Open Socialism a compelling alternative to democratic capitalism

Humans Have Not Significantly Evolved

There is a modern viewpoint of humans as being greatly different from our ancestors who lived in the jungle and on the plains. We have developed amazing technology and live sophisticated high paced lives. However, we actually have not greatly changed from the environment we evolved to live in. That being, small nomadic hunter gatherer tribes of closely bonded kin.

Hunter gatherer times are relatively recent

We imagine primitive humans existing for millions of years. Indeed the human genus has existed for about 2 million years. However, our sub-species Homo sapiens have only been around for around 315,000 years.

On top of this, for the vast majority of this time, Homo sapiens remained in primitive tribes. Agriculture started appearing about 12,000 years ago. Only since then did human society begin to change away from the hunter gatherer society that we evolved to operate in.

In terms of evolution, 12,000 years is not a significant amount of time.

As technology advanced natural selection decreased

Evolution works on the principles of genetic variation and natural selection. Certain traits are repeatedly selected over others and a species evolves in a certain direction. Selection of course implying other traits are not selected.

In hunter gatherer times humans were obviously a highly successful species, but times were harsh and those with ‘undesirable’ traits would typically not be selected to reproduce.

With the advent of agriculture, technology has rapidly advanced. This resulted in an abundance of resources and humanity has been enabled to support many more humans than it originally could. This has meant that people with all kinds of traits are selected for reproduction. Or to put it another way the natural selection aspect of evolution has greatly decreased.

There has been some evolution post agriculture

While we have not evolved psychologically, there has been some evolution. For example, in the last 5000 years humans have evolved more lactose tolerance.

Conclusion

Homo Sapiens have significantly evolved since agriculture was developed and the hunter gatherer society started to decline. We are the same humans that expect to be born into a nomadic tribe that fits our instincts perfectly. Yet we are born into the modern day and attempt to adapt our primitive urges to a modern society not designed for us.