Is the rate of human evolution increasing with population growth?

Larger populations create more chances for genetic mutations to occur, and this means more variations for natural selection to either favour or weed out. But in big populations, it takes longer for chances to spread. The fastest rate of evolution occurs when a population is split into isolated subgroups that can’t interbreed due to geographic or cultural barriers. Travel and communication have broken down many barriers, so our genes get blended together instead of splitting into subspecies. A 2007 study found that we are evolving about 100 times faster than at any other period in our history. But ‘modern’ for an evolutionary biologist means the last 5,000 years. It’s too soon to tell how our evolution has been affected by the population explosion of the last few centuries.