Ask A Genius 1171: Mr. Evolution Via Natural Selection
Author(s): Rick Rosner and Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2024/11/12
*Interview conducted in October-November, 2024.*
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: By the way, what would the surface area of the Earth be if it were laid out flat in two dimensions?
Rick Rosner: The Earth’s total surface area is roughly 200 million square miles, with land making up about 50 million square miles.
Jacobsen: That seems close enough. Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that it’s in the ballpark. That’s a massive experimental ground for evolutionary change—testing what works and what doesn’t.
Humans evolved as a type of “machine” in that environment. We’ve been subjected to nature’s research and development—evolution by natural selection and other mechanisms—for a long time.
Nature’s R&D is a powerful concept. Evolution shapes us through countless pressures, from environmental factors to interactions with other species. Even Bakunin wrote about this—though not directly on evolution, he touched on themes related to nature and adaptation. If you took a square with 1,000 miles on each side, it would roughly represent the total land area of Earth.
All of this shows how complex and multi-dimensional the pressures on us have been—pressures from our environment, other species, and even within our own species, pushing us to adapt in different ways.
Eye color, height, hair color—those are the surface-level traits. But they’re still part of change. The vast amount of minute pressures on us, including those affecting our immune systems, means that becoming a different species would require significant differentiation across numerous factors, many of which we don’t have a systematic catalog for.
But there’s currently no substantial environmental pressure pushing us towards significant differentiation. You could argue for something like societal stability as an influence, since that aids productivity. People now live on coasts and in varied environments.
Cultural evolution is happening much faster than biological evolution, so evolutionary changes can’t keep pace. We see racial differences, which are relatively superficial adaptations. For instance, people who move north may have lighter skin due to lower melanin levels, while those who stay near the equator maintain darker skin. But even those changes are relatively minor.
The focus on such changes tends to reflect cultural biases. Some societies may emphasize cognitive skills, like memorization or numerical abilities, over physical traits. But even those are relatively simple adaptations.
Even those traits have multiple genetic dimensions, it involves which genes need to be upregulated or downregulated, often through epigenetic mechanisms. These subtle variations show just how little we have truly explored. It feels as though we aren’t even at the tip of the iceberg yet.
Rosner: Once our brains grew larger, changes accelerated so rapidly that further biological evolution couldn’t keep up. Our development essentially bypassed the typical evolutionary timeline. Our physical traits also adapted—our genitals grew larger, women developed prominent breasts to attract male attention as much from the front as from the back. We lost body hair because once clothing was invented, there was no longer pressure to maintain fur. Preferences for less hairy partners could reflect a bias towards neoteny, as humans are drawn to youthful features like big eyes, round faces, and minimal body hair.
That makes sense. The preference for youthful traits could be linked to health and fertility indicators. People are naturally less inclined to seek older mates, as youth is associated with reproductive health. But beyond that, not much else underwent drastic change.
We adapted for better upright walking, though it came with physical problems that we still face today. But when it comes to phones and modern technology, they mimic the types of information we evolved to seek.
Phones provide stimulation that taps into our evolved desires for information, social interaction, and novelty. But we need to think about how this affects us long-term. We know we’re likely to become less intelligent compared to our devices, but there are probably aspects of this that we haven’t fully considered.
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