Uploaded February 2023 | Updated September 2026, 2 days ago
In this video, I review an excellent paper hot-off-the-press by paleoanthropologists Lauren Schroeder and Rebecca Ackermann in the Journal of Human Evolution. In this paper, they discuss why we need to move beyond simple adaptationist storytelling and towards a rigorous, statistical evaluation of the evolutionary forces shaping human phenotypic variation. And, when we use statistical approaches, we find that most human evolution is non-adaptive, explained best by genetic drift and gene flow.
#evolution #humanevolution
Schroeder L & Ackermann RR (2023). Moving beyond the adaptationist paradigm for human evolution, and why it matters. Journal of Human Evolution, 174: 103296. sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047248422001567
In this video, I review an excellent paper hot-off-the-press by paleoanthropologists Lauren Schroeder and Rebecca Ackermann in the Journal of Human Evolution. In this paper, they discuss why we need to move beyond simple adaptationist storytelling and towards a rigorous, statistical evaluation of the evolutionary forces shaping human phenotypic variation. And, when we use statistical approaches, we find that most human evolution is non-adaptive, explained best by genetic drift and gene flow.
#evolution #humanevolution
Schroeder L & Ackermann RR (2023). Moving beyond the adaptationist paradigm for human evolution, and why it matters. Journal of Human Evolution, 174: 103296. sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047248422001567
