People horrifically fucking up facts about evolution and genetics too support their stupid beliefs or to seem smart and “rational” is probably one of my big pet peeves
Yeah. An enormous number of racists, misogynists, homophobes and transphobes I’ve met eventually whip out something about evolutionary biology and they never, ever, ever, ever have the slightest shadow of even a half-right idea what any of it means or ever cite a claim ever actually made by a scientific study.
Here’s a quick handy reference list or anyone who isn’t sure:
Homosexuality does exist in almost all social species.
“Alpha males” are not a real phenomenon and in fact the most aggressive males tend to be the least reproductively successful.
“Survival of the fittest” simply means that the success of a species hinges on how well it “fits” its environment. It does not mean that stronger or smarter individuals are supposed to succeed. Those things can even be a detriment in nature by wasting too many resources.
“Race” is not a biological concept. Someone who looks different from you has the same human genes, just a different grab-bag of dominant traits.
Evolution is not a march towards higher complexity, more intelligence or even more adaptability. It’s just a fluctuation of characteristics dictated by environmental pressures and mutation. A slime mold isn’t “less evolved” than a hawk, just adapted for success under different parameters.
People didn’t evolve “from apes.” It’s more complicated than that. We are a category of ape, sharing a common ancestor with the other apes.
No human on Earth is “closer” to an evolutionary ancestor than any other. We all descended from the same one.
Neanderthals were also a “sibling” species of ours. We didn’t evolve from them.
Some of us did, however, cross-breed with Neandethal man. It is exclusively non-African races, such as white people, who still carry hybrid human/Neanderthal genes. Whoops, sorry “white purity” skinheads, you’re actually mixed with a whole other species.
Some more stuff!
Humans are actually more genetically homogeneous than most people suspect. This is possibly due to a population bottleneck at some point in our evolutionary past. Two chimpanzees from different sides of a jungle are likely more genetically different to each other than any two human beings in the world.
Our big brains may help us use tools, but what was really principal in their development was the need for empathy, communication, and cooperation.
Humans. Are. Social. So social it drove an incredibly energetically costly increase in our brain size. Don’t believe anyone who says its our nature to fight “every man for themself.” We’re humans, not bears. We fight for each other.
And we always have. Fossil remains are found of ancient humans who bore signs of crucial mobility impairments that lived to notable ages. Some even have sticks or other mobility aids – community care and support is our way. We don’t cast off those with impairments, we stand by them.
Human sexual dimorphism is on a decreasing trend. Our ancestors had greater difference in canine size and overall size. Our dimorphism gap has gotten smaller.
Occam’s razor is the principal that whatever is the simplest explanation is probably the most likely one. Don’t believe someone who says the reason we evolved bipedalism is so that males could carry gifts to females to woo them. Yes, this is a real ‘theory’ on how bipedalism evolved.
Skin tone is an adaptation of UV levels vs vitamin D levels. Both come from the sun. UV is harmful, so where sun is plentiful populations develop a darker skin tone for more protection. The skin needs sun to create vitamin D, so where sun is scarce, the skin tone lightens to allow more sun in. This is literally all it is.
Final thing: No one’s mind is really equipped to fully understand how long a billion years is, or a million, or even tens of thousands of years. Evolution takes place over a loooong time. Its very, very, slow, slower than we can really comprehend. We can’t “stand in the way” of natural selection by caring for our ill. We don’t need to “help” evolution in any way. It inevitably happens, but not on any sort of timescale we could possibly affect, so don’t fall for anyone that tells you not to “stand in the way” of natural selection. That’s fascism, and its utterly pseudo-scientific.
Not to mention natural selection doesn’t have a “will” that you can stand in the way of. Its not an entity with wants, its a millions-year long process. And its impossible for our decisions to “stand in its way.” Our decisions to care for one another are what brought our species where it is, plain and simple.
-“Alpha males” are not a real phenomenon and in fact the most aggressive males tend to be the least reproductively successful.-
This fact isnt true Dominant / Alpha males DO exist especially in dimorphic primates and are reproductively succesful due to their dominance. But the alpha male system in wolf packs arent true and even the guy who suggested it said its not true but media keeps ignoring it cuz it sells well, wolves are usually lead by couples but even then the dominant couple doesnt rule with a “Iron fist” as its portrayed in the alpha male theory its more like a family. In lions the males aren’t as dominant as they are portrayed by your tv documentaries and if a male is too agressive they get kicked out by the lionesses or beaten to death.
Only scenario currenty we know of OUTSIDE of primates that have a alpha which fits the “Iron fist ruler with no mercy” are Hyenas and they are lead by Matriachs instead of a male, usually all females have higher ranks than males in their hierarchy UNLESS the hyena pack is exclusively male, that’s the only time there is a alpha male and this has only been observed in captive hyenas, no 0 female hyena pack has been observed in the wild and the reasons are obvious. Also in hyena packs cubs eat before / with the matriach and then the other ranks eat where as in the lion hierarchy cubs either get to eat last or by their mothers side of the kill which causes high mortality.
Also please keep in mind that everything regarding evolution has been deeply influnced by politics AND STILL IS to a degree. The most famous Gradualism vs Puncuated Equilibrium of 80s for example were the leading ideas of how evolutionary genetics occured and their founders political views are capitalist and marxist respectively if you think of the both of them and the political views of their founding fathers you can find rather big smilarities, how we think nature or life works if we like it or not still deeply manipulated by our own views and its REALLY hard or in my opinion impossible in a degree to not be.
Another example is LeVay and the Dutch scientists of 80’s. LeVay was one of the great neurologists and was a prof at harvard med school, he did a research to see macrological differences of gay man’s brain, and in his research he found a certain part of the brain was half the size of what heterosexual man had, it was landmark study and hugely reported. LeVay became extremely famous for this study and what was also interesting is political context of this finding. A few years ago another group had reported difference in the hypothamus based on sexual orientation, a part of the brain which is bigger in woman than man and what these researchers reported was it tend to be bigger in gay man than of straight man. What was puzzling about the study was this part of the hypothalamus having to do with regulation of your kidneys. It was totally ignored and completely bizzare, except there was one thing that was done with it, this was viewed EXTREMELY offensive by the gay community. It was viewed as an attempt by scientists to pathologize sexual orientation in a sense saying: Here, we found something wrong in gay men. There was two reasons why this reaction occured, first was these scientists were straight and second they were a dutch group which was viewed as a Nazi echoes of Germanic sounding authors producing this finding. The dutch research got widely condemned in gay community, out came LeVay with his and became the most beloved neuroanatomist of lgbtq. One probably important reason for it was LeVay was very openly gay. Another reason is part of the brain he found made sense, it had something to do with sexual behaviour as opposed to to the random kidney stuff. The explanation certainly is that part of the brain LeVay studied was right next to the hypothamus’s part dutch group studied. If it was smaller in gay men simply because of physiological reasons this kidney part could get bigger to make up for the empty space. Due to political context that this research was done in the senior author of Dutch group (cough) Dick Scwab got death threats due to what he reported. One was easily interpreted as something wrong with brains of gay men while Simon LeVay became hero in the community.
