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Science 14 July 2006:
Vol. 313. no. 5784, p. 172
DOI: 10.1126/science.1122822
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Technical Comments

Response to Comment on "Ongoing Adaptive Evolution of ASPM, a Brain Size Determinant in Homo sapiens" and "Microcephalin, a Gene Regulating Brain Size, Continues to Evolve Adaptively in Humans"

Nitzan Mekel-Bobrov,1,2 Patrick D. Evans,1,2 Sandra L. Gilbert,1 Eric J. Vallender,1,2 Richard R. Hudson,3 Bruce T. Lahn1*

Currat et al. present computer simulations to argue that the haplotype structure found at the microcephalin and ASPM genes can be better explained by demographic history rather than by selection. The demographic models they adopt, however, strongly contradict a decade of empirical research on human demographic history and do not account for the critical features of the data on which our argument for selection was based.

1 Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Department of Human Genetics, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, USA.
2 Committee on Genetics, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, USA.
3 Department of Ecology and Evolution, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, USA.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: blahn{at}bsd.uchicago.edu

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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)