Doh-volutionary Indicators

In an article from Friday, the NY Times reports that researches have found evidence that the human brain is still evolving:

Two genes involved in determining the size of the human brain have undergone substantial evolution in the last 60,000 years, researchers say, leading to the surprising suggestion that the brain is still undergoing rapid evolution.

The discovery adds weight to the view that human evolution is still a work in progress, since previous instances of recent genetic change have come to light in genes that defend against disease and confer the ability to digest milk in adulthood.

It had been widely assumed until recently that human evolution more or less stopped 50,000 years ago.

What with all that's going on these days, I'm inclined to believe that human devolution is actually occurring. As a nation we are going backwards.

We appear to be unprepared for disasters on our shores, even while supposedly fighting the enemy in far away lands to keep them at bay.

We continue to allow millions of Americans to live in poverty and uninsured.

We seem on the cusp of rolling back women's rights, and the Gulf Coast hurricane blew the cover off the dirty secret of America's ongoing racial unease.

We're consuming more gas than is sustainable long term, while opposing global efforts to reduce greenhouse emissions.

We're returning to an era of intolerance and religious politics, where the Bible Belt is pushing for a greater role for God in our classrooms.

Science might be telling us we're evolving, but all indications are we've still got a very long way to go, if we're even paying attention to science.