• enkers@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    4
    ·
    edit-2
    4 months ago

    Did you read the paper from my 2nd link? There seems to be a growing body of evidence that suggests that is indeed possible:

    Similar to the increase in the prevalence of persistent median arteries of the forearms, the prevalence of other anatomical features such as spina bifida occulta (Henneberg & Henneberg 1999; Solomon et al., 2009; Lee et al., 2010), tarsal coalitions (Solomon et al., 2003) and fabella (Berthaume et al., 2019) has increased over the last 2–3 centuries. Evidence indicates that changes in the natural selection pressures acting on these specific anatomical features could have caused microevolutionary processes, leading to the observed increases in prevalence rates (Henneberg and Henneberg 1999; Solomon et al., 2009; Lee et al., 2010; Rühli and Henneberg, 2013; Berthaume et al., 2019).

    Obviously actual research would have to be done to confirm or deny it in this case, and I probably should have stated my original thought a bit more skeptically.