Humans are always evolving, whether we notice it or not. These evolved traits may not be as fast or as apparent, but our traits are all effecting our evolution – such as our technological advancements, culture, and behavior.
Technology is a huge component in the how we adapt to our modern environment. With it we are able to connect with other people (with advancements in transportation), medical aid (such as vaccines), and help change our own environment to our needs (cities, roads, houses). Being able to connect with other people has allowed us to expand our social and language skills, not only that it has allowed us to not be confined in one region and allows us to reproduce with others – diversifying our gene pool. But with that comes a risk of spreading diseases in which natural selection would change our gene frequencies. with medical aid, we are able to expand our lifespans and be able to combat diseases that are negatively affecting us. Not only that this prevents these diseases from sprouting in the first place (such as with the creation of vaccines). But these medical advancements also help improve the quality of our daily lives as well – for example the creation of aspirin (reducing pain) and heart medication (such as to treat high blood pressure).
Culture and societal views are also a factor in affecting our evolution (which I thought was very interesting) – especially our gene flow. These factors (language, ideologies) can restrict our gene pool because of misunderstandings or tensions. This can reduce the chances of reproduction with the group of people/individuals and decrease the transfer of alleles from one population to another.
Our behavior also affects our evolution by affecting our bodies. The way we behave can determine which traits are kept and which aren’t. For example, relying on our brains for the complex interactions and problem-solving skills that we have has increased our brain to the size that it is now. These skills have allowed us to change our environments to our liking and advance technologically. Another example is our ability to walk on two legs. Bipedalism has affected the arch of our feet as well has how our spinal cord attaches to our skull. Because these traits have aided us in the environment that we are in, it has stayed with us.
Technology, culture/society, and behavior not only affect our evolution, but also interact with each other as well to do so. These three factors have affected the way we live our daily lives and our rates of survival in certain situations. This has determined which traits were kept and which were lost. But not only as a whole (human race) but in populations as well. We all are evolving but not necessarily at the same or in the same way. We are diverse in our environments, culture, and behavior – all affecting who we reproduce with, what kind of diseases we are exposed to, and how our daily lives affect the states of our bodies.
Hello!
I completely agree with how technology is, if not, the biggest component in our modern day environment and effects how we are evolving. It is honestly crazy to think about the first type of social interactions compared to how we can connect any time, anywhere, with anyone now. I like how the use of technology has opened many people up about diversity. Obviously, before groups were isolated, had very narrow small brains to think and interact, and now we are able to gain knowledge of how people live in different places and understand why. In my blog post, I also talked about cultural evoltuion and how that really does link to so many things in boiololgical evoltuion as well, for instance, people’s views on antibtiocs or things like that. There can be certain beliefs that lead us to a sort of natural selection idea. All these aspects are very crucial with how they affect our daily lives.