In the last 10,000 years, evolutionary changes to humans have sped up to more than 100 times historical levels.

What kind of changes? According to anthropologist John Hawks, blue eyes were unknown 10,000 years ago. "Why is it that blue-eyed people had a 5% advantage in reproducing. . . . I have no idea."

I like to speculate. How about a really hunky cave man, a mutant with blue eyes, who just happened to be sensitive, cute, and cooked his own kills? He may have repopulated northern Europe all by his onesies!

About 7% of the human genome is made up of very recent genetic changes: evolution in action. Hawks presented an article about this to the National Academy of Science, and a news story about the study he led, called the HapMap Project, is here.

Some mutations/changes have obvious advantages. Here's one: Most human adults used to be lactose intolerant. The gene lactase allows children to digest milk, but it declined in function in adults. Once people domesticated animals, though, and milk became an available, nutritious food, people who weren't lactose intolerant could be better fed and had stronger bones. So, the few individuals who had a mutated form of lactase--a form that didn't decline in adulthood--had an advantage. They lived longer, and were probably healthier and stronger. They passed that mutated lactase gene on to more children.

There's also a gene called CCR5 that popped up about 4,000 years ago and is present in about 10% of Europeans. It may have blocked smallpox.

The vast majority of the changes, though, puzzle scientists. Of the 1800 recent genetic changes found, the scientists could find a reason for only about 100. The rest are a mystery.

What advantage do blue eyes bestow? They just don't know.

Hawks has his own Weblog, btw. This link goes to his web article about why evolution sped up so much--though. I very quickly became lost by Hawks' explanation. Science isn't my strong point.

Bottom Line: our population--six and a half billion strong and growing--is a big factor. There is more evolution going on because there's more of us. There's more chance for mutations to occur, and some of them are going to be good mutations. Like a higher tolerance towards certain carcinogens.Wouldn't that give any family an advantage?

An additional factor--and the reason our population has increased--is the domestication of plants and animals. We started farming around 10,000 years ago. Before then, humans were more nomadic, traveling around to take advantage of wild food.

Once we began farming, we settled in one place (where the food was grown). More people settled, more food was grown, food was stored, populations grew.

Of course, disease wiped out some of those populations. Once people started living in such close quarters, we became very vulnerable to that. Diseases also contributed to evolution, by killing off large groups.

Several family members are creationists, and some tell me that they don't believe in evolution because there's no proof, and it's all just a theory. I find that ironic, given what they do believe in and the proof that exists for that!

What sort of proof do they want? This is a process that takes eons! Sorry, but I can't produce a 30-second clip of evolution at work. I've tried referring the to books by Richard Dawkins, Stephen Jay Gould, and Jared Diamond, but they won't read them. I've pointed to the famous moths that turned black, then white in a few generations, but that wasn't good enough either.

I've come to the conclusion that even if God appeared to them and said: "You know, evolution is real. I didn't created dinosaur fossils as a hoax." they still wouldn't believe it.

And we'll leave it at that.