I've been wondering whether or not we've come to a point in our evolution where we now are actually undoing all of the hard work that billions of years of human evolution has done.
As most of you would know, the concept of evolution is so that a species can reach perfection in adapting to its habitat. Humans have obviously been very good at this since we are now probably the dominant species on the planet. But I think now, because of all this scientific progress we're making, our genes are actually becoming worse. If you think about it all this medical innovation is actually ruining our gene pool because it means that people with hereditary diseases aren't dieing out but are instead able to continue to breed and pass on their genes. Also stuff like adaptability to the environment has probably been diminished because we can build our own homes and make our own climate to suit us.
Also, our social preferences are probably ruining our gene pool too. Note how now we not only select our mates based upon physical characteristics (traits which are actually hereditary), as a society we also covet other stuff like personality (which is probably not hereditary). This would probably mean ugly people like me would never be born but I seriously wouldn't mind if there were a few more Miranda Kerr's out there. The male preference for women with less hair on their bodies (I think men like hair on the head more), is also counter-evolutionary because hair is meant to keep our bodies warm, although I guess we don't really need it now since we have clothes, but still it reduces our adaptability. I also believe that women are also trending towards the less hairy male but I'm not too sure, and if this continues we will all probably end up being hairless.
What I'm trying to say is that if some alien life force came and managed to take away all our clothing and any means of producing more clothing, we would be pretty screwed. On the other hand, if evolution was allowed to continue normally, we, as very hairy Miranda Kerrs, would stand a much better chance of survival.
That is all.
3 comments:
i've often thought about this as well. natural selection isn't really taking place in the human population due to all the medicine keeping disadvantaged people alive
i don't really have anything against it...we will cause our own downfall anyway
i'm sure if some alien life forms were observing us from distant galaxies they'd be mocking us for polluting our genome with disease and disability and weakness and it makes me sad
I agree. We're a degenerate bunch.
And hair is no problem. Just wax it. But to be honest, most women prefer guys without hair either. Chest hair's nasty.
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