People horrifically fucking up facts about evolution and genetics too support their stupid beliefs or to seem smart and ârationalâ is probably one of my big pet peevesÂ
Yeah. An enormous number of racists, misogynists, homophobes and transphobes Iâve 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.
Hereâs a quick handy reference list or anyone who isnât sure:
Homosexuality does exist in almost all social species.
âAlpha malesâ are not a real phenomenon and in fact the most aggressive males tend to be the least reproductively successful.
âSurvival of the fittestâ simply means that the success of a species hinges on how well it âfitsâ 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.
âRaceâ 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. Itâs just a fluctuation of characteristics dictated by environmental pressures and mutation. A slime mold isnât âless evolvedâ than a hawk, just adapted for success under different parameters.
People didnât evolve âfrom apes.â Itâs more complicated than that. We are a category of ape, sharing a common ancestor with the other apes.
No human on Earth is âcloserâ to an evolutionary ancestor than any other. We all descended from the same one.
Neanderthals were also a âsiblingâ species of ours. We didnât 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 âwhite purityâ skinheads, youâre 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. Donât believe anyone who says its our nature to fight âevery man for themself.â Weâre 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 â community care and support is our way. We donât 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.
Occamâs razor is the principal that whatever is the simplest explanation is probably the most likely one. Donât 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 âtheoryâ 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 oneâs 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 canât âstand in the wayâ of natural selection by caring for our ill. We donât need to âhelpâ evolution in any way. It inevitably happens, but not on any sort of timescale we could possibly affect, so donât fall for anyone that tells you not to âstand in the wayâ of natural selection. Thatâs fascism, and its utterly pseudo-scientific.
Not to mention natural selection doesnât have a âwillâ 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 âstand in its way.â Our decisions to care for one another are what brought our species where it is, plain and simple.
