[potatolicious]

"Survival" in the evolutionary sense is not "survival" in the social sense. Natural selection only works if unfit individuals are killed off prior to breeding.

I don't think it's a stretch to say that, even in the least developed areas of the world, this is no longer the general case.

Humans are no longer subject to natural selection, since nearly everyone survives to breed.

[lotharbot]

Natural selection doesn't require death, it just requires different reproduction rates based on genetics.

Natural selection works strongly when group A dies before reproducing and group B does not. It still works, though more weakly, when group A has an average of 2.0 offspring and group B has an average of 2.1 offspring.

In some parts of the world, natural selection is still significant (the common example: sickle cell anemia drastically increases malaria survival). In many parts of the world, though, differential reproduction appears to be a result of culture / religion / personal choice; it's not well understood how much this relates to genetics, and therefore not clear how much it deserves to be called "natural selection".

[pyre]

  > Natural selection only works if unfit individuals
  > are killed off prior to breeding.

  > since nearly everyone survives to breed.

No one needs to be killed off for natural selection to work. If they have some attribute that prevents them from finding a mate, that is also natural selection at work.

[shard]

Right, in other words, they are killed off by old age prior to breeding.

[baddox]

> Natural selection only works if unfit individuals are killed off prior to breeding.

That's not true. Even in the hypothetical scenario that all humans reproduced exactly enough to replace themselves then died immediately (i.e. a completely constant human population), there would almost certainly be gradual change in the inheritable traits of the human population (i.e. evolution). If sexual partners are chosen, and those choices are inheritable traits (i.e. genes influence your choice of mate), that's textbook natural selection.

> even in the least developed areas of the world, this is no longer the general case.

A very large portion of the most successful pride of lions probably also breed, since they're not worrying as much about food or predators. Does that means the entire species is not evolving?

[lotharbot]

If genes change in proportion because they make people more or less likely to reproduce, that's "natural selection".

If the genes change in proportion just due to randomness (they're all equally fit, but some were passed on more times than others as a fluke), we call it "genetic drift" [0].

Evolution involves mutation and gene flow [1] adding new genes to a population, and natural selection and genetic drift changing the relative proportion of various genes within the population.

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_drift

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_flow

[baddox]

I didn't mention any changes due to random sampling. I was careful to qualify that the choice of mate is influenced by genes. Wouldn't that qualify as natural selection more than genetic drift? Although, now that I think of it, the two are probably more like directions on a continuum, since choice of mate would be influenced by both genes and random sampling. Is that accurate?

[lotharbot]

If choice of mate is influenced by genes, and there's a difference in fitness level due to those genes, then it would be natural selection. That is, if Alice-Bob have more kids than Claire-Dave for genetic reasons, natural selection is favoring AB over CD.

If choice of mate is influenced by genes, but there's no difference in fitness level, then you're looking at a natural drift scenario. That is, if Alice-Bob have more kids than Claire-Dave due to some random effect like happening to meet much earlier in life, AB's gains over CD are classified as drift.

Both effects are usually present, but sometimes one is much more significant than the other.

[Scriptor]

Even if everyone survives long enough to have children, that doesn't mean they all have equal numbers of children.