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Pre-existing, previously unimportant variation in genetics can result in varying response to environmental changes, at which point natural selection can do its thing on that particular bit of variation.
The generation that's around when that environmental shift happens are going to get affected more-or-less randomly. The generations after that, if the environmental change sticks around, are going to inherit the responses of their forebears.
That's what IGI meant by the obesity epidemic not being a result of genetics yet.
Perhaps. But, why should we care about this in the context of obesity? If the environment remains the same, and we medicate obese people with ozempic, it doesn't seem obvious to me that the obesity susceptible genotype will become more widespread than it already is. If the environment changes, who's to say that genotypes currently more susceptible to obesity won't become less susceptible? Either way, given the obesity numbers over the past few decades going up and to the right, I don't see an obvious natural selection story at play here.
Because there isn't one, yet. We're still in the "environmental shift" part of the scenario. The natural selection part is a prediction IGI is making about future generations.
I'm having trouble understanding why there hasn't been any natural selection yet despite us being sixty years into the obesity epidemic. What, exactly, are the future conditions that we don't have that will bring about the selection part?
Since the obesity rate has been rising pretty constantly for the past several decades, that suggests that whichever environmental factor(s) is to blame has been increasing in intensity for that whole period. Natural selection can only happen so fast. How would you distinguish "the environmental factor caused a 15% increase in obesity rate over the past 25 years and there has been no selection" from "selection drove the obesity rate down 10% in the past 25 years, while the environmental factor pushed it up 25%"?
In your previous comment you suggested that natural selection will only come about in the future. Now you seem to imply that it's already happening. Can you be more specific about what your claim actually is?
I didn't say natural selection would only come about in the future. I said the 'obvious natural selection story' you hadn't seen would only come about in the future, so its current absence is no mark against IGI's claim.
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