Evolution Repeating Itself

Having had recent ponderings about the connection between our evolutionary process and what we are seeing in the world today, I was quite intrigued to see the Nova series Becoming Human – Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3* in the tv listings.

Overall the evolution lesson in how we arrived here today was very enlightening – especially watching the third hour.

My ears perked up immediately upon hearing a statement made early on.

As recently as 50,000 years ago, there were probably four different kinds of humans living at the same time. Yet today, we are a species alone

So it would appear we Homo sapiens are predisposed to the domination of others in one form or another.  Our survival story is based in elimination rather than co-existence, never mind co-operation.

Humans move into the Middle East, the Homo erectus goes extinct. When humans move in to Europe, the Neanderthals go extinct.

And if you look at the time line this happened fairly quickly – relatively speaking.  Homo sapiens are almost last to arrive on the scene but within 20,000 years of nearly becoming extinct they’ve wiped out Homo erectus (around for 1.75 million years) and the Neanderthals (around for 170,000 years).

One-hundred-forty-thousand years ago, Homo sapiens teetered on the brink of extinction. … Sixty-thousand years ago, our ancestors emerged with new technology and new culture. Thousands of years of drought had forced them to change.

In the beginning, climate upheavals made us what we are. They taught us a new inventiveness which has led to a cascade of technological advances.

Our survival story then, on a more positive note, includes an innate ability to be creative problem solvers in order to change with the times.  But it would appear the problems and technology we produce come with at a huge cost.

The modern humans have this trend of intensifying their exploitation of the environment to, sort of, squeezing out everything possible from the environment. That trend, already established in Africa, would become more pronounced as our ancestors spread around the world.

Archeologists have been able to track [Homo sapiens] movements by the extinctions of large animals. In Europe and Asia, the arrival of Homo sapiens coincides with the disappearance of the hairy mammoth, the cave lion and other large mammals. In Australia, most animals weighing over 100 pounds vanish within a few thousand years of our arrival.

We seem to have the ability to pump out lots of babies, and our babies seem to have a high probability of surviving. So population growth is a really important part of the human adaptation.

Now we have a 200,000 year survival story telling us that intensely exploiting the environment – be it through domination, exploitation, population or technological adaptation – works, and works very well.  We’re here and they aren’t.

Side note: Missing from the story is the part with the answer to the obvious question we as a whole refuse to address – what happens when the environment runs out and there is nothing and no one left to exploit, no one or nothing left to eliminate.  Then what?

Fast forward to the world today.  As a species we continue to excel at domination, exploitation, populating and advancing technology.  I believe, however, people fail to realize those exact same things that helped us get here are the very things forcing us to evolve again into a new human species.

Sixty thousand years ago we were on the brink of extinction because of “Mother Nature”.  Now through our own actions and creations we are forcing ourselves towards the edge of disappearing.

Given our inherent talent to invent and adapt it appears we are forcing ourselves, albeit unconsciously,  into the next evolution.  We are doing this to ourselves.  There is no one else to blame … or thank.  We seem to have this inner knowing the time has come for Homo sapiens to disappear while at the same time making way for a new species of human to emerge and to write a different story.

Perhaps the key question now for each of us to answer is which part of evolution do we want to be part of … hanging on to the old or bringing in the new.




* A transcript link is available lower down on each page if you are unable to view the episode online.