“Have we as a species, peaked in evolution because of what we have created?” Talking Monkeys “Hey! Ahmed! Check this out!” said Mustafa excitedly. “Wow!” said Ahmed, with a quizzical look…..”What is it?” “It’s my latest invention; it’s for moving stuff about. I think I’m going to call it ‘The wheel’” replied Mustafa with jubilant pride. “Ahh…Love it mate…I’ll trade you two camels for it?” said Ahmed….And so 5500 years ago in Mesopotamia the first wheel rolled into existence. I should imagine people at that time considered themselves to be at the pinnacle of humanity. I doubt any of them could have imagined just what the human race was truly capable of, especially as genetics and evolution had yet to be discovered. Modern Human Beings have only been on Earth for about 200,000 years, which, in the grand scheme of things is a blip on a timeline that extends back billions of years, however they have come a long way and achieved incredible feats of success for such a young species. The dinosaurs were around for millions of years and they never managed to knock out a wheel or an XBox 360. In fact they couldn’t even handle a lousy asteroid hitting the Earth. Had they been so ‘evolutionarily’ brilliant they would have invented the layer system to survive the subsequent ice age! Human Beings have come a considerable way since their earliest ancestors and the split from chimpanzees several million years ago (genetically we are 98% chimpanzee!). In the past few 100,000 years our brains have developed at an exponential rate. Our brains contain 100 billion neurons at birth; hence babies have such proportionally larger heads to their bodies. Due to this impressive expansion of intellect we as a species have made huge leaps forward in technology, medicine and science allowing us to adapt the environment around us, rather than the environment around us causing adaptations in us to survive, at least not on any major level of physical change. Fundamentally apart from minor features and skin colour Humans are pretty much the same worldwide. It would be easy to claim we are at the peak of evolution when we are able to put people on the Moon, create clones like Dolly the sheep, build sky scraper riddled cities, split the atom and even have a complete record of the human genome (the genetic blueprint of a human being). We can all sit back and bask in a smug glow of success in all that we have achieved. Especially as the technological advances of today were unthinkable fifty years ago. Yet it would seem we are planting our evolutionary flag a little too early. We have yet to create a solution to famine, genocide, global warming or indeed create ‘world peace’. Only very recently CERN announced the discovery of neutrinos traveling faster than the speed of light. If this proves to be correct it will totally rewrite science as we know it, especially the laws of physics. Could anyone ever have imagined Einstein was wrong? This is also begs the question what else have we got wrong? All our current scientific and technological successes have stemmed from the fundamental understanding that Einstein’s three laws are implicitly correct. This revelation could open the door to a whole new future of creative genius. All our current claims of success would pale into insignificance compared to what could be created by a new understanding of the science of the physical world. Considering evolution moves at a snail’s pace over millennia and we have only been here a hairs breadth of time, it would be naïve and arrogant to think we have reached the summit of the evolutionary mountain. Currently I would say we are at Base camp one, sat rosy cheeked and full of zeal in the knowledge we have come a long way over difficult and challenging terrain. However, our view of the distant peak is obscured and a long way off with no clear view of the route ahead. In evolutionary terms who can know what that route will hold? I would like to think it will be truly incredible. With us as a species overcoming all the social and ecological problems we are facing today, (ironically caused mostly by our so called creative successes), to reach a point where we can achieve no more, certainly on this planet at least. Then we can confidently make the claim that we have reached perfection in the face of evolution.
Posted on: Fri, 26 Jul 2013 18:30:56 +0000
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