I read that in the pre-industrial era, farming communities often suffered catastrophic famines when a crop failed. You could say farming therefore didn’t eliminate the need to conserve energy as fat, but maybe in the case of a crop famine, there is no way to store enough fat to avoid starvation over the course of a whole growing season, so it becomes less adaptive to store a lot of fat compared to the case of a hunter gatherer whose involuntary fasts last much shorter. Another possibility is that farmers have less of a need to store away food energy because they don’t burn as many daily calories as hunter-gatherers. That is debatable, as modern hunter gatherers spend a lot of time at leisure, according to researchers, and traditional agriculture can be back-breaking work
The first possibility seems more likely to me for the reason you mention: Farming was often more intensive than foraging, at least initially.
If famines were unsurvivable, there would have been no selection pressure to maintain sufficient fat stores to survive them. Selection would only have acted on those lucky enough to avoid famines - and for those individuals, putting on fewer pounds was apparently the better option.
Years of schooling is shaped by lots of variables. Intelligence is one of the more important ones, but the Big 5 traits, self-efficacy, wellbeing, behavior problems, the home environment, the school environment, etc. all contribute as well.
Razib Khan talked extensively about this paper on his substack today. It's pretty clear there has been a lot of human evolution over the past 10,000 years. It certainly didn't stop. I got the impression certain allele frequencies didn't only monotonically change over this period but some waxed and waned.
I read that in the pre-industrial era, farming communities often suffered catastrophic famines when a crop failed. You could say farming therefore didn’t eliminate the need to conserve energy as fat, but maybe in the case of a crop famine, there is no way to store enough fat to avoid starvation over the course of a whole growing season, so it becomes less adaptive to store a lot of fat compared to the case of a hunter gatherer whose involuntary fasts last much shorter. Another possibility is that farmers have less of a need to store away food energy because they don’t burn as many daily calories as hunter-gatherers. That is debatable, as modern hunter gatherers spend a lot of time at leisure, according to researchers, and traditional agriculture can be back-breaking work
The first possibility seems more likely to me for the reason you mention: Farming was often more intensive than foraging, at least initially.
If famines were unsurvivable, there would have been no selection pressure to maintain sufficient fat stores to survive them. Selection would only have acted on those lucky enough to avoid famines - and for those individuals, putting on fewer pounds was apparently the better option.
The difference between years of schooling and intelligence is ADHD? What else would it be? Addiction risk?
Years of schooling is shaped by lots of variables. Intelligence is one of the more important ones, but the Big 5 traits, self-efficacy, wellbeing, behavior problems, the home environment, the school environment, etc. all contribute as well.
Razib Khan talked extensively about this paper on his substack today. It's pretty clear there has been a lot of human evolution over the past 10,000 years. It certainly didn't stop. I got the impression certain allele frequencies didn't only monotonically change over this period but some waxed and waned.
https://www.razibkhan.com/p/10000-years-of-selection-in-western
Razib is the GOAT on this topic. He knows it back to front and inside out.
Yep, on top of any directional selection, there’s been lots of waxing and waning. My assumption is that that’s been the case since life first evolved.