Wonder and Awe – Human Evolution.

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Wonder and Awe – Human Evolution.

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We were not always alone as we are now. Although we share 99% of our genes with chimpanzees and gorillas, our closest living relatives, we are different. The prime difference being the size of our brains and our intelligence. Once there were a whole host of different humans.

We evolved in the Rift Valley in Ethiopia. We are all of African descent. We are all one species.

The fossil and DNA evidence is conclusive. Racists and creationists have nowhere to hide. All they can do is deny.

A mere five million years ago our common ancestor split off from the chimp line. The Australopithecines had a brain weight of 500 grams (slightly bigger than a chimp). By 1.8 million years ago there were numerous groups of hominids living in the Rift Valley region. We were not alone. They included Homo habilis and Homo erectus.

Life in the Rift Valley was precarious. There was a lot of climatic change.

By 1.4 million years ago only Homo erectus had survived. But their brain size had evolved to 1000 grams.

800,000 years ago Homo heidelbergensis had evolved. Their brain weight had jumped to 1400 grams (comparable to modern man). They gave rise to both the Neanderthals and Homo sapiens.

Homo sapiens evolved with a brain weight of 1500 grams only 200,000 years ago. We lived alongside our close, and more intelligent, cousins Homo Neanderthal until 45,000 years ago.

We have only been alone for 45,000 years. What a mess we’ve made of things in such a short time!

We are so new that if you took a baby from 200,000 years ago and brought them up in the present day they could be a nuclear scientist, president or rocket scientist without any trouble. We haven’t changed. Our brains are the same.

I like to imagine that somewhere, in a secluded garden of Eden, hidden away, a group of surviving Neanderthals have set up home. Despairing of the destructive violence of their cousins they cloistered themselves away.

I wonder what they would make of the world we have made and our invention of war, religion, pollution, overpopulation, politics, climate change, cruel ways to kill other animals and enough greed, selfishness and power-madness to destroy the planet.

Perhaps with their wisdom and intelligence they could convince us that there is a better way of living. We could take a lesson from the whales and dolphins. We could be gentle and live in a self-sustaining manner in harmony with each other and the planet.

I hope we find them soon. I’m scared of being alone with the megalomaniacs raging around me.

Wouldn’t it be good to have more senses??

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Wouldn’t it be nice to have a full range of senses to see the world in all its splendour – to see the full spectrum of the electromagnetic spectrum – and more!

How about UV, Gamma, X-Ray and Infra-red?? What would the world look like if we saw magnetism? What we actually see and perceive is a tiny fraction of the energy that is out there and we are truly stranded between the microcosm and macrocosm without seeing either without our instruments.

I often wonder about the senses of other animals. The smell of dogs. Do they actually form a mental image of the world from scent?

What are these faculties that homing pigeons possess? How do they know their position?

Then there is the human zeitgeist. We seem to share a sense of the times. Every era has a feel to it that is contagious.

Then the synchronicity between people – like shared ideas, shared consciousness. More developed in some than others. Does it have a real scientific basis? Do we communicate in ways we do not yet understand?

So much more to be understood!

The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth!

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I believe there is truth. It might not be absolute but it is near enough.
Science has brought us an amazing advancement in technology that has altered the world and transformed our lives. Some of that is for the best and some of that is far worse. Mostly it has improved.
We are always very keen to seize the fruits of this work – transport, energy, computers, medicine, materials, gadgets……… but we are keen to bash scientists and experts if they are not one hundred percent certain.
We have gone from the horse and cart and oil lanterns to nuclear fusion and space stations in no time at all.
So we will place our trust in the latest jet-liner but will reject evolution. We will try the latest cancer drug treatment but deny climate change.

And science is still in its infancy.

The truth? What is that? It has many levels. Is it a factual concept of what has occurred, how it has occurred and how that operates?
That is what we are investigating. We are in the infancy of science. We have understood so much so quickly. We still have a lot to learn. But we have made great progress. Scientists and experts have a pretty good handle on what is going on – far better than any of the ‘public’ or politicians.

I contend that Social Cohesion is much more important than the careers of politicians.

We need to put an end to this politicisation of information – both the perversion of science and the constant crying of Fake News and Project Fear. It is tearing apart the fabric of society.

Populism is destroying cohesion. It is tearing our societies apart and playing into the hands of those who want us to fall.
It’s time we put more faith into scientists and experts. They do not all talk rubbish.
Species extinction is real.
Climate change is real.
Evolution is real.
Brexit will badly damage our country.
Trump is actively causing division and hatred.

A healthy scepticism is one thing. Total rejection of all the evidence is something else. We are throwing the baby out with the bath water and allowing the religious lunatics and political extremists to spout their stupidity unopposed.
Look at the lunatics that are raising their heads with their fundamentalist claptrap!

Stephen Hawking – Parting shots for Brexit and Trump

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Stephen Hawking – the greatest mind of modern times – gave a speech that he had recorded shortly before his death in which he lambasted both Brexit and Trump, which he saw as great dangers to the future of mankind.

In the final speech, which was aired yesterday at the launch of his last book he pulled no punches.

He warned that both Brexit and Trump were fuelling a global revolt against experts.

He enumerated his greatest concerns for mankind which included the following:

Climate change

Soaring global population

The rapid extinction of other species

The need to develop renewable energy sources

The degradation of the oceans

Deforestation

and Epidemic diseases.

I don’t think I would have made a list that was much different to that myself.

The world has lost a huge mind who recognised the dangers we face. Unfortunately we are being lied to and led by selfish, greedy, ideological morons.

Stephen Hawking entreated us to ‘Look at the stars and not our feet!’

He warned that both science and technology research was in the greatest danger and that we were in danger of becoming more culturally isolated and insular.

He said that both Brexit and Trump were leading a global revolt against experts and scientists with dire consequences.

Thank you Stephen. We’ll all miss your intelligence and perceptiveness!!

Meanwhile we’re left behind here with the moronic, fear-ridden lies of May and Trump. A plague upon the two of them!

Populism – The death spasm of the WASP.

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I think we are seeing the death spasm of the old fearful WASPs who are seeing their world eroded and can now see the writing on the wall.

They have had the upper hand and a sense of superiority that goes with it, the arrogance of the master, but the future is not WASP. Any fool can see that. That is why they are full of fear and hate. The future is much more of a mixture, much more global. But it is so difficult for some people to change and accept the changes. They fight to retain everything just as it was. It’s a battle they are doomed to lose.

No matter how much hatred and division they generate, no matter how many white supremacist leaders they elect, no matter how many walls they build, biology will win out.

The demes are mixing. The barriers are down. Sexual attraction favours variety.

The future looks distinctly brown and will be much better for it.

Human evolution – It was the cows wot done it!

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Human evolution – It was the cows wot done it!

As hunter/gatherers our diets were varied but dependent on the success of the hunt. We needed the protein from the meat but hunting was precarious and difficult. Life was hard and lived on the edge. There were times of famine.
Then we had the brainwave of farming. ‘Why go off hunting the buggers when we can capture a couple and breed ‘em up so that they’re easy to get and always available’, and ‘Why go out gathering the stuff when it’s hard to find and spread out? Why not sow some seeds and get it all to come up in one place and there’s lots of it?’
Intelligence is wonderful.
But even that did not solve our problems. The crops grew in season. There were gluts and shortages. Storage was hard. The pests took their share. There were still periods of starvation.
We had evolved to digest milk as babies but lost the ability in adulthood.
Natural selection weeded out the starving.
But now there was milk available and you could make butter, cheese and yoghourt if only it didn’t make you sick and you could digest it.
There was a mutation in a gene for lactose tolerance. It enabled adults to digest milk. The ones with the mutated gene had added nutrition through winter and their survival rates rocketed.
They were selected.
Nowadays we can see the prevalence of this gene. It is throughout populations in Europe and Asia.
It is an example of human evolution.
The Sci-fi novels assume the big evolutionary changes will be in intelligence. There is no reason why it should. It will only be beneficial if it gives a clear advantage. The most likely evolution in humans will be a mutation that affords resistance to a disease. Intelligence will count for nothing.
We owe our present success in temperate regions to cows and milk. It is the cows wot done it!

Human evolution and skin colour.

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Human evolution and skin colour.

As we migrated out of Africa a mere sixty thousand years ago we hit a problem. The sunshine and hence UV light was greatly reduced. We needed that UV light in order to make Vitamin D. Without vitamin D we got ill. When you are living on the edge any small advantage becomes crucial.
In strong UV Light the black pigment melanin provides protection against skin cancer.
We all stem from Africans who had black skin.
Outside of Africa black skin was a disadvantage. A mutation occurred that reduced melanin and resulted in lighter skin that upped our vitamin D production.
Pale skin was selected in subtropical regions.
It is interesting to observe the way natural selection has occurred to optimise protection against skin cancer and vitamin D production. I tropical regions with harsh UV the skin colour is black. In subtropical regions with less intense UV it is brown and in temperate regions it is very pale.
This is a good example of changes in the ratio of genes in a population and hence evolution.

Humans and why we’re not evolving.

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Humans and why we’re not evolving.

It is unlikely that we are evolving much at present. We have removed most of the selection pressures that cause evolution. Our amazing brains have produced science and technology that have removed much of the Natural Selection that operated on our populations in the past – at least in the developed countries and increasingly in the undeveloped ones.
We have:
Killed off predators
Conquered most diseases that would previously have killed us off before we had a chance to breed
We have improved sanitation and clean water
We have gained a secure food supply.

All that is killing us off early is war, accidents and selfish greed.
95% of us survive long enough to have children.
However there is some evolution. The fact that some people choose not to have children while others have many will, in time, skew the numbers of genes in the population. Is it a worry that it is the least intelligent and least educated that are reproducing most? Probably in the long term, if it is a trend that continues. Education is probably the answer to that one.
But this state of affairs is a blip. It will not last. Soon the selection pressures will return with a vengeance. Our numbers have grown out of proportion and our intelligence will not outdo the threats.
Overpopulation will lead to war, food shortage and disease. Probably a new virus will emerge to which we have no resistance. Only those with a mutation that provides immunity will survive – or maybe nobody.
Science has demonstrated that 99.9% of all animals that have evolved have passed into extinction.
The only difference between all of them and us is that we will be the first to do it to ourselves through our own greed, arrogance and foolishness. So much for intelligence. Without other qualities it counts for little.
So will we evolve? Be a blip? A tiny layer in the strata of time?
Time will tell.

Evolution within Humans.

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Evolution within Humans.

Up until recently in was easy to see evolution at work on human populations through natural selection; there was high mortality, selection of those who survived, our gene ratios changed.
In Shakespeare’s day, four hundred years ago, only one in three babies survived long enough to reproduce. There was a huge mortality rate. The ‘unfit’ were weeded out through disease, bad conditions, lack of sanitation, malnutrition, violence or mere bad luck. To survive you needed the right genes and the wit to be in the right place and do the right thing.
Nowadays 95% survive. The ‘unfit’ (and I use that term scientifically, not unkindly) are not weeded out. Health and Safety, medicine, sanitation and cleanliness have created a situation where nearly everyone survives to have children.
So is evolution no longer occurring in human populations?
The answer is probably ‘not much’.
What is clear though is that because infant death is no longer prevalent we are increasing in numbers at an alarming rate. For now the selection pressure is off. At some point it will come back on and our numbers will be drastically reduced.
Maybe it will be a virus?
What will the future generations of humans be like? Who will have evolved to lay claim to the future?
We can but hope.

The Evolution of Humans

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The Evolution of Humans

Hominids first evolved out of ape-like creatures in the Rift Valley in Africa only 7 million years ago. There have been a multitude of species of subhuman apes. Modern man with his brain-size and thinking power only evolved a mere two hundred thousand years ago. That is the blink of an eye.
The sub-human hominids all died off but for much of our short history we shared the planet with another human species. The Neanderthals, wrongly represented as brutal cavemen, had bigger brains than ours and were probably more intelligent. They certainly had culture and made tools. They were wiped out quite recently. We don’t know if that was through disease, climate change, competition with us or differences over religion. Maybe they came up against an early form of ISIS and were just too kind and nice?
It is a great shame that there aren’t other species of intelligent humans surviving to this day. It would have taken the wind out of religion. It’s hard to be the chosen species when there are more than one intelligent hominid species. But then I suppose the religious manage to do just that on a tribal basis they would not have too much trouble finding blame with another species. They would proclaim that they were the true chosen species made in god’s image and start a crusade or jihad.
It is only sixty thousand years ago that we migrated out of Africa (and now we’re doing it again) but look at what we’ve done!! We’ve gone from a handful to 7 billion in no time at all.
That is scary.
We think we are here forever. We think we have removed selection and are immune. We are arrogant enough to think that we can do anything and survive.
But can we?