Humans Are Still Evolving
But what are we becoming?
When we take a step back and look at humanity from both evolutionary and anthropomorphic perspectives, the question of how we as humans are continuing to evolve as a species has complicated answers. Scientists tell us that our bodies are certainly evolving physically: our brains are 10 percent smaller (think efficient, not dumb) than they were 30,000 years ago. Our organs are larger than they were in previous ages of human existence and the practicality of wisdom teeth, the appendix and other parts has faded as we have evolved.
In terms of populations and geography, cities continue to draw people to more urban areas for access to jobs and education, as populations decrease in rural areas. In 2016, the World Health Organization released a study showing that 54 percent of the world’s population lived in urban areas as of 2015. The same report estimated that number to increase by 9.2 percent between 2015 and 2020 and to increase another 7.2 percent between 2020 and 2025. For the mathematically challenged, that’s a 16.4 percent increase over a 10 year time period that would have more than 70 percent of the world population living in urban areas by the year 2020. For some perspective, at the beginning of the twentieth century, only 10 percent of the population lived in urban areas.
Other notables: fertility rates have dropped world wide; some studies show that mean IQ and life expectancy increase the further north you are from the equator; global warming is already adversely affecting a disproportionate number of people who live closest to the equator; over the last 50 years, the world’s population has risen nearly 150% from about 3 billion to 7.3 billion. And we are certainly not finished.
Evolution as Ongoing Change
“It is a common misunderstanding that evolution took place a long time ago, and that to understand ourselves we must look back to the hunter-gatherer days of humans,” says Dr. Virpi Lummaa from the University of Sheffield’s department of animal and plant sciences (1).
However, we know that we are continuing to evolve physically, intellectually and culturally, though it is admittedly difficult to know what we are collectively becoming. The big picture is hard to see when you’re just a single pixel in the frame. Current academics and scientists are offering some predictions, however.
According to Stanford classics Professor Ian Morris in Foragers, Farmers, and Fossil Fuels: How Human Values Evolve, the evolution of humans has always followed our shared evolution of values, specifically our value of energy: how to capture energy, keep it, use it and generate more of it. Morris predicts that our culture and way of life will continue to revolve around energy.
Theoretical physicist Steven Hawking believes humanity has entered an era that will bring us the power to change and improve our DNA, calling this new part of human evolution the self-designed evolution. The invention of tools like the Internet that allow us to share massive amounts of information with one another quickly and comprehensively will drive this phase of our evolution as humans.
But Aren’t We Going to Hell in a Hand-basket?
In the current state and time of the world, it is easy to take a cynical view of human evolution. In the US, the elections of Barack Obama and Donald Trump have prompted people across political parties to declare that “the end times are near.” What began as jokes about building doomsday prep bunkers to protect us from “them” have become real plans for some.
Near constant consumption of media has certainly driven these dire predictions and fears of our collective future. However, looking beyond today’s political squabbles in the world (and political squabbles seem to permeate humanity’s history), the future looks more neutral. More of a medium beige than blackest black or whitest white.
A Multitude of Factors
It may seem that there will be one tool or substance that the human race will need to survive, thrive and evolve — be it energy, access to information or an underground bunker to protect us from the enemy. But, of course, our evolution and survival as a species is dependent on many factors instead of a single event or technological development.
There are an infinite number of versions of possibilities that could influence how we evolve. Attempting to predict how humans will evolve in the future is actually impossible. Evolution is an action, not a state of being. Humans will adapt, driven by what they will be required to do to survive. It’s gotten us this far, after all.
