The Trouble with Human Evolution: Part Two

When it comes to the standard model of how modern humans evolved from our primate ancestors, be prepared to ask the tough questions and see if they get answered to your satisfaction. Questions like can you really go from primates to what makes you, the reader, you, via natural selection in 6 to 7 million years. So, if you think the standard model is unlikely, and you reject any supernatural explanation that leaves but two alternatives: artificial selection or we’re simulated beings.

Modern humans have evolved over the past six to seven million years a number of traits that make us, Homo sapiens, a very unique species indeed. Here are some more of them.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

A VOCAL LANGUAGE

* Is an anomaly in that only humans vocalise not only everyday, routine, survival ‘language’ (all manner of animals do that) but abstract concepts (which no other animals do).

* A vocal or spoken language required to communicate abstract ideas, as apart from just making sounds, requires an evolutionary rearrangement of the relevant internal organs required; lips, teeth, tongue, hard and soft palate, larynx, etc.

C - Cats meow, lions roar, but their meow (or the lion’s roar) has nothing to do with communicating abstract concepts like basic mathematics.

TOOL USE

* Is an anomaly in that while a few other animals can make and use tools, that relative degree of sophistication relative to what humans have achieved is akin to comparing the survival skills of a day-old infant with that of an adult.

* Tool use requires an evolutionary rearrangement of the finger-hand-wrist-arm-shoulder configuration, as well as that extra-large brain thingy to figure out that a tool is required, what resources are required to make that tool, and how to manufacture the necessary implement from those resources. A lot of just-so conditions have to be met to accommodate even the most basic of tool technologies. 

* Tool use could ultimately prove our undoing as tool use, or technology, is a double-edged sword. A gun can put food on your table; it can also exterminate humans.

C - Cats are not adapted at using tools. If they could use a can opener and a spoon they could get their own meals! That would suit me just fine, but alas.

BREEDS or ETHNIC/RACIAL DISTINCTIONS

* Are anomalous in that when taking into consideration the rest of the animal and plant kingdom, breeds (groupings that look different but can still breed and produce non-sterile offspring) tend to be associated with artificial, not natural selection. Are human breeds therefore a product of artificial selection, and if so, by whom? 

* Human breeds cannot be adequately explained in the just 70,000 or some odd years since that one unique racial type of Homo sapiens migrated out of Africa and spread throughout the globe diverging into numerous racial types. Even if there were several migrations out of Africa, a wave of migrations, all those migrant waves were of one race or breed. The 70,000 year time period is very short, the blink of an eye in evolutionary terms, to achieve this uniqueness of going from a local African uni-race to a multiracial global society. Further, the evolutionary (survival of the fittest) advantage or reason(s) for ethnic distinctions are lacking any rational natural explanation, apart from in some selected races, skin colour.

C - Your standard pussycat comes in various breeds. That’s artificial selection at work, albeit the whodunit in this case is well known.

UNIQUE FACIAL FEATURES

* Are a relatively human anomaly. Apart from identical twins, no two humans from the neck up look the same, and thus this is how we tell human identities, once seen, apart. We tend to tell animals of the same species or breed (if applicable) apart by size, colour, skin/fur patterns, abnormalities, or else we don’t distinguish who’s who at all. To me, all magpie faces look the same. The question is, why humans have unique facial features and not the rest of the animal kingdom?

C - If you took 100 pure short-hair black cats, same size, same sex, same eye colour, could you tell them apart by looking at just their face? I doubt if I could.

THE WHITES-OF-YOUR-EYES

* Are anomalous in that apparently no other animal show them, and based on all the animals and birds I see around my local environment, that certainly seems to be the case.  So why do we show the whites-of-our-eyes? There would appear to be no rhyme or reason for this natural human evolutionary (if it was a natural selection) trait. The whites-of-our-eyes: how very, very odd.

C - Cats have whites-of-their-eyes, only you have to peel back the skin surrounding their eyeballs to see the whites-of-their-eyes. Looking at a standard cat, you’ll fail to see the whites-of-their-eyes.

EARLOBES

* Are anomalous in that apparently no other mammal (and certainly not any fish, amphibian, reptile or bird) have them. So why do we have them?

* Earlobes? WTF you ask? Well we all know that our earlobes serve a cultural purpose or function as a prime site as an accessory to fashion – pierced ears and earrings. However, earlobes serve no actual biological function. You could exist, survive and thrive without them. Because we alone have earlobes, and because they serve no biological purpose, they are anomalous.

* On the other hand, earlobes apparently don’t do us any harm. But, biological evolution tends to select for the positive benefit, not the neutral. Why would Mother Nature evolve them if they serve no biological purpose? WTF indeed!

C - Cats have ears; cats do not have earlobes.

RISK TAKING

* Is anomalous in that if done just for the sake of doing it, serves no positive evolutionary purpose or outcome while accenting a negative one, giving oneself a ‘Darwin Award’ for eliminating yourself from further contributions to the evolution of the human species. 

* No animal will engage in any hazardous activity that doesn’t have some connection towards its own, its immediate family brood, its community or its species survival. An animal doesn’t take risks just for the sake of taking risks and just for the thrill of it all. Humans however will often engage in extreme risky activities, without any benefit to anyone, including themselves, except to perhaps remove themselves from the gene pool. Risky behaviour might include right up to and including suicide which most decidedly removes you from the gene pool. Suicide is not a trait that tends to be shared by our animal relations, and apparent exceptions, like whales stranding themselves in shallow water, have a physiological explanation. 

C - Cats are not known to take risks above and beyond the call of their feline duty, even if they do occasionally get stuck up a tree!

PRIVACY AND EMBARRASSMENT

* Is anomalous in that no animal species, outside of the human species, seems to be the slightest bit concerned with privacy (not to be confused with territoriality or personal space, rather just privacy from being observed under certain conditions or in certain situations usually of a sexual or bodily function nature). Nor do animals, unlike humans, suffer any form of embarrassment. That suggests that there is no evolutionary or survival aspect to the need for privacy or the suffering of being embarrassed. Somehow, in humans alone (but not yet in babies or infants), these concepts have been imprinted onto our collective psyche. Imprinted by whom? What is the ultimate origin and how far back does it go? Why is it so? Who knows! But the upshot is that this has to be a cultural quirk; it’s certainly not a biological one.

* There are apparently two real taboo places in human society where intruders are not welcome: the bedroom and the bathroom, or put another way, sex and bodily functions, where privacy is paramount and when violated, embarrassment ensues. The latter especially is puzzling in that bodily functions are universal. Every human has to go to the bathroom, all women have ‘that time of the month’, so why these should be embarrassments if witnessed by others is anomalous. That’s also highlighted in that sex and bodily functions are not biological events which animals find requires privacy or causes embarrassment to them if witnessed by others.

* Nudity per se doesn’t seem to be the root cause, as people seem to be way less shy of appearing nude in fairly standard social situations than when engaged in more personal bedroom/bathroom matters that require exposure.

* Embarrassment in humans can be caused by many other oops events, maybe comical, like wearing mismatched socks, maybe somewhat more serious like splitting your pants in public. But if an equivalent event happens to an animal, no such reaction comes to the fore. For example, if you stumble and fall down, piss your pants, or vomit in public, you’re embarrassed. If an animal does the equivalent, it just picks itself up and acts like nothing unusual transpired. Animals don’t blush.

C - Cats don’t care if you or another cat sees them mate or go to the litter box. They don’t suffer embarrassment and they don’t blush.

CATS

C - Its only fair to ask in regards to my feline comparison, does a cat have any anatomical or physiological or behavioural feature unique to them and only them? The surprising answer is yes. Cats purr, and the reasons why and how are still not well understood. Humans don’t purr. No other animal purrs. Their big cat relatives don’t purr, but then again lions and tigers, etc. roar, and your pet pussy cat doesn’t. So perhaps the two vocalizations are related from way back when they all had a common ancestor! But purr or roar, there appears to be no evolutionary drawbacks, just positive survival benefits like warning off rival lions (my roar is louder than your roar) or mother/kitten bonding in cats.

CONCLUSIONS

* There are four possible explanations for the various anomalies associated with the existence of the modern human species relative to our alleged ancestral stock which goes right back to the chimpanzees. In descending order of probability, IMHO, there’s the simulated universe scenario inhabited by us as virtual entities (created by ‘persons’ or things unknown and probably forever unknowable); there’s artificial selection (the ancient astronaut theory); there’s natural selection (the Darwinian biological evolution concept); and way, way last, by a wide, wide margin, there’s supernatural creation (the dust-and-rib theory and variations thereof).

* Why this ordering of probabilities? There are many paths to a simulated universe, from wetware to software, via extraterrestrials or maybe a future ‘human’ society, that it borders on the near inevitable. There’s but one pathway to the artificial selection scenario, though that too is just about inevitable. There are many issues to be had with natural selection as this essay demonstrates, though that’s the standard model. Lastly, the concept of an all-perfect supernatural deity who would screw up things so royally is laughable – as is the concept of a supernatural deity in the first place.

* The interesting bit is that a virtual reality simulation could easily be a simulation of an ‘ancient astronaut’ generated artificial selection, or Darwinian natural selection, or even a supernatural creator deity! Truth be known, only the simulated universe scenario makes any real sense, IMHO, because therein, “anything goes”, and when it comes to the problems with human evolution, one needs an “anything goes” explanation.

The Uniqueness of a Human Being: Part Two

There’s just something really special about Homo sapiens relative to all the other animal and plant life forms we share Planet Earth with. Well actually every life form is special in one way or another*, but still humans stand out from the crowd. Many people will attribute that to the alleged ‘fact’ that we were created in God’s image, although IMHO the concept of a supreme, supernatural creator being carries so much dead (philosophical baggage) weight as to have as close to zero credibility as makes no odds. Therefore, I suggest something’s screwy somewhere.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

That brings up some interesting observations. Privacy (which is not the same thing as having your own personal space or your own territory) and embarrassment seems to have no obvious evolutionary advantage. That’s obviously the case because such concepts are not shared by any other animal life form currently on Earth, and that probably equates to past animal life forms as well. Did T-Rex care about being naked before doing battle with an equally naked Triceratops? - Probably not. Did T-Rex hide behind a tree before doing a pee? – Probably not.

Question: Why do we feel the need for privacy and feel a sense of embarrassment? Where did these concepts come from if they have no obvious survival (evolutionary) advantage?

Privacy and embarrassment tends to be associated with restroom and mating activities. Yet, from firsthand observations, my cats can go to about their litter box business in full sight of me, and of each other, without the slightest qualm. When animals mate, they don’t give a tinker’s damn if the whole darn world is watching. An animal’s gotta do what an animal’s gotta do. Further, each and every animal is in a sense strutting around in their birthday suit. Do they look the slightest bit uptight about this? Hell no.

When it comes to embarrassment, if you look at things logically and objectively, the skin around your private parts isn’t any different from the skin on your face and hands, so what’s the big deal? You don’t tend to be embarrassed over your ear lobes or your knees or which toe on your foot is longest; so why, in theory should your sex organs be singled out for cultural attention, actually inattention since they tend to be covered up?

So, there are a few more bits and pieces that make humans stand apart from the rest of the animal kingdom. But, there still has got to be a logical reason why. If embarrassment is a cultural trait as it appears to be (it’s certainly not biological) how did it ever get its start?

Sense of humour: Nearly all of the higher animals play – it’s preparation for the serious work of making a living. But play itself isn’t humour. Humans of course tell jokes, make puns – we’ve all seen people laugh in a conversation when someone says something amusing -all that’s a function of our higher intellect and our language capabilities. You wouldn’t expect animals without that sort of language ability and comprehension to connect the dots and laugh. I can tell jokes to my cats for hours on end; they’ll never understand the punch lines. However, part of our sense of humour isn’t based on language. There are the physical jokes and pranks we pull. Now some animals do have the physical ability to pull practical jokes on their peers, but I’m not aware that that happens in actual fact. My cats could if they wanted to, pick up in their teeth and hide my house keys from me as their version of a feline practical joke. Cats don’t play practical jokes. Overall however, when examining the human sense of humour,                                                        I have to ask what possible link can there be with regards to a natural evolution of a sense of humour and survival-of-the-fittest?

Blood types: To the best of my knowledge, humans are pretty unique in having about twenty different blood groups or types. That makes medical blood transfusions somewhat risky unless checks are carried out beforehand for compatibility. Not every human can receive blood from every other human.  I checked with my vet, and apparently any dog can give a transfusion to any other dog; any domestic feline’s (cat’s) blood can be transfused into any other domestic feline. I suspect much the same applies throughout the animal kingdom.

Blood types might make a bit of sense if each type of human breed had their own unique type. Maybe they once did but breeding between the races has distorted and diluted that so that now all races have all types of blood. Even so, if other animals can get by with just plain blood, just one blood type, albeit a blood type unique to that species, I don’t see why humans evolved a large variety of blood types. 

Emotions: Nearly all animals show emotions, even many of the ‘lower’ invertebrates. However, though other animals can weep - shed water from their eyes (my cats are examples here), only one animal, man, actually cries apparently as a response to an emotional state. I’m not sure what the evolutionary survival-of-the-fittest bit is about crying. I mean if you’re about to be pounced on by a sabre-tooth cat, will crying make the predator feel sorry for you; put the cat off it’s game and save you? Crying might promote bonding between humans, but there’s lots of bonding in the animal kingdom without the need for tears. So, why should there be crying in response to an emotional state. It’s a mystery to me.

Spontaneous Human Combustion (SHC): The number of documented cases of humans, for some totally unknown, maybe unexplainable reason, bursting into flame which quickly kills and consumes the victim, has reached such numbers as to no longer reside in the realm of the paranormal/pseudoscience. What’s really unexplainable is that, relative to humans, to the best of my knowledge, no other life form has ever been witnessed and documented as having had their demise via spontaneous combustion. SHC certainly confers no advantage vis-à-vis passing on your genes. You’ve been handed a Darwin Award through no fault of your own.

Here’s a weird one – our signs of aging. All life forms age; all complex life forms can die from old age, that’s obvious and a given (however, elementary particles, like electrons, don’t age). Humans show obvious signs of aging – greying hair (or losing our hair) and wrinkles and liver spots. It’s easy to tell a 20 year old human from a 40 year old from a 60 year old from someone 80 years old. In most of the rest of the animal kingdom, visible signs of age and aging aren’t obvious. In some life forms, the only visible sign of age is size – trees, fish, and reptiles – organisms that continue to grow throughout their lifespan. Frogs don’t seem to get wrinkles as they grow older! How do you tell a 10 year old elephant apart from a 30 year old elephant? My 12 year old cat looks identical to what it looked like as a two year old. No grey hairs; no pussy cat wrinkles. Yet a 12 year old domestic cat is getting on towards pensioner status given a human analogy. Why should evolution seemingly single us out for acquiring grey hair and wrinkles?

In conclusion, if these traits can not be adequately explained by good old fashioned Darwinian natural selection and evolution, then its back to the drawing board and proposing either a supernatural deity or accepting an explanation of artificial selection. The only real candidate for applying artificial selection to humans to would be an extraterrestrial intelligence. Exactly what their motive(s) might be in most of the above cases isn’t clear cut, but the ‘why’ in terms of Darwinian selection is equally unclear.

*All animals are unique or different in their own way. Felines can purr; bats have radar and dolphins have sonar; some animals can see into the infra-red or ultraviolet part of the EM spectrum; some animals can hear higher or lower frequencies than us humans.

The Uniqueness of a Human Being: Part One

There’s just something really special about Homo sapiens relative to all the other animal and plant life forms we share Planet Earth with. Well actually every life form is special in one way or another*, but still humans stand out from the crowd. Many people will attribute that to the alleged ‘fact’ that we were created in God’s image, although IMHO the concept of a supreme, supernatural creator being carries so much dead (philosophical baggage) weight as to have as close to zero credibility as makes no odds. Therefore, I suggest something’s screwy somewhere.

For a few quick examples of human uniqueness, of all the true mammals, humans alone walk exclusively upright – we’re bipedal critters. Why is that so? If the trait of bipedal walking had real survival-of-the-fittest evolutionary significance, I’d expect the walking-on-two-feet trait to be way more common than it is.

We’re also top of the pops when it comes to IQ, and by a very wide margin relative to our primate ancestors, or even the dolphins and whales, not to mention the crow family (like magpies). Again, if extreme intellectuality abilities had some sort of paramount importance in terms of Darwinian natural selection, you’d expect we’d have some animal rivals in whose species will compete with us to be grand master in chess. Alas, no species, other than the human one, will ever lay claim to that title. Artificial intelligence is another issue, but not overly relevant here and now in context.

Now extreme exceptions to the bipedal and IQ rule require some sort of detailed explanation. I’ve dealt with those traits in a separate essay. (Hint: Extraterrestrial intelligence and artificial selection could account for these.)

Humans come in breeds – well we call our breeds’ ‘races’. There are lots of other animals that come in breeds too. The commonality between all our animal (and plant) kin that come in breeds is that we humans were responsible for their creation – our artificial selection versus natural selection. That at first glance doesn’t make us unique, until you stop and wonder who applied artificial selection on us? (Hint: think extraterrestrials again.)

Facial features: How do you help finger and identify the suspect in a crime? Well you try to provide an identikit profile – facial features. Of course you could say the criminal was white – that fits a lot of people; the criminal was male – that fits a lot of people; the criminal was short – that fits a lot of people; the criminal was fat – that fits a lot of people; the criminal was bald – that fits a lot of people. You could say the criminal was white, male, short, fat and bald – that still fits a lot of people. But, match the face to the perpetrator – you’ve got your man! Apply that to an animal – say a man-eating tiger or a crocodile. How do you finger which tiger or crock is the man-eater? By facial features – I think not.

However, I received a comment from a friend who said: “About crocodile individuality; tour guides get to know individual crocodiles and give them names!  I actually made the comment last year on a boat cruise, “don’t all crocs look the same?” and I was told no, they are as unique in their body marks, bumps, etc. as people!”

However, my reply was along the lines that obviously people who work closely with animals day after day can tell them apart via their bumps and scars and size, etc. but rarely by their facial features. I can tell my cats apart that way too. But here’s a test: In one folder are the photos of ten crocodile faces each with a name; in a second folder are photographs of the faces of ten human Caucasian males all the same age, each with an associated name. You get five minutes to study the ten crocodile faces with their associated names and five minutes to study the ten human male faces and their names. One crocodile is named Fred; one human male is named Fred. Ten minutes later you get one minute to identify the facial photo of Fred the crocodile; one minute to identify the facial photograph of Fred the human male. Care to take bets as to which identification of Fred (crocodile or human) will be way easier?

Speaking of facial features, I understand humans, and humans alone have ear lobes!

Here are a few other anomalies.

Physical anthropologists are pretty much in agreement that the modern human evolved in and migrated out of roughly equatorial Africa and from there colonized the planet (minus Antarctica). Now all our primate kin in Africa (gorillas, etc.) have fur. For some reason we lost our massive cover of fur. That suggests that humans were going to be relatively unsuited to colder climates because we lost our fur covering. Why? Okay, it’s hot in equatorial Africa, we don’t need fur there, but yet our kissing cousins in Africa have fur but they don’t really need it either - Something’s screwy somewhere.

Question: Why did we lose our fur?

For that matter we have primate ancestors that live, survive and thrive in cold climates – because they have fur. This time, in these geographies, fur is required. If we migrated to colder climates, why didn’t we keep our fur?

Okay, naked (no furry) humans migrated out of Africa and drifted into colder climates too. Firstly, why would we migrate into cooler geographies when presumably our population was low enough way back then that there was more than enough hot (or at least very warm) geography to go around? Again, I think that there’s something’s screwy somewhere. Well obviously we did migrate towards the Arctic, and points south as well, but we needed to invent, unlike our furry primate cold climate cousins – clothing. 

Okay, so at some point clothing served a very practical purpose. However, humans today live in some parts of the world where it’s hot enough that clothing isn’t required for all or some of the year. Take say, Adelaide, South Australia. For much of Adelaide’s summer, the population could save on the wear and tear and cost of their clothes and exist in just their birthday suits. The same could be said about various other geographic regions throughout the world. What prevents humans from clothing themselves in just their birthday suits when the climate is right? Even in tropical regions, primitive tribal societies still tend to wear some form of covering over selected areas of the body.

One obvious answer is protection of the private parts, although the rest of the animal kingdom seems to get along nicely with exposed private parts. Even so, be it primitive societies, or cultured societies, the actually amount of protection offered isn’t really that great. It’s not all that difficult to do yourself a private parts injury even when fully dressed – unless you’re a knight in shining armour of course, but that subspecies has gone extinct.

Well, the other obvious answer is, in public at least, it tends to be against the law – that’s what society wants and expects. Though shall wear clothes when in public. Well, something’s screwy somewhere because no other animal society has any such equivalent ban on nakedness. 

Translated, if our animal kin don’t worry about it, why don’t you take your furless body out in public minus clothing when the temperature’s hot; even hotter; and absolutely at its hottest?

Well the standard answer, apart from being arrested of course for alleged indecency, is that you’d probably be embarrassed to; having others seeing your birthday suit is an invasion of your privacy, so to avoid that, you don’t allow the great unwashed to see same and thus, heatwave be damned, you go out in public fully dressed. Comfort is not the issue.

To be continued…

*All animals are unique or different in their own way. Felines can purr; bats have radar and dolphins have sonar; some animals can see into the infra-red or ultraviolet part of the EM spectrum; some animals can hear higher or lower frequencies than us humans.