Comment by mbivert

> The discovery of older humans does not respond to the point you’re arguing against — in evolutionary time scales, humans are recent.

I meant, evolutionary time scales themselves are subjected to accuracy issues. The measurements techniques themselves are subject to accuracy issues as well.

> but the magnitude of changes tend to get smaller

Agreeing with the tendency, but there are great exceptions; physics comes to mind. The fact that we still don't properly understand QM, and physics being conceptually at the root of many sciences, a proper understanding of it may force to revisit a few things "up there".

> I think painful childbirth pretty much shouldn’t matter much to evolution, because the parents have no control over the birth at that point

Sorry, I (genuinely) don't get the argument.

Regardless, I saw articles [0][1] linking (minor) DNA alterations to exercising. It'd be interesting to see how body stresses in general could impact DNA, and how this would wrap up with evolution.

> then it could just be random noise.

Well, the problem with "noise", is that from the outset, we can't know distinguish between "actual noise" − assuming such a thing exist − or if it's merely a reflection of ignorance. The latter at least gives us direction in which to search stuff. So "evolution provided X, so X _may_ be needed" I guess

[0]: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41514-025-00217-0

[1]: https://cordis.europa.eu/article/id/34391-scientists-discove...