Courtesy: National Geographic
Professor Steve Jones, you have glued up my hopes for the human race, at least the ones I had this morning. And I hope you feel a little bit bad about that.
Professor Jones is a geneticist at the University College of London, who thinks humanity is about as evolved as it's going to get. After reading reports of the brutal Weimaresque crowds the McCain/Palin campaign is now attracting, I consider this bad news for everyone.
On the mixed-blessings side, however, it seems that dangerous times and low-rent practices are responsible for evolutionary change. Since we now live past the age of 25, natural selection has done about all it can for us. Farming has made humans about 10,000 times more common as a species, and globalization has done away with inbreeding. However you might feel about cousin-to-cousin, and even more unsavory marriages, their scarcity means we don't have the mutation mechanisms that could click us up the evolutionary ladder.
Professor Jones is a geneticist at the University College of London, who thinks humanity is about as evolved as it's going to get. After reading reports of the brutal Weimaresque crowds the McCain/Palin campaign is now attracting, I consider this bad news for everyone.
On the mixed-blessings side, however, it seems that dangerous times and low-rent practices are responsible for evolutionary change. Since we now live past the age of 25, natural selection has done about all it can for us. Farming has made humans about 10,000 times more common as a species, and globalization has done away with inbreeding. However you might feel about cousin-to-cousin, and even more unsavory marriages, their scarcity means we don't have the mutation mechanisms that could click us up the evolutionary ladder.
To cheer myself up, I remember that I've never subscribed to the F.R. Leavis idea about our collective selves. Crudely put, Leavis postulated what he called The Unchanging Human Heart, an idea that's still spooking around today. It's the mistaken I'd Like to Give The World A Coke outlook greatly responsible for conditions we're all suffering through now. It's a view unable to comprehend that some people might actively hate Coke. Those people might be the ancient Romans, for example, whose fave flavor was a spoiled-fish condiment they poured over everything like ketchup. And knowing that much, we can surmise the Romans would probably think Coke tasted like ass.
However, with an iron-clad sense of right, and convinced that the Iraqis would love WalMart if they got the chance, we've waded into a rats-nest war. We've dragged our ghastly fast food all over the globe, believing every national cuisine was a make-do until the Big Mac arrived. We've set up democratic elections for unprepared nations that deteriorated precipitously into thug-rule. Witness Russia, now back and badder than ever.
But factually, history tells us that we do change, if not physically, then intellectually. One glance at Wilma (pix shown above), ought to tell us that. Wilma is a reconstruction of a Neanderthal female, done by the National Geographic, based on Neanderthal skeletons coupled with computer calculations.
While we can see that Wilma didn't use a moisturizer, what we can't see is how smart she was, what her desires were, or if she had dreams of her future. And, not knowing this, we don't know if the Neanderthal extinction was a good thing or not. There is a school of thought that Neanderthals might have been smarter and more humane than the homicidal hominid who eventually evolved into homo sapiens. Us, in other words. Another notion is that the species managed to interbreed, so that we're all a little Neanderthal now.
Reading how a man screamed "Kill him!"during Palin's anti-Obama speech, I'm thinking about the snaky twists and turns history takes. And doing that, I'm wondering about Romans, Russians and Neanderthals. And I'm telling myself that humanity has changed direction many times before.
And I'm telling myself that Professor Jones can go screw himself.
We can still climb a bit higher.
However, with an iron-clad sense of right, and convinced that the Iraqis would love WalMart if they got the chance, we've waded into a rats-nest war. We've dragged our ghastly fast food all over the globe, believing every national cuisine was a make-do until the Big Mac arrived. We've set up democratic elections for unprepared nations that deteriorated precipitously into thug-rule. Witness Russia, now back and badder than ever.
But factually, history tells us that we do change, if not physically, then intellectually. One glance at Wilma (pix shown above), ought to tell us that. Wilma is a reconstruction of a Neanderthal female, done by the National Geographic, based on Neanderthal skeletons coupled with computer calculations.
While we can see that Wilma didn't use a moisturizer, what we can't see is how smart she was, what her desires were, or if she had dreams of her future. And, not knowing this, we don't know if the Neanderthal extinction was a good thing or not. There is a school of thought that Neanderthals might have been smarter and more humane than the homicidal hominid who eventually evolved into homo sapiens. Us, in other words. Another notion is that the species managed to interbreed, so that we're all a little Neanderthal now.
Reading how a man screamed "Kill him!"during Palin's anti-Obama speech, I'm thinking about the snaky twists and turns history takes. And doing that, I'm wondering about Romans, Russians and Neanderthals. And I'm telling myself that humanity has changed direction many times before.
And I'm telling myself that Professor Jones can go screw himself.
We can still climb a bit higher.
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