Is evolution still true for human ?

That's a good question that a lot of people have. One thing to be clear about is that an individual human being cannot evolve. Evolution is not an individual organism's body's response to an environmental stimuli. For example, if you live in high altitudes, you develop more red blood cells so your muscles can function better in the high altitudes. That is your body adapting to the environment, but that is not evolution.

Evolution occurs within a population of organisms. For example, let's say a population of people live in an area of high altitude. Just from random mating, some of those people may have genes which allow those people to develop more red blood cells than other people. Those people who can develop more red blood cells are probably able to do more work, be healthier, wealthier etc. and therefor have a higher chance of finding a lover who would want to mate with them. Since these people are more likely to mate, they are more likely to have kids who will also have their genes. This happens until eventually most of the people in that population have that gene that allows them to make more red blood cells. Now that is evolution. http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/news/1010...

Humans are still evolving. I am sure our more comfortable lifestyle is changing the characteristics which we all find attractive in one another (for example, being rich may be more attractive to a mate than big strong now, or people with diseases can live longer because of medicine and so they are more likely to pass on their genes and diseases, when before they may have not reproduced). For more examples of how the human body evolved check out my blog.

Yes, social Darwinism argues, as you just have, that man is the animal who overcomes natural selection to some extent because we look after our weak and disabled people rather than let them die and we can influence our environment a lot but this does not mean we don't still evolve.

Our little toes are getting smaller and smaller and will eventually disappear - we don't use them. Blue eyed people are dying out because brown eyes have the dominant gene and we mix races to a far greater degree now. We are getting taller. We are also getting fatter - this is a problem and also a result of evolution. When food was scarce the people with a larger appetite, taste for sweet and fatty food and slow metabolism were the stronger because they would survive winters on stored fat. This does us no favours at all now that food is plentiful in the west. We now tend to find people with less stored fat more attractive (look at the difference in the artistic ideal of woman now and 300 years ago) obese people are less fertile and also die younger. This is the inkling of a new stage of evolution - in order to survive better in times of plenty, people with smaller appetites, less taste for fatty and sugary food and a faster metabolism are the strongest and over the next couple of hundred generations we may find these genes becoming more dominant and humanity getter thinner again.

I stand corrected by an earlier poster - just checked and confirmed that women are getting shorter. This is a dramatic turn around.

Yes very slowly as we do build our environments to suit our needs. There have been noticeable changes in humans over the many thousands of years we have been recording our history.

A good example of evolution is the fact that Maori originally came from china in canoes, now they look almost like other islanders, but noticeably different and Chinese looking.

Yes, humans, as a species, are still evolving. It would be impossible for organisms not to involve, no matter how much it changes the environment to suit its needs. But remember that evolution happens to populations, not individuals.

Yes. Lactose tolerance and immunity to Malaria are examples of "recent" adaptations that have become dominant replacing populations without such traits (in some geographic locations).

Language was developed thousands of years after we were anatomically modern.

We are still evolving slightly, it slowed down when we took the sting out of natural selection through healthcare and benefits etc

Women are getting slightly shorter because there is no longer selection pressure to be tall to survive, and being shorter is more conducive to giving birth successfully

'Evolve' just means change anyway, everything is always changing..

last time i checked, humans are still becoming genetically diverse, and some have done so to the point where certain groups of humans are now no longer genetically compatible with others, so in a word, yes, it is.

Absolutely. The North Korean people are several inches shorter than their South Korean counterparts, due to years of food shortages. Even if things were to even out tomorrow, they will continue to bear children who grow up to be shorter than those in the south.

That's what evolution is, changes due to environment, and other factors, as well.

Of course, nothing and no one has reached a terminal evolutionary stage. Everything continues to adapt to environmental changes.

You really need to catch up!

Yes, humans are still evolving