 These alternative arguments were published in two back-to-back papers in the "International Journal of Obesity" in November 2008.Prentice et al.predicted that the emerging molecular genetics field would ultimately provide a way to test between the adaptive 'thrifty gene' idea and the non-adaptive 'drifty gene' idea because it would be possible to find signatures of positive selection in the human genome, at genes that are linked to both obesity and type 2 diabetes, if the 'thrifty gene' hypothesis is correct.