Thursday, April 30, 2009

Evolution of the Mind

When most people talk about evolution they mention examples such as mammals turning into amphibians and amphibians turning into mammals. A simple google image search for evolution yields the following picture on the evolution of a whale.

whaleancestors3.gif

Source: http://mattcbr.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/whaleancestors3.gif


The one thing in common when talking about evolution appears to be the actual physical changing of body parts. Humans do not appear to simply fit the equation. Our bodies are not specifically well adapted to any environment. We walk on two feet rendering us slow and not very balanced. Although we consume meat as part of our diet we lack the necessary physical accessories such as claws and massive jaws for example, to capture animals for food. But we also don't necessarily need fast legs or big claws to get around quickly and capture animals much larger then ourselves. We use the environment to give ourselves those fast legs and those big claws. The physical evolution of our bodies seems to have shifted to the evolution of the environment around us. We constantly change everything but ourselves in order to make us more adaptable to a certain environment. Does this explain the awkward shapes of our bodies compared to other animals? Have we become the showcase of a body turned absolutely useless for physical tasks as we have manipulated the environment to achieve those tasks? This gives the impression that humans have become more powerful than the environment. As previously animals had to change themselves to adapt to the environment, humans simply force the environment to adapt to humans. So if humans have become the environment and the environment simply something trying to adapt to us, what happens if the environment is unable to do so and becomes extinct as have many species? The environment survived without us but will we be able to survive without it? 

1 comment:

  1. I can see how this may be a possibility, but i feel as though we, even as an entire human population, don't have enough influence over the environment to destroy it unless there was some sort of epic catastrophe, in which case i don't see us outlasting the environment anyways.

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