Anthropologist Stanislav Drobyshevsky told what surprises the further evolution of our species is fraught with.
We more or less imagine the path from monkey to man. And what will happen to us next? Will we pamper, turn into elves, or become like space green men? Maybe we can grow a tail and return to the tree? On the topic of further human evolution, we talked with Stanislav Drobyshevsky, associate professor of the Department of Anthropology, Faculty of Biology, Moscow State University.
Stanislav first answer a naive question: modern man appeared thanks to natural selection. But if this selection is now practically not working, then what forces will determine the further development of our species?
- Well, you got excited. The selection works, only we have changed the surrounding conditions. For example, our ancestors for millions of years lived in conditions when there was not enough food. Moreover, she had to run pretty much on the hunt. Therefore, the selection was more successful with the physically strong and hardy, whose body economically spent calories. And now the finest hour has come for those who are able to sit for hours at the computer in a twisted position. At the same time, it is able to absorb an excess amount of food without much damage to health and not suffer from physical inactivity …
- But after all, if earlier in the family 10 children were born, and the strongest survived, now medicine gives a chance even to those who were unlucky with health
- Selection is not necessary to trust the old woman with a scythe. It is important whether the genes were passed on to the next generation or not. And since not everyone leaves offspring, it means that selection takes place at this level. Another thing is that the rate of evolution will decrease.
If you look into the future, how will the appearance of a person change?
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- Skin color will darken as a result of the mixing of the gene pool of different races. The hair on the body will disappear. The teeth will become smaller. Basically, the third molar known as the "wisdom tooth" has all but disappeared.
There is a version that in the end our descendants will grow hooves on their feet. After all, the fingers on the lower limbs we got from the ancestors, who grabbed the branches
- I'm not sure if it will be so radical, but the future of our foot is in the disappearance of the toes. We don't really need them. The tibia can fuse with the tibia. Our ancestors needed it to keep our feet mobile when we climbed trees.
Such articulation of bones is not typical for terrestrial animals. So in the future, ballet and football will decline. The digestive tract will shrink as food becomes more nutritious and high in calories. Then the question will arise: do we need such a long spine? Indeed, in growth we add due to the length of the legs.
And what will become of the brain, memory?
- The memory of the computer generation is already arranged differently. And the state of the brain depends on how people use these brains. If the descendants create very heavenly conditions for themselves, then the brains will be noticeably reduced. In this situation, only the reproductive system will remain. This can be seen in parasitic worms that literally bathe in food. If we do not lock ourselves in the "golden cage", then the brain will develop further.
How fast will such changes go?
- Let's count. For example, the first representative of the genus Homo is 2.5 million years old. His height was 120-130 centimeters, weight from 30 to 50 kg. And the volume of the brain was equal to half the volume of a modern person. Our species Homo Sapiens was formed in a time interval of 200-50 thousand years ago. This means that for a new species to appear, it takes at least tens of thousands of years.
But one species does not differ too much from another. It takes millions of years for something fundamental to appear. For example, it took 7 million years to master upright walking. But a lot will depend on how intensively the surrounding conditions will change. The more changes, the faster evolution goes. Now a person is changing the world so rapidly that he himself does not have time to adapt to the new, since the length of a generation has remained the same - 30 years.
In the memory of mankind, have there already been noticeable evolutions of the external appearance?
- For the last 100-150 years there has been an acceleration, we have become 15-20 centimeters taller than medieval people. The terms of puberty have been reduced by 5 years: earlier it happened, relatively speaking, at 17 years old, and now at 12. These are very fundamental changes, given that they occurred at a distance of 2-3 generations.
And how to explain that in the days of the knights the people crushed, and then began to grow by leaps and bounds?
- There are about a hundred hypotheses. But this is most likely due to changes in the gene pool. In the Middle Ages, large migrations of the population stopped, and the exchange of genes took place within local rural communities. When the industrial revolution took place, urban growth began. Crowds of villagers were drawn there and this gave a powerful influx of fresh blood.
It has been proven that mestizos from crossing distant groups are larger and more viable. This gave an impetus to acceleration. But already at the end of the twentieth century, this wave began to fade. And now, in some places, we observe the opposite phenomenon - and people grow up later and body sizes become not so large. This is a global trend and it has affected us as well. For example, there are such figures for the Arkhangelsk region.
What's the reason?
- The impulse given by the mixing of the gene pool has been partially exhausted. And in some cases this can be explained by the deterioration of living conditions. Because nutrition and the level of medicine do not directly, but still affect anthropometric indicators. For example, in England in the 19th century, as a result of the stratification of society, the difference in height between representatives of the elite and the urban lower classes reached 10-15 centimeters.
Now a vivid example of this dependence on social conditions can be observed when comparing North and South Korea. This is not only one people - Koreans, as a rule, are all relatives of each other. So I have come across data that the difference in height between southerners and northerners already reaches more than 10 centimeters. This is a huge figure considering that 67 years ago it was one population.
If things go on like this, then in a few generations pygmies will appear in the DPRK. There is nothing surprising here, this mechanism worked in Africa, Polynesia and the Philippines. With a shortage of food, the largest and tallest do not survive and gradually the trait is fixed at the genetic level. I hope that all of humanity will not suffer such a fate. But this no longer depends on anthropologists.
QUESTION - RIB
Is humanity degrading in 30 generations?
In 1997, the well-known evolutionary biologist Alexei Kondrashov decided to simulate the situation in which mankind fell, devoid of the pressure of natural selection. He created similar conditions for a colony of fruit flies. The insects didn't have to compete for females or food. They were divided into mating pairs where they gave birth to offspring from each “family” and randomly took one male and one female.
Then representatives of the Next generation were mixed (to exclude closely related relationships), crossed, and the cycle was repeated. After 30 generations, the colony degraded. In flies, fertility and life expectancy sharply decreased. They became lethargic and weak. Is it possible that the same fate awaits us in 30 generations?
“In principle, humanity can create for itself such joy as a social paradise, where there will be no incentives for activity,” Stanislav Drobyshevsky believes. - Some societies in Europe and America have come close to this line. But, firstly, there are few such super-mega-developed societies on the planet. And secondly, this does not pose a threat to all mankind.
Our strength lies in diversity. This is the key to sustainability. In Russia, in addition to Moscow and St. Petersburg, there are villages where people still live by subsistence farming. In Africa and Asia, 10-12 babies are still given birth, of which 2-3 survive. And there are Amazonian Indians who run around naked and hunt iguanas. So even if some part of humanity falls into an evolutionary trap, the population as a whole has a huge number of "backups" that will go the other way.
