Abstract
Having shown that the most salient recent case for pro-modernism is seriously flawed and that there are many apparently good reasons for anti-modernism, we investigate the distal sources of modernity’s pathological quality. We examine the possibility that deleterious mutations—that is, those that tend to impair genetic quality and thus depress fitness and/or wellness—have accumulated in modernized populations, which could have a role in the loss of mental health and the nihilization and broader cultural decline of these groups.
Certain evidence indicates that selection against these variants has indeed relaxed and that they have resultantly become more frequent in Western populations. Nevertheless, some scientists argue that this relaxation has not in fact occurred, and so arguments for this possibility are critically evaluated in this chapter.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Developmental stability refers to an organism’s resilience to insults (genetic and environmental) that occur in the process of biological development.
- 2.
- 3.
- 4.
In subsequent relevant publications, they have denied that they made any such suggestion. In the course of this chapter, we explain why we disagree.
- 5.
Arslan et al. (2018a) also find evidence of grandpaternal age effects in one historical population.
- 6.
For the purpose of illustration, suppose that those born in Population A to 30-year-old fathers have a 20% chance of dying in infancy due to the effects of de novo deleterious mutations and those born to 40-year-old fathers have a 40% chance of this outcome (and so the higher mortality risk for the offspring of the older fathers is due entirely to the tendency for the de novo burdens of harmful mutations that fathers bequeath to their offspring to increase with paternal age); the respective figures for Population B are 0.5% and 1% (assume that all else is equal between Population A and B, apart from differences in environmental conditions that render the same deleterious de novo variants more harmful in A compared to B). In both cases, the effect of ten additional years of paternal age is a doubling of the risk of infant death, but the overall strength of mortality selection in infancy against deleterious variants is clearly lower in B compared to A.
- 7.
Some confusion here perhaps results from a claim by Woodley of Menie, Sarraf, et al. (2018) that was mistakenly not removed from their text, namely that their analysis assumes “unchanging” “generation lengths” (p. 2). In fact, the analysis does not depend on this assumption, and the claim that it does was, again, not supposed to be published. This is reflected in the use of the term “cohort” rather than “generation” in all relevant places elsewhere in the article.
- 8.
- 9.
Arslan et al. (2018b) do not adequately acknowledge the depth of this controversy.
- 10.
Type-2 diabetes prevalence has been shown to associate in the expected direction with opportunity for selection through differential mortality (Rühli, van Schaik, & Henneberg, 2016), but it is unclear if this correlation would survive relevant controls.
- 11.
Arslan et al. (2018b) write the following in an endnote to their discussion of the opportunity for selection/negative selection distinction: “This confusion between opportunity (variation) and actual selection strength is also at the heart of the [sic] [Woodley of Menie, Sarraf, et al.’s] reiterated concern about a potential selective role of abortions that may compensate for selection that no longer occurs through infant mortality. Yes, the majority of abortions are elective, but in England and Wales 1–2% are therapeutic. Likewise, our estimate of the regression coefficient of paternal age on infant survival in the preindustrial populations is also only a few per cent and thus a fraction of the 12–20% infant mortality. According to our estimates, the majority of the variance in mortality and fertility is not explained by paternal age” (2018b, p. 3, n. 1). In observing that “most…abortions [in modernized populations] are elective rather than therapeutic” (p. 2), Woodley of Menie, Fernandes, et al. (2018) already conceded that some abortions are therapeutic. Furthermore, if Arslan et al.’s (2018b) point is that only the infant mortality variance “explained by paternal age” should be thought to track negative selection through infant mortality, we think that they are mistaken, for reasons given in the main text about the probable inadequacy of paternal age effects to capture the full extent of negative selection.
References
Aris-Brosou, S. (2019). Direct evidence of an increasing mutational load in humans. Molecular Biology and Evolution, in press. https://doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msz192
Arslan, R.C. (2017). Secular changes in sexual and natural selection against deleterious genetic mutations in humans. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany.
Arslan, R. C., Willführ, K. P., Frams, E. M., Verweij, K. J. H., Paul-Christian, B., Myrskylä, M., … Penke, L. (2018a). Older fathers’ children have lower evolutionary fitness across four centuries and in four populations. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 284, 20171562.
Arslan, R. C., Willführ, K. P., Frans, E. M., Verweij, K. J., Bürkner, P., Myrskylä, M., … Penke, L. (2018b). Relaxed selection and mutation accumulation are best studied empirically: Reply to Woodley of Menie et al. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 285, 20180092.
Arslan, R. C., Willführ, K. P., Frans, E. M., Verweij, K. J., Bürkner, P., Myrskylä, M., … Penke, L. (2018c). Correction to: Reply to Woodley of Menie et al. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 285, 20181427.
Berkeley Earth. (2017). Regional climate change: Iceland. Retrieved September 1, 2018, from http://berkeleyearth.lbl.gov/regions/iceland
Bolund, E., Hayward, A., Pettay, J., & Lummaa, V. (2015). Effects of the demographic transition on the genetic variances and covariances of human life-history traits. Evolution, 69, 747–755.
Bonde, J. P., Flachs, E. M., Rimborg, S., Glazer, C. H., Giwercman, A., Ramlau-Hansen, C. H., … Bräuner, E. V. (2017). The epidemiologic evidence linking prenatal and postnatal exposure to endocrine disrupting chemicals with male reproductive disorders: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Human Reproduction Update, 23, 104–125.
Briley, D. A., Harden, K. P., & Tucker-Drob, E. M. (2015). Genotype × cohort interaction on completed fertility and age at first birth. Behavior Genetics, 45, 71–83.
Brown, G. R., Laland, K. N., & Mulder, M. B. (2009). Bateman’s principles and human sex roles. Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 24, 297–304.
Budnik, A., & Henneberg, M. (2017). Worldwide increase of obesity is related to the reduced opportunity for natural selection. PLOS ONE, 12, e0170098.
Caldwell, J. C., Caldwell, B. K., Caldwell, P., McDonald, P. F., & Schindlmayr, T. (2006). Demographic transition theory. Dordrecht: Springer.
Carter, R. W., & Sanford, J. C. (2012). A new look at an old virus: Patterns of mutation accumulation in the human H1N1 influenza virus since 1918. Theoretical Biology and Medical Modelling, 9, 42.
Cavalli-Sforza, L. L., & Bodmer, W. F. (1971). The genetics of human populations. San Francisco, CA: W.F. Freeman.
Clark, G. (2007). A farewell to alms: A brief economic history of the world. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Clark, G. (2014). The son also rises: Surnames and the history of social mobility. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Clark, G., & Cummins, N. (2018). Nature versus nurture in social outcomes. A lineage study of 263,000 English individuals, 1750–2017. Working paper.
Crow, J. F. (1997). The high spontaneous mutation rate: Is it a health risk? Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 94, 8380–8386.
Fain, E., & Weatherford, C. (2016). Comparative study of millenials’ (age 20–34 years) grip and lateral pinch with the norms. Journal of Hand Therapy, 29, 483–488.
Girard, S. L., Bourassa, C. V., Perreault, L.-P. L., Legault, M.-A., Barhdadi, A., Ambalavanan, A., … Rouleau, G. A. (2016). Paternal age explains a major portion of de novo germline mutation rate variability in healthy individuals. Plos ONE, 11, e0164212.
Gratten, J., Wray, N. R., Peyrot, W. J., McGrath, J. J., Visscher, P. M., & Goddard, M. E. (2016). Risk of psychiatric illness from advanced paternal age is not predominantly from de novo mutations. Nature Genetics, 48, 718–724.
Gravel, S. (2016). When is selection effective? Genetics, 203, 451–462.
Haldane, J. B. S. (1937). The effect of variation on fitness. The American Naturalist, 71, 337–349.
Hamilton, W. D. (2001). The hospitals are coming. In W. D. Hamilton (Ed.), Narrow roads to gene land. Evolution of sex (Vol. 2, pp. 449–509). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Hanson, H. A., Smith, K. R., & Hasstedt, S. (2014). Heritability of longevity and the role of early and mid-life environments. Working Paper.
Hare, E. (1988). Schizophrenia as a recent disease. British Journal of Psychiatry, 153, 251–231.
Henneberg, M. (1976). Reproductive possibilities and estimations of the biological dynamics of earlier human populations. Journal of Human Evolution, 5, 41–48.
Henneberg, M. (1980). Natural selection through differential fertility in human populations: Quantitative evaluation of selection intensity. Przeglad Antropologiczny, 46, 21–60.
Hopcroft, R. (2015). Sociobiology at work in modern populations. In J. H. Turner, R. Machalek, & A. Maryanski (Eds.), Handbook on evolution and society: Toward an evolutionary social science (pp. 122–135). Boulder: Paradigm.
Houle, D. (2000). Is there a g factor for fitness? In G. R. Bock, J. A. Goode, & K. Webb (Eds.), The nature of intelligence (pp. 149–170). Chichester, UK: Wiley.
Inglehart, R. F. (2018). Cultural evolution: People’s motivations are changing, and reshaping the world. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Janicke, T., Ritchie, M. G., Morrow, E. H., & Marie-Orleach, L. (2018). Sexual selection predicts species richness across the animal kingdom. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 285, 1878, 20180173. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2018.0173
Kanazawa, S. (2003). Can evolutionary psychology explain reproductive behavior in the contemporary United States? The Sociological Quarterly, 44, 291–302.
Keller, M. C., & Miller, G. (2006). Resolving the paradox of common, harmful, heritable mental disorders: Which evolutionary genetic models work best? Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 29, 385–404.
Kondrashov, A. S. (2017). Crumbling genome: The impact of deleterious mutations on humans. Hoboken: Wiley Blackwell.
Kondrashov, A. S., & Crow, J. F. (1993). A molecular approach to estimating the human deleterious mutation rate. Human Mutation, 2, 229–234.
Kong, A., Frigge, M. L., Masson, G., Besenbacher, S., Sulem, P., Magnusson, G., … Stefansson, K. (2012). Rate of de novo mutations and the importance of father’s age to disease risk. Nature, 488, 471–475.
Lesecque, Y., Keightley, P. D., & Eyre-Walker, A. (2012). A resolution of the mutation load paradox in humans. Genetics, 191, 1321–1330.
Levine, H., Jørgensen, N., Martino-Andrade, A., Mendiola, J., Weksler-Derri, D., Mindlis, I., … Swan, S. H. (2017). Temporal trends in sperm count: A systematic review and meta-regression analysis. Human Reproduction Update, 23, 1–14.
Lippold, S., Xu, H., Ko, A., Li, M., Renaud, G., Butthof, A., … Stoneking, M. (2014). Human paternal and maternal demographic histories: Insights from high-resolution Y chromosome and mtDNA sequences. Investigative Genetics, 5, 13.
Liu, C., Molenaar, P. C., & Neiderhiser, J. M. (2018). The impact of variation in twin relatedness on estimates of heritability and environmental influences. Behavior Genetics, 48, 44–54.
Lynch, M. (2016). Mutation and human exceptionalism: Our future genetic load. Genetics, 202, 869–875.
Meisenberg, G. (2007). In God’s image: The natural history of intelligence and ethics. Kibworth, UK: Book Guild Publishing.
Miller, G. F. (2000). Mental traits as fitness indicators: Expanding evolutionary psychology’s adaptationism. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 907, 62–74.
Moorjani, P. G., Gao, Z., & Przeworski, M. (2016). Human germline mutation and the erratic evolutionary clock. PLoS Biology, 14, e2000744.
Muller, H. J. (1950). Our load of mutations. American Journal of Human Genetics, 2, 111–176.
Pacey, A. (2017, July 25). Expert reaction to meta-analysis of sperm count among men in Western countries. Retrieved from https://www.sciencemediacentre.org/expert-reaction-to-meta-analysis-of-sperm-count-among-men-in-western-countries/
Pérusse, D. (1993). Cultural and reproductive success in industrial societies: Testing the relationship at the proximate and ultimate levels. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 16, 267–322.
Pflüger, L. S., Oberzaucher, E., Katina, S., Holzleitner, I. J., & Grammer, K. (2012). Cues to fertility: Perceived attractiveness and facial shape predict reproductive success. Evolution & Human Behavior, 33, 708–714.
Philippe, P. (1977). La mortalité infantile: hérédité et milieu. Acta Geneticae Medicae et Gemellologiae: Twin Research, 26, 185–187.
Rahman, S., El Ansari, W., Nimeri, N., El Tinay, S., Tohid, H., Yousafzai, M. T. (2013). Achieving excellence in maternal, neonatal and perinatal survival: Executive synopsis of PEARL study annual report 2011. Journal of Postgraduate Medical Institute, 27, 4-7.
Rindermann, H. (2018). Cognitive capitalism: Human capital and the wellbeing of nations. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Rohatgi, A. (2017). WebPlotDigitizer. Retrieved from https://apps.automeris.io/wpd/
Rosa, H. (2013). Social acceleration: A new theory of modernity. (J. Trejo-Mathys, Trans.). New York, NY: Columbia University Press.
Rühli, F., & Henneberg, M. (2017). Biological future of humankind – Ongoing evolution and the impact of recognition of human biological variation. In M. Tibayrenc & F. J. Ayala (Eds.), On human nature: Biology, psychology, ethics, politics, and religion (pp. 263–275). London: Elsevier.
Rühli, F., van Schaik, K., & Henneberg, M. (2016). Evolutionary medicine: The ongoing evolution of human physiology and metabolism. Physiology, 31, 392–397.
Rühli, F. J., & Henneberg, M. (2013). New perspectives on evolutionary medicine: The relevance of microevolution for human health and disease. BMC Medicine, 11, 115.
Shterenshis, M., Roitblat, Y., Ilani, J., Lumbroso, J., & Padilla-Raygoza, N. (2018). The 11p15.5 chromosomal region: When did the instability occur? Medical Hypotheses, 121, 21–25.
Simons, Y., & Sella, G. (2016). The impact of recent population history on the deleterious mutation load in humans and close evolutionary relatives. Current Opinion in Genetic Development, 41, 150–158.
Staub, K., Henneberg, M., Galassi, F. M., Eppenberger, P., Haeusler, M., Morozava, I., … Bender, N. (2018). Increasing variability of body mass and health correlates in Swiss conscripts, a possible role of relaxed natural selection? Evolutionary Medicine and Public Health, (1), 116–126.
Sugai, M. K., Gilmour, S., Ota, E., & Shibuya, K. (2017). Trends in perinatal mortality and its risk factors in Japan: Analysis of vital registration data, 1979–2010. Scientific Reports, 7. https://doi.org/10.1038/srep46681
Toppari, J., Larsen, J. C., Christiansen, P., Giwercman, A., Grandjean, P., Guillette, L. J., Jr., … Skakkebaek, N. E. (1996). Male reproductive health and environmental xenoestrogens. Environmental Health Perspectives, 104, 741–803.
Travison, T. G., Araujo, A. B., O’Donnell, A. B., Kupelian, V., & McKinlay, J. B. (2007). A population-level decline in serum testosterone level in American men. Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, 92, 196–202.
Turner, T. H. (1985). Was insanity on the increase? The British Journal of Psychiatry, 146, 325–325.
Twenge, J. M. (2013). Overwhelming evidence for generation me. Emerging Adulthood, 1, 21–26.
Twenge, J. M., Gentile, B., Dewall, C. N., Ma, D., Lacefield, K., & Schurtz, D. R. (2010). Birth cohort increases in psychopathology among young Americans, 1938–2007: A cross-temporal meta-analysis of the MMPI. Clinical Psychology Review, 30, 145–154.
Ulizzi, L., San Martini, A., & Terrenato, L. (1979). Changes of selection opportunities with a changing environment: Regional heterogeneity in Italy. Annals of Human Genetics, 43, 137–141.
Volk, T., & Atkinson, J. (2008). Is child death the crucible of evolution? Journal of Social, Evolutionary & Cultural Psychology, 2, 247–260.
Volk, T., & Atkinson, J. (2013). Infant and child death in the human environment of evolutionary adaptation. Evolution & Human Behavior, 34, 182–192.
Voss, J. D., Goodson, M. S., & Leon, J. C. (2018). Phenotype diffusion and one health: A proposed framework for investigating the plurality of obesity epidemics across many species. Zoonoses and Public Health, 65, 279–290.
Wong, W. S., Solomon, B. D., Bodian, D. L., Kothiyal, P., Eley, G., Huddleston, K. C., & Niederhuber, J. E. (2016). New observations on maternal age effect on germline de novo mutations. Nature Communications, 7, 10486.
Woodley of Menie, M. A., & Fernandes, H. B. F. (2016). The secular decline in general intelligence from decreasing developmental stability: Theoretical and empirical considerations. Personality and Individual Differences, 92, 194–199.
Woodley of Menie, M. A., Fernandes, H. B. F., Kanazawa, S., & Dutton, E. (2018). Sinistrality is associated with (slightly) lower general intelligence: A data synthesis and consideration of the secular trend in handedness. HOMO: Journal of Comparative Human Biology, 69, 118–126.
Woodley of Menie, M. A., Figueredo, A. J., Fernandes, H. B. F., Peñaherrera-Aguirre, M., Sarraf, M. A., & Hertler, S. (2017). The Rhythm of the West: A Biohistory of the Modern Era AD 1600 to the Present. Journal of Social Political and Economic Studies, Monograph Series No. 37. Washington, DC: Council for Social and Economic Studies.
Woodley of Menie, M. A., Sarraf, M. A., & Fernandes, H. B. F. (2018). Mutation accumulation is still potentially problematic, despite declining paternal age: a comment on Arslan et al. (2017). Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Science, 285, 20172511.
Woods, R. (2008). Long-term trends in fetal mortality: Implications for developing countries. Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 86, 460–466.
You, W., & Henneberg, M. (2016). Type 1 diabetes prevalence increasing globally and regionally: The role of natural selection and life expectancy at birth. BMJ Open Diabetes Research & Care, 4, e000161.
You, W., & Henneberg, M. (2017). Cancer incidence increasing globally: The role of relaxed natural selection. Evolutionary Applications, 11, 140–152.
You, W., & Henneberg, M. (2018). Relaxed natural selection contributes to global obesity increase more in males than in females due to more environmental modifications in female body mass. PLOS ONE, 13, e0199594.
Zhang, D. D., Lee, H. F., Wang, C., Li, B., Pei, Q., Zhang, J., & An, Y. (2011). The causality analysis of climate change and large-scale human crises. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 108, 17296–17301.
Zheng, H., & Tumin, D. (2015). Variation in the effects of family background and birth region on adult obesity: Results of a prospective cohort study of a Great Depression-era American cohort. BMC Public Health, 15. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-015-1870-7
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Sarraf, M.A., Woodley of Menie, M.A., Feltham, C. (2019). Making the Case for Mutation Accumulation. In: Modernity and Cultural Decline. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-32984-6_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-32984-6_6
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-32983-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-32984-6
eBook Packages: Behavioral Science and PsychologyBehavioral Science and Psychology (R0)