Children of Prometheus: The Accelerating Pace of Human Evolution

In an eclectic romp through the topic of human evolution, U.C.-San Diego biologist Wills (The Wisdom of the Genes, etc.) focuses on two related questions: Have humans followed the same evolutionary principles as the rest of the mammalian world? And are we still undergoing evolutionary change? He concludes that while the principles have indeed been the same, the rate of human evolution has been dramatically faster than for any of our close relatives and that, if anything, the pace has been speeding up of late. ""Humans have accelerated the pace of evolutionary change everywhere, and at the forefront of that change, we are altering ourselves more rapidly than any other species."" Wills attributes our rapid pace of change to the way our brains permit us to interact with our environment, the massive amount of environmental change for which we have been responsible over the millennia and the wholesale genetic mixing that is so typical of humans. He traverses broad territory, ranging from hominid phylogeny to a discussion of those who participate in extreme sports; from the physiology of Tibetan Sherpas to an analysis of the stresses faced by British civil servants. He also takes time in his articulate, provocative study to refute, convincingly, many of the claims linking IQ and genetics made in The Bell Curve. (Nov.)