Some specific questions about evolution

FraggleRocker-Thanks for the detailed answers. Could the 'vegan' movement lead to the evolution of an herbivorous subspecies(not to mean less than, but to denote a category)? What about the mating habits of humans-'attractive' and 'not attractive'? Are there currently any theories on near-term evolution? Whether human or otherwise.

Oh-and how did an iceworm evolve? I caught a show about Alaska last night, they mentioned iceworms which live in glaciers and melt(!) if left around temperatures of 40F.
 
The vegan movement is not likely to cause speciation or evolution, because the diet is supplemented in such a way that eating meat is not necessary. Also, speciation events generally require geographical separation of two populations to occur. This doesn't really happen anymore with humans having the technology that they do.
 
Idle Mind said:
Given enough time and variations in selective pressures, why not?
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No reason at all.
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Mr. Hamtastic said:
FraggleRocker-Thanks for the detailed answers. Could the 'vegan' movement lead to the evolution of an herbivorous subspecies(not to mean less than, but to denote a category)?
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No - at least not for most modern humans.
You seemed to be getting slightly confused between the old fashioned Lamarkian ideas of evolution, and the more modern Darwinian/new synthesis ideas.
Lamarkian evolution would predict that if I was to work out on weights every day and buff up (or eat only vegan food) - despite my genetic make-up - I would produce offspring who are more likely to be big tough and muscular (or better equipped to deal with a pure vegan diet).
Clearly nonsense - Lamarkian evolution was never particularly popular even pre-Darwin. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamarkism

Darwinian ideas of evolution would predict that while a population of vegans may well contain individuals who are better suited to cope with that kind of diet, without any kind of selective pressure to weed out the less "fit" individuals on that basis, then that particular trait would be neutral in evolutionary terms.

Mr. Hamtastic said:
What about the mating habits of humans-'attractive' and 'not attractive'? Are there currently any theories on near-term evolution? Whether human or otherwise.
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Not sure what you mean by "near-term" evolution, but sexual selection is a major driving force for evolution for a tremendous number of species.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_selection

Mr. Hamtastic said:
Oh-and how did an iceworm evolve? I caught a show about Alaska last night, they mentioned iceworms which live in glaciers and melt(!) if left around temperatures of 40F.
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We'll probably never know - I doubt much grant money will ever be expended on knowing much about them before they have all melted.

Ps a picture from my trip to Alaska last summer:

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Mr. Hamtastic said:
1:What was the evolutionary impetus toward developing sexual reproduction?
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This is one of the big questions in evolutionary biology. The common answer is that swapping genes increases diversity, which increases the chance that some offspring will be suited to an environment with changing conditions.

Some nulllists, however, hypothesize that sexual reproduction was an evolutionary accident due to finite population size.
 
Regarding evolution of sex:

another theory as proposed by Rose and Hickey propose that sex has evolved as a mechanism for the propagation of parasitic DNA. Basically a by-product of recombination. In many aspects it does make sense the assumption of the "adaptation to changing ecological conditions" scenario, as there is few evidence for the latter. Moreover no explanation could be put forward for that scenario regarding the evolution of the mechanisms.
 
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