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Neither the word "evolution" nor the word "gene" appears in an article that is clearly about a change in gene frequencies over time caused by natural selection. Hmm.

(Perhaps the author is trying to avoid the suggestion that white people are "more highly evolved", which is of course nonsense; it's just different adaptations suited for different environments.)

[Edit: Yes, this comment is probably stupid.]



Probably because the basis for the article is anthropology not genetics.


It does mention adaptation, traits, and survival. He doesn't really need to put too fine a point on it.

What do you mean by "more highly"?


It was in scare quotes to indicate that it doesn't really have a clear scientific meaning.


In practice, the meaning of "more highly evolved" is generally something like "more similar to the person using the phrase".


The article posits that a physical feature can be shaped evolutionarily by environment. Observations of other species appear to support that. We see today that there are different distinctive physical features for people around the globe, so it might be fair to suppose other features may have come about with environmental influence (even if we haven't yet found correlations). Yet, we also know that the human skull has evolved to change over many years, but if we were to compare the skulls of people across the globe today my guess would be that they are quite similar. Therefore, I think a more accurate assumption would be that modern day humans across the globe have "differently evolved" in some aspects, such as physical appearance.


Well, he spends quite enough time talking about genealogical adaptation to environmental pressures. Are you concerned that he's not being sufficiently clearly anti-creationist?




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