A new study challenges the established concepts assembled in Charles's Darwin'snatural selection theory. This theory implies that organisms that can adapt to their environment are the ones that usually survive and produce offspring. The latest research contradicts this idea, saying that natural selection is a model that disrupts equality across society.
Darwin's Natural Selection in Today's Society
A paper from the University of East Anglia (UEA) scholars shows that natural selection favors populations of various statutes and disrupts the equality that should be promoted in our existing society.
Their findings show that natural selection disadvantages people with lower income and less education instead of providing a handicap for communities at all socioeconomic levels.
The effects of natural selection were higher in people not living with a partner, younger parents, and people with more lifetime sexual partners. On the other hand, the concept also pushes against the genes of individuals with a low risk of ADHD and major depressive disorders, who are highly educated, have lifetime earnings, and have lower chances of being diagnosed with coronary artery disease.
UEA School of Economics specialist and lead author of the study David Hugh-Jones explained in a press release that Darwin's evolution theory suggests all species develop by the natural selection of small, inherited factors that improve the individual's ability to survive, compete, and reproduce.
Their latest work aims to dive deeper into each of the characteristics produced by these selections and how they work for and against the existing humans, particularly those that live in the United Kingdom.
Income Controls Modern-Day Natural Selection
With the help of records from the UK Biobank, scientists analyzed the country's polygenic scores of over 300,000 people. The polygenic scores of an individual are based on criteria such as the prediction of their health, lifestyle, education, personality, and genetic liability, StudyFinds reports.
Two sets of the biobank records were consolidated to compare, one from a recent generation and one from an older generation.
Hugh-Jones said that their team found that 23 out of 33 polygenic scores averaged more in people with fewer or more children over a lifetime. The scores associated with lower education and earnings are predicted to have more chances of producing children, a balance that is selected from an evolutionary perspective.
On the other hand, the correlation between people with higher earnings and better education results in having fewer children, a relation that concludes a selection against these types of individuals.
The expert said natural selection might make society more unequal due to the outdated links between polygenic scores and factors such as income, education, and health.
In the economic theory of fertility, the scenario is significantly different, as people with higher earnings are the ones who can afford to bear more children, but certain influences, such as higher wages and time requirements, hinder this outcome.
The study was published in the journal Behavioral Genetics, titled "Human Capital Mediates Natural Selection in Contemporary Humans."
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