• Question: What caused humans to evolve as we did?

    Asked by drfuzzyface to Andrew, Emma, Marianne on 16 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Andrew Maynard

      Andrew Maynard answered on 12 Jun 2010:

      Hi drfuzzyface,

      That’s a question for the biologists – I’m just a poor ignorant physicist at heart! There are certainly many theories about what might have caused humans to evolve in the way that we have – and I’ll be very interested to see of any of the other Silicon Zone scientists can talk about this. But there are two things that I find incredible as you look at humans and where we’ve come from: The first is that the seemingly simple mechanisms behind evolution – including genetic mutation and natural selection – have the ability to lead to incredibly complex organisms like us. And the second is that, because we are a product of evolution, we are remarkably well suited to the world in which we live.

    • Photo: anon

      anon answered on 14 Jun 2010:

      A very fundamental and broad brush-stroke question. My suggestion is to read Jared Diamond’s book ‘Guns, Germs and Steel’ which I though excellent for questions of this scope and magnitude. It’s written so that you don’t need to know loads about the subject to get a good handle on it.

      I suppose it would be interesing to know at what point ‘humanity’ emerged. I guess you’re talking about homo sapiens as opposed to neanderthal man and homo erectus. In that case you’re talking about a time period of approx. 200-400,000 years.

      Jared Diamond’s book deals with lots of influences on our evolution that aren’t always obvious at first thought. Why did we stop hunter-gathering and become farmers? Why did cooperative societies emerge? What influence did disease have on this process?

      I look forward to your doctoral thesis on this subject…Make sure you leave room for a massive index.

    • Photo: Marianne Baker

      Marianne Baker answered on 16 Jun 2010:

      Hey drfuzzyface,

      There are so many factors that contribute to the evolution of a species.

      Are you talking about how people evolved from the common ancestor between us and other primates? Or right back to the beginning of life?!

      If from the common ancestor, then there are lots of fairly obvious things you can start to think about.
      Like why we lost most of our hair; we didn’t need it to keep warm once we started wearing clothes and were able to shelter ourselves from the elements in various ways.

      Something I always found funny was people who can pick things up with their feet. I used to joke with my ex that he was less evolved than me 😉 (because chimps, gorillas and monkeys use their feet like hands!)

      Our skeletons have become more suited to walking upright.

      But one issue is that now, childbirth is much more difficult. Animals who walk on all-fours have pelvises that are better-adapted for this; our transition to walking upright hasn’t incorporated much of a change in the pelvic structure and so for a very long time (and still now, to a lesser extent but it’s still a big problem) childbirth has been incredibly dangerous for women, with a high mortality rate and of course a huge amount of pain.

      Our bodies haven’t ‘caught up’ with all the changes that have occurred in our lifestyle.

      Evolution is a very slow process so changes that occur rapidly (we’ve talked about this elsewhere) aren’t always matched by adaptations in good time.

      The whole subject is really fascinating and it’s nice to see so many people asking about it.

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