4. The debate: are we still evolving?

“Cultural innovations keep genetic mutations alive that in other times wouldn’t be allowed,” said Elena Bosch, professor at Pompeu Fabra University and the Institute for Evolutionary Biology and co-leader of this B·Debate. For Laurent Excoffier, professor at the Institute of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Bern, Switzerland, “It will be difficult to find clear, non-polygenic examples of natural selection in places that are not extreme.” Beyond these locations, are we still adapting? “We don’t know. We have to keep looking,” said Bertranpetit.

Recently, however, curious data has appeared. There seem to be signs of selection pointing to tallness in northern Europe, and a selection that favors individuals that are blonde and have blue eyes. Is that adaptation? For Bertranpetit, this “isn’t natural selection but possibly sexual selection”. Sexual selection is another mechanism —also proposed by Darwin— of selection that takes into account what is most “attractive”, not what is most “appropriate”. “The problem is that these are hypotheses, and we don’t have a way to differentiate between the two mechanisms,” he said.

Another controversial paper found that reproductive success seems to be greater in people who carry genes that predict a lower level of education. This would imply a small trend towards there being fewer people predisposed to being more intelligent. And leads to Quintana-Murci’s question: “What do we say when the topic of eugenics comes up?”

The answer was conclusive and unanimous: more education is necessary.