Recommended: The 10,000 Year Explosion: How Civilization Accelerated Human Evolution

The conventional wisdom is that evolution is a very slow process, and as a consequence humans today are not much different than humans 5000 years ago. Chochran (a physicist) and Harpending (an anthropologist) argue, from recent DNA evidence, that this is not so. “Deep” changes (changes requiring mutations in many genes), such as development of an eye, may indeed take a very long time. But “shallow” changes (meaning changes in just one or a couple of genes) can occur quickly, can produce profound changes in physiology and behavior, and if they increase fitness and survival, can spread through a population in relatively few generations. The example has been before us all the time – the evolution of domesticated plants and animals in just a few thousand years. The authors argue that civilization over the past 10,000 years has had a profound selective effect on the gene pool, and is still driving human evolution at an unusually rapid pace. A fascination book to read. (See book list in sidebar, under 2009, for ISBN details).