The Course of Evolution?

Human evolution in the future will surely be an interesting experience. When handling such a question it is important that we are not Americentric. Because evolution takes place more prominently in centers of strong selection pressure, we must look towards this pattern for our answer. This does not exclude relatively stable western environments from the course of evolution, but it does make the projection less obvious. This becomes a question of dichotomous nature: Evolution acting upon those who are surrounded by security and resources, and those that are surrounded by a harsh environment filled with deleterious elements. In regards to this medicine is an especially striking issue. In less developed countries, pathogens and nutrition concerns are sometimes at a greater lack than in the evolutionary environment. In contrast to this modern medicine in developed countries allows people to reproduce that may not have within our evolutionary environment. Both issues are a direct result of the agricultural, industrial, and medical revolutions. Human biology is impacted by these advances in different ways but in reality the longevity beyond reproductive viability observed in developed nations has nothing to do with evolution. Medicine only impacts the population when it allows people to reproduce longer than they would have without it.  

The true crux comes down to mating strategies that are related to current environments. To stretch a poetic analogy over the evolutionary framework we can turn to Alfred Tennyson’s Ulysses. Although he surely did not mean to, he placed the pathways of our evolutionary course into the opening lines: “It little profits that an idle king; By this still hearth, among these barren crags, matched with an aged wife I mete and dole; Unequal laws unto a savage race; That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and known not me (Beaty et al. 2002).” Had Tennyson added the vulgar term rut to his list of barbaric actions, he might have had it all. When we consider the question of human evolution in the future we simply must find out what reproductive strategy is most successful at the moment. Tennyson answers this question in his own way. Ulysses, being a traveling hero, also says “I am part of all that I have met.” This would be the case with a in that he surely would leave behind many illegitimate children. To analogize further, traveling military men and modern businessmen are not exactly known for their fidelity. Alan Miller and Satoshi Kanazawa point out that our minds really function on a primitive scale. We are moved by those biological behaviors which were successful then. Women are attracted to mates of quality, and cuckholdry is always an option.  This was certainly the case then, before the modern advent of birth control, and is much the case now. This only highlights one portion of the poem; the savage race that Ulysses complained about surely has a place within evolution.  

Most people consider those of impoverished conditions to be the sector of the public prone to breeding uncontrollably. One must only look at the current western media for anecdotal support. Those portions of the population get heavy airtime on reality shows and talk shows like Jerry Springer. This is largely a fabrication of the media. In reality we must take into account that those with resources enough will be able to raise their children to reproductive age. Those without enough resources will not be able to. This is the level that evolution acts upon. Those that are truly in dire economic straits, such as Sub-Saharan Africa, have a total fertility rate that exceeds 6 live births within a woman’s reproductive years. In the United States the fertility rate sits a little above 2 (Rubenstein, 2008). Those that live to reproductive age in the environments to which they are born have their own suite of environmental pressures to deal with. In Sub-Saharan Africa their selection pressures result in an infant mortality rate ten times that of North America. It is not difficult to find a place for access to medicine at the center of this contrast.  

Medicine has been an influence to our species since its discovery. The ability to control the course of pathogens, prevent death, and improve overall health has helped bring about a population of titanic proportions. This is in line with the population increase observed after the agricultural and industrial revolutions. With an increased population comes an increase in the ability to sustain and promote greater genetic variation.  There are now genes being exchanged which would be considered “bad” in the evolutionary environment. Examples would be genes that render a person partially limbless or blood conditions like hemophilia. As Dr. Moalem points out, there are also genes that were potentially “good”, such as diabetes, but are now “bad” in our current environment. These genes have been allowed to persist because medicine can make them annoyances instead of fatal. Many people point to the idea that our gene pool is becoming diluted or even polluted by allowing such conditions to persist. This line of thought is certainly related to the eugenics movement of the early 20^th century, and is just as fallacious.  

Many medical innovations on the horizon are currently aimed at eliminating such issues through gene therapy. This is not the course of our evolutionary future. Fischer’s fundamental theorem of natural selection sees the genetic homogeneity of this goal as a bad thing. This is because we are never sure what the environment of our future will be like. If someone with hemophilia also has the ability to stave off a super-virus or deal with rapidly changing environments tied to global warming, all the better. An increase in variation directly correlates to the health of the species. It follows that medicine should maintain the course of promoting or augmenting the health of an organism without damaging its ability to produce variation. This would be the course that provides an evolutionary future. It would seem the cultural trend of humans is that they become more tolerant of differences as they become more cosmopolitan. Therefore a shift from traditional aspects of variation would likely be the line of the next revolution. Not outside this concept is the shift from personal extension through prosthetics from trope to form.  

Prosthetics, once used to replace limbs, has found a new niche within technological culture. Although a fringe now, prosthetic extension is experimented with by those with no condition that would demand such objects. Medicine has made available an ability to augment natural ability through advances in this customized line of treatment. Although this is at the moment something entirely external, there are movements towards biological incorporation (Smith and Morra, 2006). In the field of study concerned with nanotechnology, interest in internalizing power supplies via modified eel electrocytes has produced significant results (Xu and Lavan, 2008). This method of energy production would work directly through the metabolic system, and could be used to power machines thereafter. With very little imagination one can instantly see the medical leaps we could make if only we could power the cumbersome mechanisms we have invented to handle heart conditions, breathing issues, and digital pain suppressors (Albert et. al. 2006). This incorporation of borrowed cells into our own bodies to augment ourselves would become a biological reality that could have implications on the scale of modern evolution.  

This projection only becomes clear if we synthesize select patterns present in the more developed countries. High obesity rates, the desire for symbolic internal and external modification, the presence of a technocentric elite, and the new ability to internally power digital apparatus, we might see the culmination of the computer age. People who were once obese would now have the extra calories needed to power their internal devices via electrocytes within the body. This ability could render the individuals willing to engage in this path more influential. If the behavior that allows for the decision to engage in risk of such an extreme modification is under genetic control as well as the trait of obesity than selection could be present. Of course this would only be true if there was an advantage.  

Indeed, within our current culture there are many of the most recent generation that would leap at the chance to merge with their iPhone. This idea spurs both disgust and fascination. The ability to track your position on the planet via the installed GPS makes you more punctual, or constant access to newsfeeds makes you more efficient in the office, cultural selection would be present. To push the concept further, advances could one day reach the level of direct cognitive enhancement which would certainly give an edge analogous to a beneficial mutation. Furthermore, real-time health monitor into this system would increase lifespan and possibly alert people to emergency conditions before they occur. This, much like previously mentioned revolutions would help to increase genetic variation within the species.  

The benefits of such innovations are clear from a medical standpoint. Access to such innovations would radiate from the center like the industrial revolution from London and the agricultural revolution form its multiple centers. Clines could form around people with the biology to support such a system, much like lactose persistence or G6PD. Those with access to the example synthesized here will surely be the Ulysses of their age. The professionals could that afford the higher priced modifications would have greater access to the resources that resonate at the level of sexual selection. This would lead to an ability to reproduce and sustain those offspring. Those left behind would be no different than those infants dying in areas like Sub-Saharan Africa because they simply lack the resources to access the two more recent revolutions that more developed nations have experienced. At a fundamental level all environments revolve around our Paleolithic brains. And just like these prior revolutions, the allelic fingerprints of the coming revolution will not diffuse across the entirety of the species equally. It will simply spread into the environments where the behavior is available and beneficial. However this course works out, it is surely occurring on a macroscopic level. In some ways we have are placing a toe into new evolutionary waters while the bulk of population remains in other evolutionary settings. Fischer reminds us that any extension of variation, even those that fail, is an aspect of evolution that is not a weakness but a strength.