Evolution

Photo by Vladislav Serov (Pexels)

Here is a fun fact about me. Despite the fact that I am currently studying chemistry, I always had a soft spot for biology. To be perfectly frank, I am not sure why, but I believe that it had something to do with the fact that I just had a fantastic biology teacher who made sure everyone understood to the best of their ability.

It probably goes without saying that I am not studying biology, and much less do I understand evolution to its fullest complexity, but I did spend some time thinking about evolution and my thoughts are more philosophical than scientific.

Besides, when it comes to biology, it is more likely that I will understand genetics rather than evolution because for an unspecific reason I just struggle with grasping why animals need to evolve certain traits besides survival but I am completely fine with understanding DNA from its production to how to decode it. The brain will understand what it wants to understand.

The topic I have been pondering about recently is how we are evolving to get away from Darwin’s evolutionary theory, which is more contra-productive than useful for human society as a whole in my opinion.

For those unfamiliar with Darwin´s evolutionary theory, it just states “that all species of organisms arise and develop through the natural selection of small, inherited variations that increase the individual's ability to compete, survive, and reproduce.”

The reason this theory was bothering me is that it seems to not apply to humans anymore. It used to way back when but it doesn’t anymore. Unlike, the rest of the animal kingdom where survival of the fittest still reigns supreme.

Now when it comes to picking a mate, we don’t seem to look for the fittest anymore. We tend to look for people with genetic imperfections. For instance, now people prefer people with glasses to people without because glasses make us seem smarter even though they probably don’t. Correlation does not equal causation.

Nevertheless, one should take into consideration that a defect in vision is still a defect no matter how cool the correction may look. Visual defects are not advantageous when it comes to survival and if not for those corrections we would still stumble into the world blind, literally.

But then it occurred to me we don’t need to fight for survival, we just have to live to survive. Which is fabulous news since this way human society can focus their brain power on something extraordinary rather than thinking about how to survive every single day.

Nevertheless, a rather disturbing trend seems to have come to my attention (and with the trend, I am not trying to offend anyone. I sincerely don’t) and it all has to do with who gets to reproduce in the first place.

Since it is not survival of the fittest anymore, anyone can technically reproduce. The problem is who decides to reproduce since a lot of people are not having children anymore and some decide to have many.

The problem with that being that some genetic traits will be lost or at least become extremely rare and many will increase exponentially. Since no one can determine for sure if that exponential increase is favourable or not, I will just leave it at that.

When I was thinking about parentage and becoming parents, a thought came along that ended up being rather disturbing as well. The thought being that I believe some parents are not qualified to become parents since parenting done right is an amazing feat but done wrong can cause a lot of harm.

If one would stroll down that path further then one will come across another idea sounding eerily similar to what Adolf Hitler attempted to do before and during world war II. If you still don’t know what I am trying to get at pick up a history book from time to time.

The thing that thought made me stumble upon is eugenics with the definition of eugenics being the scientifically erroneous and immoral theory of “racial improvement” and “planned breeding.” Eugenicists worldwide believed that they could perfect human beings and eliminate so-called social ills through genetics and heredity.

I probably don’t need to go into details to explain why eugenics is wrong. Let´s just leave it at there is a fine line between right and wrong and one does not want to fall on the wrong side of history. As soon as that idea came, I immediately knew I was in the wrong and decided to stop thinking about it.

Then I remembered something else. I mentioned at the start of this article that I was better at genetics and I find its advancements incredibly fascinating. With genetics now in my mind, I accidentally wandered further down the path of eugenics.

What about genetic engineering? That is some sort of eugenics as well and the technology might not have been tested on humans yet but it is still rather advanced. Genetic engineering can have a huge impact on evolution if one comes to think of it.

Genetic engineering has a lot of potential, and it offers hope for treating genetic diseases, which is why one should hear what it has to say before we dismiss it completely no matter how controversial it might be.

Since everyone can probably see genetic engineering´s potential, I will state the dangers. Eradicating a genetic disease in this generation still leaves the future of their offspring in the air. One cannot accurately predict the impact of the genetic modifications made (at the time of this article).

The genetic modifications could end up hurting society more than it helps. Genetic engineering might be fascinating but it comes with a lot of danger and red flags. There is a line in the sand, which shouldn’t under any circumstance be crossed otherwise there may be unbearable consequences.

At the end of the day, the question is if it is worth risking human life to save many since it could also hurt. However, I don’t believe this is where the scientist is hesitant, I believe they are rather taken aback by its potential and their hesitancy comes with valid concerns.

If we should be able to cure genetic diseases, where does it stop? Genetic engineering has the potential of designing humans and that just sounds like the start of a dystopian novel. Nobody should be given the power to play God since it can go both ways. Good or bad. A small misstep could ruin many.

Since I don’t have the best track record of finding credible research, I always like to refer to YouTube videos I have found who do have a good track of finding credible research. This one is by one of my favourite comedians John Oliver who goes into detail about the things I mentioned.

Gene editing and survival aside, I would like to take a moment and write a little bit about evolution and how far we came and how far we can go.

There are small facts I hear throughout my life that just stick in my head and the one about humans growing taller over centuries is just one of them. But just like many facts one hears in school, this one is not completely correct. Nevertheless, reading about it made me stumble upon something I quickly glossed over and later forgot to mention.

Why does evolution happen in the first place? I was a little bit vague with my reason… “survival”. Even though to a certain extent that is true since we do evolve to adapt better to our environments so we don’t die, it left big gaps in what survival actually means in our case since as we have established humans don’t need to survive in the traditional Darwin sense of the way.

Evolution is based upon two things. Variation and selection. A variation of the norm is the catalyst of the evolution so to say and selection provides the resources to further the process of evolution. If there is no variation, there is no evolution. If nobody selects the variation, there is no evolution.

Given that not all traits are known, there can´t be a selection for all the desirable traits. One can only select for visible traits, which is a terrible message for the kids but I am getting off track here so I digress.

Since I don’t want to dig up the history of evolution since there are so many years and so many traits to cover and I am not familiar with most of them in detail, I will just suggest that anyone interested should open a biology book since it is incredibly interesting to see how far evolution has brought us.

I want to speculate a bit about where evolution would bring us if we should completely ignore genetic engineering as a whole. Since the possibilities are enticing. If evolution has taught me anything it is that uninformed speculation (like mine) is most of the time wrong, but it is fun and it gives me the opportunity to think about something else once in a while.

Given the current state, it could be that some people will be born with covid resistance. I am not sure if this is possible from a biological standpoint, but I would not completely exclude it from speculation since some people are developing malaria resistance due to similar evolutionary pressure.

Another thing is I believe recessive traits such as blue eye colour and left-handedness will become rarer with each generation because there is an overwhelming population displaying the opposing dominant traits such as brown eyes and right-handedness.

Frankly, I don’t believe recessive traits will disappear completely, I just believe the percentage of the population will decrease significantly, which is quite the shame in my opinion because blue eyes are interesting and so is left-handedness.

In the future, it is likely that the brain will grow in size as well since with each generation of new technology there needs to be a next generation of humans with an understanding of the new technology and knowledge on how to improve that technology, which will only become more complex with each generation to come.

Maybe as a species, humans will also evolve to deal with psychological stresses in a significant way since due to the ongoing pandemic, we as a society have drifted apart, which is not the way intended. This could mean that we develop more individualistic skills and ditch the hunter-gatherer instincts.

This leads me to smaller things that we no longer use and barely notice but still have. There are some bones, muscles and skin that are no longer necessary for our survival, which means there are some internal and external physical features that could slowly disappear over the next decades.

There is no way to say for sure how humans will evolve over the next centuries but if you are truly interested in that, I would suggest looking up a few research papers since the changes the research papers state are fascinating.

Since there are a lot of possibilities for evolution, there also need to be some impossibilities (at least naturally). Given that I already watched a video about it and anything I say now will only be repeated, I will post a link to one of my favourite science channels on YouTube PBS Be Smart.

Since humans have sped past natural evolution, evolution will be in our hands now so to say. What happened is in the history books. What is happening is in the news. What will happen is in the stars (or technology). Only time will tell what will happen. I for one am excited to see what the future from an evolutionary standpoint will hold.