Naked Science Forum

General Science => General Science => Topic started by: thedoc on 24/05/2011 18:46:17

Title: Why didn't humans evolve through allergies?
Post by: thedoc on 24/05/2011 18:46:17

Why didn't humans evolve through allergies?
Asked by Manal Javid, via facebook


                                       

Go to the show page. (http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/podcasts/show/2011.05.22/)

                                       

 

Title: Why didn't humans evolve through allergies?
Post by: thedoc on 24/05/2011 18:46:17

Rick -   Well, we evolved to tune our immune system in the presence of different infectious organisms and in a way, allergies have resulted because we’re no longer in the environment in which we evolved.  So I suppose, because allergies are so recent and human population is no longer being selected by natural selection, I don't think we are going to evolve through allergies.