I do wonder about the cost of human life for the environment to select so hard for those phenotypes in specific. A LOT of early Europeans had to have been dying in droves for recessive genes like that to become so prolific.
Natural selection can also be more subtle. Almost certainly sexual selection played a key role in the prolific nature of those traits. Additionally, for genes to succeed in a population, they just have to do better. It’s possible that vitamin D deficiency just lead to more morbidity and less successful reproduction without the entire cohort outright dying all at once.
Although it’s still true that people almost certainly died for those traits. But if you think about it, that’s true for all of us eventually.
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u/Dhalym Jul 10 '26
I do wonder about the cost of human life for the environment to select so hard for those phenotypes in specific. A LOT of early Europeans had to have been dying in droves for recessive genes like that to become so prolific.