Dang it, I got mutagen on my genes!

I was just skimming various newspapers from around the world and came upon a story in The Guardian “Study shows humans are evolving faster than previously thought”. Really? Humans don’t seem to have changed in any significant way in the past 100,000 years.

But a study shows we are changing faster now. Oh well, if a study says so, it must be true. So, what sort of futuristic creatures are we turning into? And how fast? Might our great-great-grand children be Spindly-shanked Bigheads? Because we won’t need to walk or run in the future, but we will need to think better. As it turns out the headline is misleading. It is just about dating of genetic “Adam and Eve” and how we seem to have lots of mutations in our DNA nowadays.

But wait, are lots of mutations in our DNA the same thing as evolving? Can’t mutations be bad, so maybe lots more of them would be more like devolving? Evolving means getting better…improving, right?

But now that I think of it, Darwin’s book was titled, “The Descent of Man.” Oh no, maybe our great-great-grand children are going to be Spindly-headed Bigshanks?

 

 

 

 

 

Then I said to myself, “Self, calm down; words have meanings, what is the definition of evolve?”

To develop gradually, especially from a simple to a more complex form.

Simple to more complex- that means improving, right? A kitten is an improvement over an amoeba, isn’t it? I’d rather snuggle up with a kitten than an amoeba. I don’t want to see “Study shows that kittens are turning into amoebas faster than we thought.”

 

Upon further investigation, I came to an article on mutations by a science-oriented skeptic. “Ah, he will separate the wheat from the chaff,” I thought. But he mostly wanted to mock Creationists, who say mutations are harmful, which statement, says scientific skeptic is “bull cookies.”

 

Bull cookies. That’s the kind of thing our ancestors might have said 100,000 years ago as they came upon a mound of brown stuff in a field, except they knew bulls don’t produce “cookies”-horses maybe, but not bulls.

 

 

 

Hmm…I wonder if I could sell a story to The Guardian: “Study shows human DNA now lacks gene for poop recognition.”