QUESTIONS about the evolution of modern humans must rank among the most intriguing in all science. Are we still evolving? If we are, what subtle pressures are changing us? In which direction are they pushing us and what will we be like in, say, 1000 years?
Fascinating as these questions are, they are also controversial, and the answers are likely to offend sensitivities over such things as the relationship between genes and intelligence, or genes and “race”. Equally, negative memories of eugenics are never far away.
In the face of such fraught political questions, some biologists would prefer to believe…
