Study: Wealth and power key to men's genetic success

For decades, evolutionists have believed that when it comes to human reproduction, it's a case of survival of the fittest. However a new study into human genetics actually shows that wealth and power play an even stronger role.

AUT Professor Steve Pointing says in the last few thousand years, brawn's role in deciding which men pass down their genes is becoming less important.

"If a particular organism has favourable traits for environment, it will pass on more of its genes and have more offspring than if you have less favourable traits," he explained on Firstline this morning.

"But there's growing evidence now that in humans, the reverse is true we're actually dictating evolution because the wealth and power aspect of our society is actually driving evolution of our species."

The research, conducted by Arizona State University, looked at the Y chromosome of 500 men worldwide. They found that between 4000 and 8000 years ago, there was a bottleneck in genetic diversity for males.

At the same time, female genetic diversity was increasing rapidly implying at the time, only a few men were mating with many women.

"The smoking gun for that is the change from a nomadic, hunter-gatherer society to a more agrarian society, where we know wealth and power become concentrated in fewer individuals."

The findings are concerning for the future of the human race, because any loss in genetic diversity is "bad news".

"It means that as a species we become more susceptible to catastrophic diseases and events," says Prof Pointing.

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Study: Wealth and power key to men's genetic success