Well, my local paper is at it again, misunderstanding current events, or at least not matching headlines to the text. The headline was "Men evolving faster," or something like that. What the text said was that the information on the Y chromosome has changed much more quickly than that on other chromosomes.
Folks, that isn't evolving. That's change. Evolution has two components: change and survival. Any change is an evolutionary change if it increases the chances of a person's surviving to reproduce. Nor is change directional. That is, if men's Y chromosomes are changing, that doesn't mean they are getting better; it simply means that they are changing. The future will decide whether the change is toward the more efficient man. Or, the changes may be utterly insignificant, since most mutations are. Nor can you say that if man is evolving, woman isn't. All you can say is that the Y chromosome in men appears to be changing. Not nearly as interesting as assuming that men are moving ahead of themselves or of women.
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A curmudgeonly view of the world and the people in it.
Yrs truly
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3 comments:
Reading the headline I cannot help but wonder if they meant only that scientific information on the y chromosome is changing. Not the Y itself.
Where is the editor when you really need one?
Normally, I would not delete a comment, scurrilous though it might be. I removed the one directly above me, because it was written in a language that I can't read. So, commenters, if you wish to comment to me, make it something I can read. Otherwise, you might be calling for the overthrow of the U.S. Government.
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