The Flynn Effect Analysis

Among the great debate of religion lies the question in the theory of evolution. Evolution is not questionable, it is fact, but are we still evolving? The answer lies within the last few thousand years. Henry Harpending from the University of Utah says, "We aren't the same as people even 1,000 or 2,000 years ago." Due to the rapid evolution in technology, it is easy to see humans are evolving socially, but humans are mostly experiencing changes within their genetic makeup. Using limited data, Professor Harpending and seven other universities found over 3.9 million point mutations. The fact is, 7% of the human genes are rapidly evolving. On average, seventy new mutations appear per generation. The mutations are fueling the rapid evolution in

human kind. According to Professor Harpending, the rate of human evolution has increased rapidly over the last 40,000 years. Modern humans are the result of successful evolution, but with humans still evolving the success could come to an end; humans could be at the tip of their existence.
Many factors play into the reason why humans could still be evolving. Some scientist think humans are still evolving due to the climate. Being that the “Ice age” was only a little over 10,000 years ago, humans were forced to evolve to adapt to the rising temperature. According to Maeve Leakey, there was a point where humans were almost extinct due to the extreme climate change. Global warming has been in the headlines for the past several years, and it’s causing more a change than people see. As a part of evolution, humans are adapting to the new climate.
The human mind is rapidly changing as well, according to some scientists.

In the popular “Darwin’s Theory” survival of the fittest was the key role in evolution, but does that include intelligence? Robert Ehrlich discusses the evolution of intelligence in his article “Are People Getting Smarter or Dumber?” Through several standardized testing, it is easy to see the rapid incline of passing students in the past few years. IQ scores have also been on the incline. The rapid inclination of IQ score has become known as the Flynn Effect. The Flynn Effect seems like solid supporting evidence for evolution, but the Flynn Effect has flaws. It is impossible to narrow down why humans are achieving high IQ scores. Many factors could play into the high IQ scores such as test taking skills. The high IQ scores correlate with the amount of standardized testing. Since students are taking several standardized tests a semester, they are becoming test savoy. In actuality, scientists are believing humankind is becoming

dumber.
Humans have only just begun understanding genetics and genetic mechanisms, which in future generations will be greatly beneficial to surviving.The future generations are mostly being affected by evolution. According to John Glad, “In the time you take to red this sentence, humankind will have evolved genetically.” Since Humans are evolving so quickly, natural selection has dwindled down to almost zero percent. “The natural selection which produced the people inhabiting the world today was an incredibly cruel process. If we refuse to replace that mechanism with scientifically based artificial selection, we will fritter away what was won at so terrible a price, and nature will avenge our ancestors by reasserting itself on our children in the most ruthless fashion. No Biological species can survive without selection.” Humanity has reversed natural selection. John Glad noticed that intellectual people are having less children, and average to less-than-average people are having more children.
The formula to evolving includes mutations and natural selection.

If the thousands of mutations continued to occur without natural selection, humans would have thousands of subspecies, and resources would be scarce. Natural selection brings diseases that are connected to mutations to create a pathway for evolution, but without natural selection humans are evolving with no direction. Modern medicine has become so advanced, diseases are no longer a threat to the population. When an epidemic breaks out, a cure or vaccination is created within two years. “Medicine can be described as ‘the comprehensive attempt to frustrate the course of nature’” as said by John Harris. When cancer was first introduced to mankind, it was because humans are living too long. Now cancer is being found in children and babies. Cancer is nature’s way of reintroducing natural

selection.
Eugenics has become an option in order for hope of the human species to continue. If humans were not morally biased, eugenic measures would have been put in place years ago. If eugenics was introduced, it would follow along the lines of forcing intellegent people to have more children and preventing the below average people from having any children. In America, forced sterilization was secretly in practice in the early 1900’s. Handicap adults were forced to be sterilized so they could not pass on their genetic disease to a child. Once citizens found out, forced sterilization ended. Understandably, citizens found forced sterilization to be impractical and morally incorrect. What the citizens did not know was how eugenics could benefit future generations. To be more morally accepted, eugenics could also consist of artificial insemination, ovum donation, and in vitro fertilization. Sperm donors would have to strictly be college graduates and be above average in intelligence. Eugenics has received a negative connotation due to World War 11, but if humankind does not enforce some form of uniformity it could be nonexistent in just a few years.
The bigger question is, are we actually still evolving? Some scientists believe humans have completely stopped evolving since humans are at the tip of existence. Since intelligence in modern humans has dwindled, the theory that evolution has come to a halt could be true. Humankind has access to any kind of technology one needs to have knowledge on any type of topic. Virtually every one’s genes are making it into the next generation, not just the ones best adapted to the environment. Professor Steve Jones clarifies that the reason natural selection is at a halt is because the birthrate of is so successful. In the Victorian Era, most deaths were of children. Now, the human successful birthrate is at 99%. Everyone is coexisting in the world without an special gene to survive. If natural selection is the driving force behind evolution, evolution has also come to a halt.
The argument to be made is that humans are in fact still evolving. For example, lactose intolerance is a genetic mutation as no species is meant to be able to drink milk past being a baby. Our bodies noticed that milk was helpful for our bones and a genetic mutation now allows us to drink milk. Returning to diseases, humans are less susceptible to diseases as opposed to a hundred years ago when everyone was dying from some kind of disease. Genetic mutations are happening everywhere, all the time. The human race is continuously changing, but it is too much for natural selection to keep up.
The future of humankind is unknown, but scientists are predicting a downfall soon. Whether or not the downfall is the lack of evolution, or is because humans are evolving too much is the question. The climate could prove to be an active motivator of evolution, but humans are controlling the climate more than it is controlling humans. The use of fossil fuels and other natural resources is changing the course of natural climate. Humans could change the average climate as we please, in theory. If humans stopped using fossil fuels and other natural resources, the climate should return to normal. If humans do not stop using natural resources, global warming has already proven to be a problem. Whether the climate would drive us into extinction or push us to become more evolutionary advanced, like previously, we could reintroduce natural selection. Intelligence has become a big topic of evolution, since it is hard to tell if humans are actually becoming smarter. The Flynn Effect seems like solid evidence for the growth in intelligence, but it can not be proven. With modern technology and the standards of schooling, IQ tests are no longer a valid measurement of knowledge. An argument could be made that technology is contributing to the downfall of humankind. Since natural selection is at a halt, humankind is on its way to a dramatic downfall. Humans could create an artificial selection to prevent a downfall by using eugenics. Although eugenics are often thought to be morally incorrect, there are way we could make it moral enough for people to do it and humankind to survive. Although the argument has been made by few scientists that humans are not still evolving, the widely accepted theory is that humans are still evolving. The evidence supporting continuous evolution is confirming. In conclusion, the inevitability of the human downfall could be upon us, or it could not be. Science is hardly ever certain. The only thing for certain is, there is a problem arising within the human genome.