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It’s hubris to say we’ve outgrown evolution

In 400 years, women will become stouter, healthier and fertile for longer – this is evolution at work

MODERN medicine is sometimes said to have freed humans from the constraints of evolution because vaccines, drugs and surgery allow weaker genes and individuals to survive and reproduce instead of being culled by natural selection. This is a long-standing concern with important social implications: similar worries about the survival of the unfittest helped usher in the eugenics movement in the early 20th century.

So it is good to see yet more evidence that we are still evolving (see “Meet future woman: shorter, plumper, more fertile”). In fact, researchers have made the first scientific prediction of what humanity – or at least half of it – will look like in 400 years: women will become stouter, healthier and fertile for longer. This is evolution at work. Darwin is still in charge.

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