Notes ·
Superhuman Mutants May Still Be on the Evolutionary Roadmap
Monique Brouillette reports for Harvard Magazine on research showing that human evolution did not stop when civilization began.
Using ancient DNA from thousands of people who lived across Europe over an 18,000-year period, researchers identified 479 genes that showed evidence of natural selection. They also found that selection appears to have intensified during the past 5,000 years.
Most of the strongest changes involved immunity, disease resistance, blood type, skin pigmentation and other traits connected to survival in changing environments. The researchers caution that individual genes can affect several unrelated characteristics, so it is difficult to say exactly what advantage a variant provided thousands of years ago.
This does not mean someone is about to develop laser vision or start lifting cars. Evolution usually works through small advantages accumulating across many generations, not one dramatic mutation creating a superhero.
But humans are still responding genetically to disease, culture, diet and the environments we create. Given enough time and enough pressure, future people may develop traits that would look unusual or even extraordinary to us today.
So maybe superhuman mutants are still possible. They are just arriving on evolution's schedule instead of Marvel's.