Jul 29 2009
Part Two: Are humans still evolving?
By Fiona MacDonald
Zoology graduate Fiona MacDonald presents part two of her opinion piece on the continuing evolution of humans.
Disease, competition for resources and natural disasters were the natural selection factors driving evolution in Darwin’s day. Yet, as covered in Part One, it appears humans have managed to cheat their way past these factors using modern technology.
However, the human species still has challenges to face. Ironically, the biggest obstacle to our survival now is something Darwin may not have taken into account – ourselves. I don’t think he could have predicted the impact we’ve had on the planet and our spectacular population growth.
We can wipe out a species’ habitat in a day, pollute their food supply over the course of a week and, in a few years, alter the temperature to the point they can no longer survive. There are most likely plenty of mutations arising that will help certain species survive one or two of these pressures – but not all of them at once. Estimations are that one species becomes extinct every hour.
Are humans putting so much pressure on the planet that even the fittest may not survive? Image: Credit: Photo by Georgie_grrl through Flickr
Our rampant population isn’t only damaging plants and animals; we’re also becoming a hazard to ourselves as we guzzle available resources. By 2050 we need to produce at least four times more food in order to sustain ourselves, but with global warming, drought and a lack of land, this is looking harder every day.
Already one in six people around the world are going hungry and it’s predicted that within our lifetime food prices will soar even higher, worsening the problem.
Chances are we’ll barely be able to feed a quarter of the world’s population by 2050. Credit: Wikipedia.
In addition to starvation, we’re also facing an increase in conflict over our dwindling water, land and food supplies. People already fight over oil and diamonds – when the essentials become just as scarce as these precious commodities violence is bound to follow. This is where a few other ‘natural selectors’ that Darwin may not have thought about could shape our species – machine guns, biowarfare and nuclear weapons.
Despite the changes to society over the past 150 years, it seems Darwin’s theory of evolution is still very much in effect; in fact humans may be evolving faster than ever before. There is no doubt in my mind that in the face of these coming obstacles only the fittest will survive.
But just like the pressures that shape our species have changed, perhaps so has the definition of ‘fittest’. With our world shifting so rapidly, it doesn’t seem likely that a gene which allows us to survive eating dust (no matter how handy that would be!) is suddenly going to crop up and save us.
I think money will define who’s the ‘fittest’ in the future. The rich alone will be able to afford the exorbitant price of food and land, escape wars in hi-tech bunkers and run private desalination plants to top up their fresh water supplies.
Could war over food and land be the ‘natural selector’ of the future? Credit: Wikipedia
This may not seem to fit in too well with Darwin’s idea that genes would decide which individuals survive and which don’t, but perhaps there are genes we don’t know about yet that indicate whether a person will be wealthy or not.
Either way, no one ever said evolution was fair. In Darwin’s own words, “it is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.”
See Part One of this opinion here.
See more about the Darwin celebrations events here and here.
Nice article, well put. Can I put to you several questions?
1. The catastrophic population crashes you’re describing were put forward by Mr Thomas Malthus in the early 19th century, and probably earlier than that by folks I don’t know. Malthus seemed to go out of fashion in the 20th century, in part because advancements in agricultural technology managed to keep the world population* one step ahead of disaster. In your opinion, Ms McDonald, is there a chance that technological developments could stave off global catastrophe for another 91 years?
2. As you put it, ‘when the essentials become scarce, violence is bound to follow’. China and India have already started to take steps to control the dwindling water supply coming from the Himalayas – where else should we expect crises to escalate?
* Well, 5/6ths of it, as you said.
Thanks David!
1. Unfortunately, I’m not sure that technology can keep us from starvation. We’ve achieved enormous boosts in food productivity in the past (e.g. the green revolution of the 60s and 70s) but these were fuelled by a huge amount of water, land and fertilisers. Now we’re running out of all of these resources!
I think that there really are no ‘magic solutions’ that are going to save us from this crisis, there isn’t really any technology in the pipeline that is going to offer an easy solution (like the dwarf crops of the green revolution). We do have genetic engineering, which holds a lot of promise (for creating drought tolerant plants etc.) but there are still a lot of regulations hindering the use of this technology, and a drastic lack of funding for gene banks.
But I think that something that we still have plenty of is human ingenuity! I think we’re going to have to rely on our creativity and originality to pull through. We need to really utilise and maximise every resource we have. However, this will also take funding and a lot of trial and error. If farmers, town planners, designers and biotechnologists could all work together with proper support, then we would stand a good chance.
2. I don’t know if I can pinpoint exactly were to expect crises to arise, but I suppose any country that has a lot of resources needs to manage them carefully. We have a lot of land in Australia, however much of it isn’t arable. There is a lot of research currently working on changing this, and if we found ourselves in a position where we had a large amount of space to grow crops then perhaps we should be concerned.
A resource that we’re quickly running out of is phosphorous. It’s the main component of most fertilisers and is set to run out in 100 years. This will cripple the agriculture industry as we know it. Perhaps we could expect some conflict over this precious resource, which is found mostly in Australia and Islands in the Pacific, North Carolina, Northern Africa and the Middle East.
[...] The truth is, there are factors at work in modern society that Darwin could never have imagined. To be continued in Part II. (Which has now been published … here!) [...]
This is all based on theories.
1. Evolution is True. A lot of the theories of evolution have been found to be false. What about the missing links from monkey to human. It just doesn’t exist. Darwin based his theories on slow gradual erosion, now we know the earth can erode extremely fast.
2. Global warming. A vast number of scientists believe are planet is not warming, but going through a cycle.
3. There isn’t enough food. There will always be poor among us. There is plenty of food and land to grow it on. Human greed which has been here since the beginning will always be a problem.
4. We will continue to rely on petroleum. There are more viable fuel options than ever before in this time. The tide is turning on our reliance of fuels. Maybe we can then use the coal we need to grew our crops in richer soils.
5 Money will control. Money has little to do with who is in control. A nation can go from poor to rich in a short time. Look at Arab nations for example. Also a nation can go from rich to poor in a short time. Look at Egypt. They were one of the richest, if not the richest country and look at them now. A nation with all the wealth who is dying from diseases like cancer is hardly a powerful nation.
A note on phosphorus, crops are fertialised with Sodium, phosphorus and nitrogen. This is destroying our land. This gives an unbalanced crop and is leading to nutritional defficiences and disease in our developing nations. Maybe this is a good thing it is running out as this will cause more sustainable farming methods, with better nutritional value.
Thanks for the comment Julie. The article is based on theories that I believe to be true, but I understand that others many not share the same viewpoint. I’m not here to convince you to see things my way but hopefully give you something else to think about – even if you think it’s complete nonsense!
There is a mound of information out there both supporting and refuting the theories you have listed so I’m not going to add my arguments to an already crowded arena. In saying that, one idea that I don’t think anyone can deny anymore is the fact that we’re running out of food and arable land. Human greed is definitely a problem, as you said, but that’s not the only one. This is a nice summary of the issues if you wanted to read more about it: http://www.sciencealert.com.au/opinions/20080309-17885.html.
And I definitely agree with you that fertilisers have been very damaging to the planet, but on the other hand they have been crucial in increasing crop productivity. Without them there would be a lot more starving people today. Lloyd T Evan’s book ‘Feeding the Ten Billion’ is a great read if you’re interested.