Is there not some significant evidence that agriculture and urban living have been acting as strong selective pressures over the last few millennia? One would think that humans reaching the point of majority urban populous for the first time in history and the formation of mega cities would provide lots of opportunity for adaptation. The only thing that intermarriage between formerly isolated groups would prevent would be a division into separate species.

Urban environments seem to me to select against violent criminals, those who are easily addicted and those who are prone to anti-social behavior. All these people exist in large towns and cities but between prison, gun violence and suicide it can hardly be advantageous for their reproductive success. Cities are complex places with many resources for those with the intelligence and social skills to take advantage of them which is why people give up subsistence farming to go to them. They have only just begun to shape our species.

"the opportunity for random change is dwindling"

Well, he's not wrong about *that* . . .

"the opportunity for random change is dwindling"

Yeah, what about *intentional* change?

More importantly, what does he think about the last few - ten thousand years?

Intentional is not the inverse of random.

SJ has been saying this kind of thing for years. He doesn't seem to get the point that the selective differential in human reproduction may now be as high as ever, since it depends mainly on psychological traits with moderate-to-high heritability, rather than the largely accidental factor of whose kids get dysentery from the crap in the local water supply.

As for 'the future is brown', readers outside the UK should note that this is (partly) a joke: the British phone company Orange have a slogan 'The Future is Orange', so substitute 'brown' for 'orange'.... But in principle SJ's point is correct: the rate of mixing is now surely far higher than on-going natural selection in the other direction. But on a global leval the rate of mixing is still very slow, (and geographically uneven) and it would take thousands of years to reach equilibrium, even if no unpredictable events interrupt the trend.

. All these people exist in large towns and cities but between prison, gun violence and suicide it can hardly be advantageous for their reproductive success."

Huh? I think some people spend too much time with their heads up the their evolutionary theories.
I can't tell you how many times I've seen some "inner city" convict who has murdered, raped, drugged, whatever, and who has some eleven children by as many women.
Not unusual at all. They get a lot done between prison senetences.

Um..isn't our global connectedness allowing for greater assortative mating?

Two thoughts struck me when I read his article in the Telegraph this morning. (1) "Five centuries ago in Florence, the upper crust had twice as many children as did the peasantry, but now the Florentine poor have slightly more than the rich..." sounded to me rather like the eugenicists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. (2) His later remark "People choose mates almost as much by level of education as by skin colour" implies to me that if education level is even a rough guide to intelligence (or any other partly heritable trait), then this mating pattern will lead to pronounced evolutionary effects.
More generally, the article made me wonder whether genetics attracts people of left-wing views who then find a considerable tension between the implications of their science and the preferences of their politics.

"it would take thousands of years to reach equilibrium"

If I recall correctly this is very similar to an argument of Steve Jones from a 1992ish book.
The Engish and the Scottish would take 500 years at current rates of mixing to reach equlibrium. I think that I know what is meant by this.

Both statements are no doubt true. However when the Future Is Brown issue is discussed no one, apart from a handful with Jones' specialised expertise, wonders about the time to equilibrium. And I, respectfully, suggest that time to the outcome of eqilibrium is rather irrelevant to concerns in most people's minds.

A demographic issue is what people will be picturing.

I believe that time to certain demographic outcomes would be very interesting to many people. Perhaps those with the special skills that are transferable to demographic calculation could provide such estimates.

Steve Jones in an old book estimated the time for the Scottish and Englsh to reach equilibrium. I think I know what this means. I'm sure his forecast is accurate (500 years at current rates), it came in a section about biracial children being less vulnerable to certain genetic disorders.

What is the relevance of this to the concerns of the UK population? I should think that only a handful of people who share Jones' specialized expertise will wonder at such things. Many people might be confused as to what is being said, it sounds very slow doesn't it, hundreds or thousands of years.

I, respectfully, suggest that the issue is at best irrelevant to what is on many people's minds, which is a demographic issue. Possibly geneticists underestimate the confusion in many peoples minds. This confusion could be eliminated if they would use their skills, which are transferable to demographics I dare say, to give estimated times to certain demographic outcomes in addition to time to equilibrium.

He also seems wrong on the impact of medicine. I think both Robin Hanson and Greg Clark would have something to say about that.

In ramdom mating in London for example many of the first generation will be biracial and carrying masked deleterius recessive alleles.

I don't know if that is the reason (like incest taboo, avoiding deleterious recessives) but I get the impression that the biracial tend not to select each other as partners.

So if there is a reluctance to mate among themselves by mutiracial people, as monoracial people become less common they will be increasingly prefered as mates. Would this not speed up the time to equilibrium considerably?

Even if you remove new mutations, there are a lot of variants out there for selection to pick up...The future will not be brown for the same reason that people in an English village do not have the same hair colour despite there being a lot of intermarriage.

What kind of selection have you in mind for hair colour?
Nobody with any hair colour is going to be excluded from reproducing or gain a reproductive advantage so how can any colour increase relative to the others, all other things being equal.

English hair colour and other traits are going to alter by simple demographics; a rapid increase in the proportion of people with black hair and dark brown hair follows from current demographic trends. Could Jones' intentionally be arguing that immigration to the West will mean a reduction of diversity in characteristics across the world. If so his opacity is understandable.

Really, now. Biological evolution is continuing to exert its pressure on ALL LIVING THINGS. Guess what? We are in there as well. The *selective pressures* are OF COURSE different from when small human bands roved the African savanna. In some societies where the gene pool is large, then genetic drift doesn't have a great effect. Gene flow is happening more often today, bringing new alleles into different populations. Natural selection still exerts its pressure on, say, sickle cell carriers, even with medicine. Healthy people will *still* have more children than carriers in non-malarial environs.Why is this even a question? Better yet, why is UCL giving this a forum?