only then can one see how the strong and smart survive and pass on their genes.
I think a big bit of information that is missing here is the context of what Darwin was studying and how Human society operates. In almost (if not all) every other species, the weak die off, strengthening the gene pool. Humans tend to keep those that would not survive their environment alive because we have a conscience and compassion. In essence, because we care about others, we have weakened our own gene pool. You really cannot say Darwin was wrong when humans are the anomaly to the theory.
Natural selection is a driving force… this can be explained as a refinement of centralized flaws and waste in a relative perfection for the entire sphere. The planet is going thru a nature collapse due to an overpopulation of consumers… consuming far beyond planetary capacity. This is evident by pulling up a world population graph and comparing the exponential upward curve to those of global warming, mass unnatural extinction, ecosystem collapse, pollution and over fishing of oceans, desertification of once fertile land, the destruction of vital rainforests to create more agriculture, etc. The financial elite will never admit to overpopulation, lest a reduction in consumers to drive their greed economies. The poorer humans on this planet, typically folks of color, are lacking education, proper upbringing, finances, career opportunities, etc. which allows excessive offspring and reproduction, often creating hardship for the very households. This increasing reproduction rates do not display a natural selection but rather an imbalance in nature that will eventually be eliminated to bring equilibrium to the entire system. Essentially the poor of this planet, the uneducated, the poorly developed will be the ones driving the lion share of the suffering and loss as nature finally capitulates to man’s excesses and fights back….
What an awesome misreading of a theory. Sorry, evolution doesn’t have a socioeconomic stance on who should prevail. And great job missing the role of sexual selection in Darwins theory.
IQ follows the Pareto Distribution and evolution has very little to do with that.
The DNA molecule demonstrates intelligent design. The chances that it developed by bind evolutionary accident is statistically impossible.
Lmaoooo this is literally the plot to Mike Judge’s “Idiocracy”.
People should always remember that The Theory of Evolution is just that, a theory. Otherwise it would be called The Law of Evolution. Evolution has never been proven, so at least teach it, if you must, as it is, a theory and not truth.
Yup, just like the theory of gravity.
David isn’t aware enough of the world around him to recognize that the various versions of COVID that have developed is self evident evidence of evolution.
He lives his life oblivious of the world around him.
Bingo! If you agree with Darwin’s metaphysical nonsense, you will have no basis for any perceived violation of justice, etc. Detest Nazi Germany? Too bad — it is defensible on Darwinian terms. The same can be said for racial injustice, slavery, etc., — all defensible based on atheistic Darwinian metaphysical scientism…