Throughout this course, there has been a common theme talked about week after week. This theme is evolution, and every week evolution has been brought back into the picture, and connected to the course as a whole. This course has shown that although what some may consider surprising, humans are still continuing to evolve over time. As people continue to mate, humans become more genetically diverse, and as technology becomes more advanced over time our world changes and adapts to that too.
The main evolutional traits that can be readily seen today and are more apparent than others are the cultural and behavioral ones. One of the biggest cultural traits is the increased use of technology over the past decade. We now have any type of information we would like to access at the click of a button. This also means that a lot of people are very connected to their devices. This has changed the way we choose to interact with people, and social media has affected societies mental health overall. People now a days will not grow up and know what it is like to not have a technological tether.
There are also biological changes that are seen too and causing humans to evolve. One that really piqued my interest was from the Discover Magazine in the article tilted, “Taming the New Frontiers in Gene Editing” in here CRISPR-Cas9 is talked about and how it can be used to “knock out,” or disrupt, particular genes and then see what changes in the organism” (Discover). Scientists are also able to but in the removed genes with a different set of sequences. This is very interesting, as instead of waiting generations for certain features to be seen through evolution, scientists are just able to make this happen if desired. But this is also somewhat alarming, as evolution has allowed us to look back and have a somewhat clear and concise history as to how and why we have evolved to our current state. If this starts to happen evolution and changes seen in humans would no longer be organic, or in the nature that evolution is usually seen in. Not only this, but we may completely erase things that some parts of society do not like, and this could be problematic and also have everyone becoming virtually the same over time.
One interesting one to think about is environmental evolution and how over time we will be seeing more of this because of on going issues involving the environment that are plaguing the world. The way that the Earth has been treated overtime has made it so that any living being on Earth continuously has to adapt to these disastrous effects. Over time, adaptation will occur a lot more and it will be able to be seen later down the line in future human beings as climate change worsens and we are forced to adapt.
I grew up in a bit of a transitional generation with technology. People didn’t really get cell phones until high school and they definitely weren’t smartphones. I was a teenager when Facebook became a thing if that is any indicator of how old I am. Even growing up like that makes it difficult to imagine living without a tether and I’m sure it is even more difficult for those who had smartphones starting in childhood. Social media and other technology are having a huge impact on our evolution.
Gene editing is such an interesting topic, I’m glad you brought it up! It is crazy to think about how much control we have over genetics and how much more we will eventually have as technology advances. You bring up a good point that we can erase some parts of society “do not like”. That is a very complicated issue. Who is deciding what society doesn’t like? History shows there are patterns of genocides and other horrific forced sterilizations of individuals. It is so scary to think about the power that this sort of thing can give people. Basically power given to those with the money to spread their opinion.
Hi Jenna!
I also think its very important to consider the negative evolutionary changes we have made as humans. As you said, pollution and climate change directly correlates with us humans, and is mainly due to humans negligence of the world around us. Back in our evolutionary chain, we would work with the earth in order to survive. Now, we take from the earth as if it is ours for the taking. We pollute the waters with plastic (our invention), destroy forests for our homes and paper, and destroy the atmosphere with our use of greenhouse gases. Even though inventions such as the car and plastic has advance humans ease of life, it has without a doubt hindered more than it has helped.
Hello Jenna! I enjoyed reading your perspective on the ways in which human beings are continuing to evolve every day. I agree that the most observable of our evolving traits are in our culture and behavior. The tendency of people to be tethered to their devices these days is most certainly having an effect on our culture and the way that we interact with each other. I feel as though many people often hide behind their devices when they are put in awkward situations. If you walk into any classroom at Michigan State on the very first day you do not see people introducing themselves to each other and talking. Everyone is lost in their cell phone because social interactions with new people can be very anxiety-inducing. I believe that if we continue to down this road of favoring technological interactions over in-person interactions we will soon only interact through technological interfaces.
Hi Jenna!
I found your post to be very interesting as you went into great detail on the changes being seen in modern humans which lead us to understand that evolution is an ongoing process. I believe that your specific point regarding the currently changing environment will lead humans to evolve in certain ways to combat these natural influences. This is something which has been seen to occur throughout many stages of our ancestors’ evolutionary path, with severely cold temperatures causing distinct characteristics in certain species in the past. However, with our current climate changing so rapidly, it is interesting to consider whether or not humans will be able to adapt to these changes at the necessary heightened pace. The adaptability of species has been seen multitudinous times through archaeological remains, yet these adaptations eventually render the previous species unfit, which makes the future of modern humans dubious.
Hello Jenna!
I also talked about how technology is affecting humans now a days and believe it is such a huge factor in development with social aspects. I babysit two kids and they both have iPads, phones, and play video games a lot. The youngest is nine and does all three of those and it is just kind of making me think what age he will allow his child/children to get a phone. I did not write a lot about the biological aspects so reading about your post in regards to scientists being able to remove genes and putting them in a different sequence was super interesting. I think it is actually crazy how far we have all come along and is crazy that instead of waiting generations they are trying to figure out how things will be in the future currently. Overall, this was a great read and I learned a lot!
Hi Jenna!
I agree that the main evolutional traits now are caused from the rise in technology. I also focused my blog on the idea that technology is causing us to evolve. I focused on the idea that more groups of people from across the world can meet and result in creating a more diverse population. I liked how you highlighted that social media affects societies mental health. I also like how you explained the article “Taming the New Frontiers in Gene Editing”. I agree that this is extremely interesting, but also scary. Like what you stated, with evolution we can see concise history. Yet, with scientists being able to change this, the history lines can become confusing and nonorganic. I also agree with the points you made about the environmental evolution. Eventually, we may not have easy access to crops, food, and water.