Humans will continue to evolve until the extinction of our species. The point of evolution is to be perfectly suited and most efficient for our current environment. Our environment is constantly changing so we change along with it. The goal is perfection and perfection is unachievable.
As a social work major, behavioral and cultural evolution holds most of my interest. Cultural evolution is fast. We can witness the change of a cultural standard or expectation just in our own lifetimes. The culture of sexuality is a good example of this. The generation of my grandparents had a vastly different take on sexuality compared to my generation and even my parents. The concept of transgender is becoming more and more widely accepted. I don’t think my grandma even considered that a thing when she was growing up never having dealt with it personally. Sexuality is regarded more as a fluid thing than black/white, hetero/homo. Heterosexuality is not the compulsory norm it once was.
Something we’ve talked about several times in past lectures is how teeth have evolved over time. This is still happening today as I’m sure most people have heard of wisdom teeth disappearing. Wisdom teeth are considered vestigial organs which means they are an organ we no longer need. The appendix is another example of this. Our teeth have adapted to our diets all throughout history. An earlier lecture mentioned that a type of hominin had large back teeth probably due to eating nuts and other similar hard foods. We don’t crack nuts with our teeth anymore, we have the tools for this instead. Wisdom teeth don’t fit in our mouths due to human’s jaws getting smaller over time as well.
Our environment is going to have a huge impact on our evolution in the coming years. With global warming, things are going to change drastically. An article I found discusses the effect of climate change on human evolution. One thing they mention is that mosquitoes thrive in warmer climates. More mosquitoes means more possibility of disease being spread by them. An increase in malaria and other such conditions can affect how the human immune system creates immunities. As temperatures rise our diets can also change. Global warming can make it difficult or even impossible to grow some crops, changing the availability of food. Like earlier with the teeth example, our diets change our biological evolution. The article brings up the microbes in our gut and how our diets in turn change the composition of those. A concept I hadn’t heard before was described in the article that I found very interesting. Variety in race will reduce because of migration. Things like rising waters will force people of different ethnicity together and biracial relationships will become more common. What is crazy is that along with rising waters, other areas will struggle with drought causing migration also. This is an example of gene flow. In theory, this could lead to the abolishment of racism because everyone will become similar.
Sources: https://scienceline.org/2007/02/ask-cooper-wisdomteeth/
https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/science/climate-change-could-affect-human-evolution-here-s-how-ncna907276
Hi Liz! I have definitely noticed how wisdom teeth have been disappearing. I have way more knowledge about the concept of why wisdom teeth are disappearing after learning about past species in our lectures using large back molars to break nuts. This is a trait that we do not need anymore, and if the wisdom teeth do come in, we must get them removed and its painful in the mouth. But it is amazing to see how much we are changing just based on the foods we eat, and this is not a surprise because food is our source that makes us evolve and continue to reproduce.
I never thought about how with the increase I’m warm climates, mosquitoes we come about. We have had so many diseases in the past due to mosquitoes carrying certain diseases with them and acting as a vector to transfer the disease. It is a scary thought to think about, especially because the world is warming up.
Hi! I really loved your post. I think your take on cultural evolution is super interesting. I agree that social norms and societal standards are able to evolve so quickly in an amazing way. I have a hard time talking with older relatives about different sexualities or other sensitive topics in society because our point of views is so different. There is a huge difference between discussing homosexuality or gender fluidity with people my age than discussing it with individuals that were born in a different generation; we are pretty much living in completely different societies. This makes it hard when it comes to trying to change the way our country’s laws are and it makes it increase this divide between all the different generations that are residing in our society.