Human Evolution: Slowing Down?

I saw this a day or two late, but the geneticist Steve Jones asserts that human evolution has pretty much ground to a halt. The Times (UK) has the story .  The summary of why he thinks this is the case: a big drop in the 'old guy with much younger girl' case.  Fathers in their 20s have accumulated far fewer genetic mutations than fathers in their 50s..and so fewer mutations are conferred to the child.  The lower mutation rate (on average) would ostensibly lead to a slower pace of evolution.

Steve Jones is the author of a pretty good evolution-focused book that I read several years ago and would recommend: Almost Like A Whale.  That is the title of the UK version of the book (the version I have), but the US version is instead called Darwin's Ghost: The Origin of Species Updated .

Genetic Predisposition to Stray?

I've seen several other mentions of this study (all linking to the Washington Post article I am about to link to), but it's interesting enough to merit all of these mentions: Study Links Gene Variant in Men to Marital Discord

Basically, they found:

 The finding is striking because it not only links the gene variant -- which is present in two of every five men -- with the risk of marital discord and divorce, but also appears to predict whether women involved with these men are likely to say their partners are emotionally close and available, or distant and disagreeable. The presence of the gene variant, or allele, also seems predictive of whether men get married or live with women without getting married.

"Men with two copies of the allele had twice the risk of experiencing marital dysfunction, with a threat of divorce during the last year, compared to men carrying one or no copies," said Hasse Walum, a behavioral geneticist at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm who led the study. "Women married to men with one or two copies of the allele scored lower on average on how satisfied they were with the relationship compared to women married to men with no copies."

Interesting!  Biology is not destiny, but I smell a new bullet point in the list of mitigating circumstances in future divorce court proceedings!

Another Theory On Dudes Into Dudes

A neuroscience seminar in college was the first place I heard a few angles on answering 'if homosexuality is non-procreative, what is the evolutionary reason for its existence?'  I think the most popular or frequently mentioned theory I had heard was that gay men would not have children of their own, so they served as a family (and particularly childcare) buffer in the event that one or more of their siblings were to be killed or otherwise unable to care for their family.

A university study in Italy has another angle: 'hyper-sexual' women.  Apparently, the same gene that causes men to like men also causes women to like men, leading to more children.  Full story here: Bisexuality passed on by 'hyper-heterosexuals'

Maybe Slightly More Fertile?

Having blue/green eyes, maybe this means I'm slightly more kid-producing than someone with no blue whatsoever?

The question really is, 'Why did we go from having nobody on Earth with blue eyes 10,000 years ago to having 20 or 40 percent of Europeans having blue eyes now?" Hawks said. "This gene does something good for people. It makes them have more kids.