It is erroneous to think that scientific progress has stopped human evolution. Yes, modern technologies have adapted the environment to our needs, and medicine allows even the weakest members of the human species to survive. Nevertheless, evolution continues, moreover, contrary to popular belief, it has not slowed down, but has accelerated.
The creator of the theory of evolution, Charles Darwin, did not pay much attention to human evolution. He believed that the desire to save even the weak and sick members of our species led to the fact that our evolutionary path was changed. Since then, there has been an opinion that human evolution has slowed down or even stopped altogether, but research carried out in recent years has refuted this point of view. Human evolution is not just continuing - it is going on more actively than ever.
Supermen are canceled
Humanity has not yet spawned X-Men-style supermen. Most likely, "superpowers" should not be expected - they have been replaced by progress with its perfect powerful technique. However, over the past 10 thousand years, the world's population has grown from several million to 7 billion people, and each successful fusion of a sperm and an egg carries several completely new mutations.
The evolution of the human body is still impossible to predict - the influence of progress is too great, but its traces are noticeable. For example, for more than 100 years in American men, the average skull height has increased by 6.8%, the volume by 200 cubic meters. cm (this is almost the size of a tennis ball), and the body height increased by 5.6%
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This avalanche of mutations provides a bunch of "raw materials" for evolution. Some mutations spread very quickly in humans and are likely to become common human traits.
The number of mutations along the timeline. The number of mutations is skyrocketing. The fall in the period closer to modernity is due to the fact that current research methods do not provide accurate data with very young mutations
Modern genetic research shows that humanity does not just acquire new mutations - in the last 40 thousand years, our evolution has accelerated dramatically. Surprisingly, much of our genetic material contains genomic signatures regarding recent evolutionary changes.
Graphical display of genetic models. On the left - before the boom in population growth, on the right - after. In general, the number of mutations increased. Some of them do not have any noticeable effect, some are harmful, others may contain the first signs of adaptation to special environmental conditions.
Unfortunately, modern analytical tools do not accurately determine what all these mutations will ultimately lead to.
Breeding evolution
Evolution has markedly affected our reproduction. The human population has experienced a population explosion over the past several thousand years. There were periods of time when cataclysms almost (and in some regions - completely) destroyed human tribes. However, there are billions of people on the planet today. This became possible thanks to evolutionary changes that gave people the ability to give birth to children at an earlier age and, accordingly, to produce more offspring throughout life. This fact was discovered quite a long time ago, for example, the average age of the first child of mothers of a certain genetic line in the city of Quebec decreased from 26 years in 1800 to 22 years in 1940.
Several thousand years ago, the milk-processing enzyme turned off at the age of five. This stimulated the transition of children into adulthood. According to very rough estimates, about 7,500 years ago, a mutation appeared in Northern Europe that allows drinking milk even in adulthood. Today we easily digest dairy products, and our ancestors could die of diarrhea after a glass of milk.
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Beginning in 1948, the Framingham Heart Study in Framingham, Massachusetts provides particularly interesting results. Thousands of people took part in this study over three generations. Observational results show that Framingham women become sexually mature a little earlier and retain the ability to give birth a little longer than their ancestors. There is also a noticeable increase in some traits associated with fertility: women are slightly shorter and fatter, and there is a lower level of cholesterol in the blood. This trend seems to be relevant for the whole world. Early puberty, an increase in the traits associated with reproduction, are all the result of evolution that saved us from extinction. True, now excessive fertility is even harmful to humanity, and civilization has invented means for regulating the population.
Cows as a tool for evolution
For an incredible 85 million years of human genetic history, the consumption of milk by adults was not envisaged. As soon as the children stopped feeding on their mother's milk, genetic mechanisms turned off the processes of destruction of the main milk sugar - lactose.
But about 7000-9000 years ago, people brought in the first cattle - a cow. Cow's milk became an affordable product, although due to a genetic "switch" the first adult consumers of this milk suffered from stomach pain. Nevertheless, it seems that milk began to be fed to children from infancy to adolescence and beyond. As a result of lifelong feeding on milk, adults have emerged with a mutation in the gene responsible for lifelong lactose processing.
Thus, evolution has given us the ability to digest cow's milk. This mutation spread very quickly, first in Europe and then in Africa. Most people on the planet now absorb lactose well and can consume a variety of dairy products. This evolutionary change is one of the most rapidly spreading and widespread in human history, although there are still people with lactose intolerance.
People are getting dumber
It is generally accepted that evolution optimizes a living organism, makes it more perfect. On a global scale, this is apparently the case, but in some cases evolution can also work to deteriorate the "quality" of a living organism. Unfortunately, the latter concerns human intelligence.
There is no doubt that sooner or later artificial intelligence will surpass human intelligence. From this moment, evolution can "decide" that the intellect is not needed at all
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According to geneticist Professor Gerald Crabtree of Stanford University, humanity is becoming emotionally and intellectually stupid. This is due to genetics and the nature of modern life.
Crabtree believes that we reached the peak of intellectual and emotional development several thousand years ago, since then these qualities have deteriorated. So far, this is just a hypothesis that has been criticized a lot. However, there is evidence to support it. Primitive examples easily illustrate this evolution-degradation. Ancient hunter-gatherers had to have the maximum knowledge of the environment available to them, otherwise they would quickly perish with their families. Foolish tyrant leaders, unable to make the right decisions, in primitive times, also faced a sad fate. Thus, the ancient society mainly consisted of the most intellectually and physically developed individuals, capable of interacting with each other. Unlike in ancient times, in modern society, the intellectually underdeveloped can easily survive,physically incapacitated people and maniacs-sociopaths, and senior managers, politicians, etc. for their conceptual mistakes they even receive huge bonuses and a high position in society.
It turns out that centuries of evolution did not improve our society, but on the contrary. Scientific and technological progress has influenced evolution, which has made our population less intelligent and emotionally responsive. In ancient times, evolution "encouraged" the genetic lines of intellectually developed people capable of mutual assistance. Now the "love" of evolution is increasingly used by stupid psychopaths who think only about their own well-being.
It should be noted that the scientific community accepted the hypothesis of Gerald Crabtree with hostility and declared it speculation. Scientists believe that there are no “genius genes” as such, which means that there is no point in talking about a decrease in the intellectual level of humanity. In turn, Crabtree argues that intelligence depends on thousands of genes and a violation in any of them can have detrimental consequences for the mental development of our species.
The mind changes to immunity
Evolution today prefers other traits than thousands of years ago, such as strong immunity. Urbanization, which began to take on epic proportions centuries ago, has led to widespread infectious diseases. Epidemics of fatal infections have left the most immunocompromised people alive, and these genes have been passed on to the next generation. Our body is much more resistant to various infections, our ancestors even 200-300 years ago.
Blow to the sense of smell
Probably, our sense of smell has suffered the most as a result of human evolution. Today, humans have far fewer olfactory receptors than animals. This happened because people gradually learned to recognize the quality of food not by smell, but by many other signs.
Now we can assess the suitability of food by appearance, method of processing, shelf life, integrity of the package, medical opinion of the doctor, etc., while the dog can simply sniff the food. Evolution has opted for a more sophisticated but reliable method. In this regard, our sense of smell will continue to deteriorate - the body needs to endure the aromas of a modern city. Nevertheless, some olfactory reflexes still persist, for example, when choosing sexual partners.
Cultural evolution
When it comes to evolution, people tend to think about biology. However, cultural evolution, which includes all of our social relationships and speech, is developing much faster and changing over a wider range. After all, if we could travel in time and go back several hundred thousand years ago, then we would easily recognize our homo sapiens ancestors. The set of genes between us and our ancestors differs slightly, but the way of life is really completely different.
The genetic differences between a Neanderthal hunter and an astronaut are minimal, but the cultural differences are incredibly large. It is cultural evolution that goes on at the fastest pace, branching in numerous variants. Whether any one cultural line will win or there will be an infinite number of them is still impossible to say.
Scientists have only developed tools for studying cultural evolution in the last decade, so truly serious research in this area is yet to come. At the same time, for example, the emergence of digital communication technologies is likely to give rise to completely new types of cultures.
Mikhail Levkevich