As an anthropology major one question or subject that people bring up to me the most is the question of evolution occurring today ... is it or is it not?
Just recently I had someone try their hardest to convince me that evolution cannot be real because if it was true then we would see evolution occurring today. Well, this is just a silly statement. The earth is 4.5 billion years old, evolution cannot simply stop – what an anthropocentric idea.
As John Morley a British politician, writer and newspaper editor almost a century ago said, “Evolution is not a force but a process. Not a cause but a law.”
A large portion of human evolution has been, well, a human process. This does not mean that we are undermining the natural process of things, but throughout the entire history of human evolution, most frontal lobe developments can be attributed to human inventions.
We have not been forcing this, but enthusiastically trotting along. We made tools, which lead to the evolution of labor specialization and culture. Cultures lead us to technological advances.
Computer technology is rapidly rewiring our brains. For example, today most people don’t have excellent or innate wildlife survival skills compared to even a thousand years ago. And now, we have to remember less and less information such as a simple phone number, allowing room and time for other knowledge and even more creative inventions that change the way humans live.
All of these are signs of evolution; human induced, yes, compared to what one normally thinks about upon hearing natural selection, but evolution at its best and more rapid than ever.
The most obvious sign of evolution still occurring, however, is modern medicine ... we’re creating powerful diseases and microbes because of our innovative medicines. Antibacterial soap is an excellent example as described by the Center of Disease Control and Prevention website on the effects of overusing antibacterial products and antibiotics. (image from CDC)
If certain medicines and vaccines weren’t available today natural selection would have had the better of many people that survived only because of the medicine. Look at birth control.
The Pill, introduced in the 60s offered a completely revolutionized role for women. No longer was she expected to be pregnant at a young age, but women could take the Pill, go to college, and do virtually everything that held her back from being truly equal to man.
This has opened up for an entirely different gene pool and way of life.
As Terry Pratchett, an English writer said, “Most species do their own evolving, making it up as they go along, which is the way Nature intended.”
