Evolution is one of the few things in this world that has been going on for hundreds of thousands of years and will continue to do so for years to come. Although the concept of evolution may be hard for some people to grasp on to because it does not happen over night, it is obvious now that me and all my peers have taken this class, that it will continue to happen slowly over many many years. Some might say that there is not much further humans can go when it comes to biological evolution, but one thing is for sure, that behavioral, environmental, and cultural evolution happens almost every day. Think about how different it is culturally and behaviorally than it was in even the early 2000s. In the grand scheme of human evolution, 19 years is nothing, and it is clear that so much has changed since then.
In my opinion, cultural evolution is the one branch that i believe changes the fastest and the most in the shortest amount of time. Truly, all it takes is one event or story to change how something is perceived culturally among a community. For example, social media is much more prominent and important in culture than it was even 5 years ago. Today, there are “positions” such as social media influencers and youtubers that post content in place for a regular 9-5 job, and can actually get paid a lot of money. 5 years ago, being a social media infuencer for money was not even a thing, let alone a job. The presence and importance of social media can not be overstated. Another thing that has popped up recently is the E-gaming community. Nowadays people that play video games have the opportunity to live stream themselves playing video games, and can even be sponsored and accept donations. Additionally, if you are good, you can even compete in tournaments with cash prizes. This was not even a thing 2-3 years ago, and its growth in culture is insane.
Biologically, some obvious traits or characteristics that we can see that are evolving are resistance. Every year, with the growing prevalence and overuse of antibiotics, human bodies are becoming more and more resistant to treatment, which makes sicknesses and illnesses much harder to treat and diagnose. The desire for quick and easy treatment is the main engine for this scary problem that is going on. In public health terms, this is a terrible thing that our bodies are evolving to be more resistant, but currently, there is not much to my knowledge that we can do about it. On a case by case basis, it is incredibly difficult to say no to a parent with a sick child asking for antibiotics and no other solutions.
These examples of cultural and biological evolution that have become more prevalent in today’s society can be seen as a good and a bad thing, depending on which one you are talking about and who you are asking, but one thing is for sure, evolution of the human body and the human race is not going to stop any time soon.
Hey Jack! I also wrote about the ways we have evolved in regard to culture and biology. For the evolution of biological traits, I wrote about similar topics, such as antibiotics and growing resistance. It is very interesting, albeit a bit terrifying, that cells can reproduce and mutate at rapid speeds, and thus evolve. It can make it tricky to have a long lasting cure or medicine to relieve symptoms because of the ability of these viruses and our bodies to change rapidly. I also liked the way you described the evolution of cultural traits in regard to social media. I thought about this idea in a different way, but I found the connection to social media really interesting. Social media has a lot of power and influence in our society and the fact that 5 to 10 years ago, every form of this has either changed dramatically or did not exist then, is almost unfathomable. Gaming, and with that, streaming, is also interesting in how sparse this field was until incredibly recently. Because these both play a large role in our society and, like you said, culture changes more rapidly than basically anything else, it is fascinating to think of culture evolving this way.