
I am Homo sapiens, and so are you
Why we should see ourselves as the great apes that we are
As a medical researcher, when trying to figure out a disease, we are like a detective trying to get into the mind of a criminal on the run to understand his or her motivation. Why would a cell do this? Why would a virus do that? The answer is always: In order for its lineage to survive, it has adapted to its environment. It is able to do so because it carries DNA (or RNA) that can change slightly upon each replication. If the change leads to a favorable adaptation, it is retained, if it leads to an unfavorable change, it will be out-competed. Evolution is what allows adaptation in response to changing circumstances.
The same goes when looking at entire organisms, instead of viruses or cells. We may not think that evolution is much at play in our day to day life. Certainly, we are not facing many of the challenges our prehistoric ancestors were. But we forget that we are the product of our species after 300.000 odd years of natural selection. Yes you, with your poorly functioning eyes and ears, your less than average strength and stamina. You, who is not very good at swimming or flying, can’t outrun a cheetah or even efficiently climb a tree, you are apparently the best solution to the given situation. And as far as species go, ours has been extremely successful. Attributable mainly to our excessively large brains, our species has gone from being one of a number of hominini among many other big mammals, to be the one and only dominating species on this planet we call earth.
We have only been modern humans for a fraction of our time on earth.
Remember though, that the number of years we have been living post-agricultural revolution, which is when we decided to stop living as hunter gatherers and started farming, has been only a fraction compared to our time on earth. The number of years spent as ‘modern’ (meaning, post-industrial revolution) even less. Evolution is a slow process. Hence, our selection and refinement as Homo sapiens, has been based mainly on our way of life as hunter gatherers, not as desk-dwelling, Netflix-bingeing, over-eaters. Which is why our bodies can survive for a long time without food, why we have a ‘fight-or-flight’ response in critical situations, why we have problems inhibiting ourselves when placed in front of a bag of high glucose treats, and why we typically want our men to be powerful and strong, and our women to be caring and nurturing.
We live in an individualistic society, but a lot of our deepest wants and needs are communal. Our most basic instincts; to find a mate, reproduce, and protect our kin, are to benefit the survival of our kind. In the modern world, our genetics cannot change as quickly as our surroundings can. Which could contribute to some of the disconnect between our inner selves and the person we project to be in our daily life, the sophisticated person we are on the outside, and the untamed animal we are hiding within.
We could stand to look at ourselves in more of an evolutionary light. To look at tendencies within ourselves and see them for the quirky remnants of our scavenging forefathers, or even the primal instincts of our common ancestor. And look at others not as different races, or different nationalities, but as members of our own species. After all, we are all products of natural selection, a bunch of great apes, riding a rock, hurtling through space.

