Plastics , tiny penises , and human evolution

Health concerns about the long-term effects of endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) often fail to reflect a sophisticated understanding of evolutionary theory or how a population will be affected by a selective pressure, even when that pressure arises from human action in the environment. Using niche construction theory, this article for a general audience seeks to explore how endocrine disruption might affect our species. The evidence suggests that EDCs may very well exert a selective influence by disrupting fertility, especially because a large number of EDCs seem to interact and target the same mechanisms. However, niche construction theory highlights the degree to which some of those changes will be reversible types of phenotypic bias and how EDCresistance is also likely to be the outcome of niche-drive selection. 1