Our Imperfect Bodies
The Wall Street Journal today has an absolutely wonderful article about the evolutionary characteristics of the human body.
A 2009 Gallup poll found that 44% of Americans believe that God created human beings in their present form within the past 10,000 years. Many of them also think the human body is perfectly designed.
But most scientists—including biologists, anthropologists, paleontologists and geneticists—see the 21st century human body as a collection of compromises, jury-rigged by evolution as our ancestors adapted to changing conditions.
“In many ways, we are maladapted for modernity,” says Stephen Stearns, a Yale evolutionary biologist. He and others in the field are urging medical schools to include more evolutionary thinking when teaching doctors about modern diseases.
Everything from our imperfect spines, our little toe, and the evolutionary explanation of the appendix are all covered in this article. It really made me think. What will the human body be like 20,000 years from now?
I would like to think that if we cut down on junk food and be outside quite a bit more, we might end up like the athletes in the Winter Olympics. XD