evolution is one of the biggest ideas in
the modern world it was most memorably
formulated by Charles Darwin in the 19th
century part of the theory focuses on
the tendency of genes to mutate when a
frog or microbe or a giraffe has a gene
mutation it usually means that they’ll
be unsuited to their environment and
simply die but very occasionally just by
chance the mutation gives them an
advantage and makes them more successful
the mutation is passed on to their
descendants who will have the same
advantage as their parents and their
resultant success will spread it ever
further down the generations but the key
thing about gene mutation is that it
takes time a lot of it
it took us around three thousand nine
hundred million years to go from the
first cells to Homo sapiens so the one
thing we can be pretty sure about is
that genetic mutation will not be a
significant feature of the human world
now however there’s a second equally
interesting bit to Darwin’s theory of
evolution which focuses on what gets
called adaptation to the environment
Darwin pointed out that when an
environment changes a characteristic can
suddenly shift from being an advantage
to a disadvantage and vice-versa in 1811
a famous survey of moths around the
burgeoning town of Manchester recorded
no melanic or blacked winged moths 37
years later in 1848 another survey
discovered huge numbers of these
creatures and far fewer white winged
moths Darwin’s explanation was simple
Manchester’s rise as a major industrial
city meant that huge quantities of soot
had entered the atmosphere and darkened
tree trunks thereafter light winged
moths became highly conspicuous to their
main predators birds while the darkling
ones were effectively camouflage Darwin
concluded that changes to the
environment can dramatically alter which
members of a species will thrive within
it this happens in the human world where
it doesn’t affect reproductive potential
that does change the social hierarchy
consider for instance the classic
example of our age the rise of the nerd
being short-sighted timid
poor muscular development being obsessed
with complex abstract processes and
being short on charisma and social
skills used to be a recipe for an
unsuccessful life that because for most
of history making your way in the world
was hugely dependent on physical
strength and strong practical links to a
family group the weakling the loner and
the introvert were in very
disadvantageous positions then in the
last quarter of the 20th century the
tech industry created an environment in
which nerd characteristics turned out to
be highly advantageous human beings are
not themselves now evolving or too
slowly to matter but our environment is
changing very fast and this has hugely
privileged certain traits while
penalizing others a key dynamic of
evolution adaptation to the environment
is still very much around even though
gene mutation may not be a notable
factor some of us are like the black
moths of industrial Manchester ideally
suited to the new world which rewards
massive intellect self-discipline and
rationality others many many of us are
like white moths in a newly sooty world
we find it hard not to eat too much to
distinguish real threats from baseless
anxieties to spend all day in an office
in front of a computer to look at porn
in moderation to be monogamous and to
defer gratification for years while we
collaborate on large projects inside the
glass towers of corporations we should
feel compassion for ourselves when we
don’t quite fit our time
our biology has saddled us with a range
of cognitive habits which was sensible
when they evolved habits around sugar
sex power anxiety and excitement but
which really hamper our effectiveness in
the modern world an understanding of the
theory of evolution should move us to
sympathy for why we do some of the
deeply counterproductive things we do
when he first wrote about evolution
Charles Darwin was accused of demeaning
human nature cartoonists loved to draw
him as an ape but Darwin was being
deeply kind and helpful to us humans he
was reminding us that we carry with us a
lot of baggage which we don’t now need
but which we can’t get rid of very fast
modern life has required things of us
which are really very hard for us to
pull off we’re saddled with so many
inconvenient but maddeningly deep-rooted
tendencies which is yet another reason
why we constantly need to be a little
more forgiving of other people and of ourselves
the modern world it was most memorably
formulated by Charles Darwin in the 19th
century part of the theory focuses on
the tendency of genes to mutate when a
frog or microbe or a giraffe has a gene
mutation it usually means that they’ll
be unsuited to their environment and
simply die but very occasionally just by
chance the mutation gives them an
advantage and makes them more successful
the mutation is passed on to their
descendants who will have the same
advantage as their parents and their
resultant success will spread it ever
further down the generations but the key
thing about gene mutation is that it
takes time a lot of it
it took us around three thousand nine
hundred million years to go from the
first cells to Homo sapiens so the one
thing we can be pretty sure about is
that genetic mutation will not be a
significant feature of the human world
now however there’s a second equally
interesting bit to Darwin’s theory of
evolution which focuses on what gets
called adaptation to the environment
Darwin pointed out that when an
environment changes a characteristic can
suddenly shift from being an advantage
to a disadvantage and vice-versa in 1811
a famous survey of moths around the
burgeoning town of Manchester recorded
no melanic or blacked winged moths 37
years later in 1848 another survey
discovered huge numbers of these
creatures and far fewer white winged
moths Darwin’s explanation was simple
Manchester’s rise as a major industrial
city meant that huge quantities of soot
had entered the atmosphere and darkened
tree trunks thereafter light winged
moths became highly conspicuous to their
main predators birds while the darkling
ones were effectively camouflage Darwin
concluded that changes to the
environment can dramatically alter which
members of a species will thrive within
it this happens in the human world where
it doesn’t affect reproductive potential
that does change the social hierarchy
consider for instance the classic
example of our age the rise of the nerd
being short-sighted timid
poor muscular development being obsessed
with complex abstract processes and
being short on charisma and social
skills used to be a recipe for an
unsuccessful life that because for most
of history making your way in the world
was hugely dependent on physical
strength and strong practical links to a
family group the weakling the loner and
the introvert were in very
disadvantageous positions then in the
last quarter of the 20th century the
tech industry created an environment in
which nerd characteristics turned out to
be highly advantageous human beings are
not themselves now evolving or too
slowly to matter but our environment is
changing very fast and this has hugely
privileged certain traits while
penalizing others a key dynamic of
evolution adaptation to the environment
is still very much around even though
gene mutation may not be a notable
factor some of us are like the black
moths of industrial Manchester ideally
suited to the new world which rewards
massive intellect self-discipline and
rationality others many many of us are
like white moths in a newly sooty world
we find it hard not to eat too much to
distinguish real threats from baseless
anxieties to spend all day in an office
in front of a computer to look at porn
in moderation to be monogamous and to
defer gratification for years while we
collaborate on large projects inside the
glass towers of corporations we should
feel compassion for ourselves when we
don’t quite fit our time
our biology has saddled us with a range
of cognitive habits which was sensible
when they evolved habits around sugar
sex power anxiety and excitement but
which really hamper our effectiveness in
the modern world an understanding of the
theory of evolution should move us to
sympathy for why we do some of the
deeply counterproductive things we do
when he first wrote about evolution
Charles Darwin was accused of demeaning
human nature cartoonists loved to draw
him as an ape but Darwin was being
deeply kind and helpful to us humans he
was reminding us that we carry with us a
lot of baggage which we don’t now need
but which we can’t get rid of very fast
modern life has required things of us
which are really very hard for us to
pull off we’re saddled with so many
inconvenient but maddeningly deep-rooted
tendencies which is yet another reason
why we constantly need to be a little
more forgiving of other people and of ourselves
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