July 6, 2022
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British research suggests that as the wealthy and highly educated intellectuals have fewer and fewer children, Britons will evolve toward less educated and poorer economic conditions.
The researchers found that the next generation of Britons will be one to two percentage points less educated than they are today, with natural selection favouring lower-income and less-educated groups.
The study also found that people at high risk for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), major depression, coronary artery disease, people who had children at a young age, and people who had multiple sexual partners, It seems to occupy a more favorable position in evolution.
David Hugh-Jones, a professor at the University of East Anglia’s School of Economics, said: “Darwin’s theory of evolution says that all species develop through natural selection, through small differences that are inherited. Or mutate, making some individuals more competitive, survivable and reproductive.”
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UK child poverty in the spotlight
economic theory of reproduction
The research team studied data from more than 300,000 people in the UK using data from the UK Biobank, a large-scale long-term biobanking programme to study the role of genetic and environmental factors in disease development. influences.
Everyone participating in the sample program received a composite gene score, which is a rough estimate of their health, education, lifestyle and personality traits according to their genetic predisposition.
The researchers cross-referenced their composite gene scores with their siblings and children across two generations, looking at population changes over time.
As a result, they found that the composite gene score associated with lower income and lower education was associated with more children, implying that they were evolutionarily favored by natural selection.
In contrast, those composite gene scores associated with higher income and higher education were associated with fewer children, meaning they were eliminated by natural selection.
The findings fit with the economic theory of reproduction, that genes associated with higher income predict fewer children, as having children leads to a much lower relative income, an economic theory developed more than 60 years ago, the researchers said.
Flynn effect
Professor Hugh-Jones said that although the effects of the above findings were very small, they may have gradually expanded over many generations.
“Are we going to get poorer, less healthy, less educated and less educated? I think it’s possible, at least to some extent.”
However, he also said that environmental factors are moving in the other direction. In the long term, the world is getting richer, education is getting better and better, and medical advances are improving people’s health.
In addition, the Flynn effect also shows that people’s IQ is getting higher and higher, from 1942 to 2008, the average IQ test score of British children increased by 14 points.
Combining the results, he concluded, “People want higher education and better health, but our research shows that natural selection is pushing in the opposite direction, which may increase the medical burden of modern society, but this is only one way. The potential possibility is not absolute, and we still need more research.”
