Driving home from work today, listening to the radio as per usual, the wonders of Radio 5 live. The news came on, nothing different there of course, this happens every day. A story which I didn’t expect to hear was all about evolution. I know I know, not a new subject, in fact it has been around a fairly long time. Anyway…

… the story, was all about how evolution has come to a halt. This sparked me as strange, one minded, and off the mark. Prof Steve Jones argues that the Western world is as close to Utopia as it can and will get, that humans are 10,000 times more common than they should be and that if all accidents and diseases were abolished that life expectancy will only go up by 2 years. However nice these facts sound, there appears to be absolutely no backing for them, at least nothing published.

Here’s my two pence, the “commonness” argument is put down to agriculture and without farming the world population would be that of Glasgow. To shun this, surely we have evolved to use farming in this way and prosper as a species…? Therefore totally contradicting his own argument? That’s the first thing that instantly hit me when listening / reading this report. I also can’t see how the chances for genetic alterations have decreased in the current global climate. As the world shrinks (communication, transport etc) there can only be new genetic “opportunities” coming up.

I’m not the only one who thinks this is a little off the mark, check out Laurence Moran on Sandwalk.

You can read a summary of the Prof’s comments here.