Not as evolved as we think
Lest you think you’re at the top of the evolutionary heap, looking down your highly evolved nose at the earth’s lesser creatures, Marlene Zuk has a message for you: When it comes to evolution, there is no high or low, no better or worse. From evolution’s standpoint, people are no more special than microbes evolved to survive in extreme surroundings that might kill mere humans. Zuk, a professor of ecology, evolution, and behavior at the University of Minnesota, took aim Wednesday evening at popular misconceptions of evolution, the human kind in particular. The biggest misconception, she said, is that the process is linear, with a beginning and an end, and that human evolution is progressing somehow from worse to better. Evolution, rather, is the continual adaptation of organisms to their surroundings. When the surroundings change, those life forms poorly adapted to the new environment perish, while those it suits survive. “There is no ‘progress’...