The Evolution of Life

Required Reading
 Hewitt, P., Lyons, S., Suchocki, J., & Yeh, J. (2013). The Evolution of Life. In Conceptual
Integrated Science (Second ed., pp. 487-511). Boston: Pearson.

Learning Outcomes and Connections to Course

 Outcomes
After completing this lesson, you will be able to:

Describe the scientific nature of the theory of evolution.

Critically evaluate any obligation we might have to try to understand the world
accurately.
Examine the relationship between the natural and the social world in order to
analyze human behaviours and activities.
Discuss the importance of Charles Darwin’s theory in the context of a scientific
revolution.
Describe the scientific and religious consequences of Darwin’s paradigm shift.
How does the mechanism of evolution affect you today?

Main Topics
 A Scientific Revolution
Complexity and Change
Charles Darwin’s New Worldview
Natural Selection
Homo sapiens
Genetics and the Human Genome Project
Evolution, You and Me
Introduction
What makes us who we are?

Source: By Herbert Rose Barraud (1845 - 1896) [Public domain], via Wikimedi
a Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ACharles_Darwin_p
hotograph_by_Herbert_Rose_Barraud%2C_1881_2.jpg)

Charles Darwin gave us one answer to that question through his theory of evolution, and that
scientific answer was so powerful, so profound, that it is still resonating today. Scientifically,
religiously, philosophically or culturally, the ramifications of what evolution reveals to us —
reveals about us — go to the heart of who we are, what we are, and, perhaps, most poignantly,
our perceived position in a cosmic hierarchy.

“How has life on Earth changed over time?” That simple question at the beginning of your
reading, on page 487, led Darwin on a journey that was both physical and intellectual, and
allowed him a glimpse into humanity’s struggle for existence and the survival of humanity’s
ancestors through millions of years of time. Before you had read the article, did you truly believe
that the world around you had always been this way, that the human form had never changed?
Did you believe that change was only technological and that human behaviour had never varied
through the ages? At the time of Darwin many scientists and religious authorities believed in the
fixity of life, because it seemed like common sense. Life evolved so slowly that the average
person had no perception of the transformations. , But sometimes common sense, as you
remember from your study of science in Unit 1, can be dead wrong.

Look at one of Darwin’s insights mentioned on page 508 of your reading, an idea still
unpalatable to some: “Humans are primates.” Therein lies the challenge to our perceived
specialness. We are members of a species, home sapiens, part of the order known as primates.
The evidence for evolution leads us to the conclusion that human beings, on a biological level,
are animals, just like all the other animals on the planet, and they are animals susceptible to
volatile environments that create change and create new species. The ancestors of Homo
sapiens were not always Homo sapiens! And, more disheartening at first reading, is the change
didn’t come about because of some divine intention of creating Homo sapiens; it happened by
chance — you could even say it happened because of mistakes, mistakes in genetic replication.
The difference between the human species and the 99% of all other species that have lived on
this planet and met extinction is nothing but a roll of the evolutionary dice. As animals, we are
what we are due to the same accidents of genetic mutation that led to all the other species on
earth.

But what about the role of human thought and invention — the special gifts we have received
from the genetic crap shoot - in reshaping the environment? What of the profound effect of
cultural evolution, an instrument of change that outstrips the pace of Darwinian evolution?
Science has demonstrated that both nature and nurture have molded the human condition,
shaping who we are. Human evolution is not over, and how much of that future evolution we can
guide is an open question.
 Thinking Critically

Note one of the misconceptions some people have about natural selection: that evolution is
something that happened a long time ago and has no effect today. Modern science, and in
particular, modern genetics, would falsify that claim and demonstrate that the human
genetic code — like those of other species — has not stopped changing. More to the point,
and perhaps scarier, is the idea that natural selection is at work at a faster pace in the
microbial world, with the possibility of rapid emergence of new diseases and parasites. Next
time you watch the news and hear about a superbug plaguing one of your local hospitals, or
an untreatable viral mutation in a known disease, think about natural selection and how
real that makes it. Ask yourself, once you’re familiar with how natural selection works, is
the mutation likely to be a once and for all occurrence, or is there going to be more change
in the species of microorganism, perhaps carrying a greater to humans or some other
species on which we rely? The theory of evolution has real-world ramifications.

Evolution has demonstrated that we, as a species, do not stand distinct and superior to every
other form of life on Earth. Clearly, we are different, with our sophisticated use of language and
invention, and our other cultural gifts that may have roots in natural selection, but as Hewett, et
al, state on page 509 of our reading: “Every creature alive now is equally evolved. Every creature
alive today is the product of 3.5 billion years of evolution. Humans are not ‘more evolved’ than
any other species.”

And that statement is at the core of not only what makes us who we are, but also a slap in the
face of what we always believed we were before the theory of natural selection.

 The Tree of Life (http://www.wellcometreeoflife.org/video/)

A Scientific Revolution
The scientific revolution that is associated with Darwin’s theory of evolution is a showcase for
science and the scientific method. As stated in this week’s reading, on page 487, “For thousands
of years, people believed that life on Earth did not change. They believed that Earth had always
had the same species, and always would.” Charles Darwin changed that paradigm.

The Great Chain of Being (1579)

Source: By Didacus Valades (Diego Valades) (Rhetorica Christiana) [Public
domain], via Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fil
e%3AGreat_Chain_of_Being_2.png)
It is important to understand that the idea of evolution and change was around for a long time,
even before Darwin, tracing back to the ancient world. [1] Fossils were accessible, the possible
origins of species brought about much speculation, and attempts were made to place all things,
living and inert, into a scale of nature, a grand order, as seen in the image to the right. In the
world before Darwin, all things had a fixed place in the cosmos.

In challenging that perceived stability of the natural world, Darwin described in an elegant,
scientific approach how species can evolve on this planet, and he supported that cutting-edge
science of the time with evidence and predictions. As you can read on page 487 of your reading,
an earlier famous scientist, Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, had an alternate hypothesis about evolution,
compelling, but eventually falsified. Darwin’s theory has been shown to be valid for much longer
than Lamarck’s was.

Yet even after 150 years of scientific scrutiny, evolution is a topic that is widely misunderstood,
mistrusted, outright attacked, or denied. Is the theory complete and indisputable? Of course
not! We’ve learned that science is an ongoing process of refinement and tuning, never
proclaiming a final or unquestionable truth. Scientists today still debate some of the more subtle
mechanisms of evolution, while accepting the reality of evolution’s role in changing life over
billions of years.

The theory of evolution gave us a jarring shift in perspective on the specialness of humanity,
similar to the paradigm shift away from the Earth-centred model of the universe. Before Darwin,
scientists such as Copernicus and Galileo had shifted our understanding of Earth’s presumed
centrality in the Universe by showing that we revolved around the sun, not vice-versa, and that
our solar system does not seem to be at the centre of the Universe. These discoveries met with
much resistance, because they hurt humans’ pride and threw into question the Judeo-Christian
view of Man as God’s special creation. But Charles Darwin raised the far more crucial issue of
our origin, our transformation from other species of primates, and our future — as just one more
animal species.
Complexity and Change
At the time of Darwin, it was widely believed by both scientific and religious circles that
different species on Earth were created fully formed in separate acts of creation, never changed,
and were confined to particular geographical locations. Darwin’s studies and his scientific
predictions were a contradiction to the beliefs of the time, particularly in regards to human
beings:

We, as a species, have changed and are changing.

We, as a species, were not confined to a particular location on Earth.
We, as a species, were not created separately from all other living things.
We, as a species, are related to all living things on our planet, from your pet dog, to the
tomatoes in your salad, or to that indestructible bacteria vacationing in your bathroom.

It was also widely believed, by both scientific and religious circles, that the complexity of living
organisms could not have developed by chance but must have been the result of divine design.
William Paley’s 19th century Argument from Design [2] argued that the complexity of all living
things implied that a grand designer, or God, must have created life. Paley’s arguments involved
a watch, but we can modernize the argument to a smartphone so that you can appreciate his
logic. His argument was incredibly compelling and convincing for many in the religious and
scientific establishment, and still is for many people today.

A Matter of Perspective
 Source: © istockphoto.com/ Beeldbewerking

Let’s say you’ve never seen a smartphone before (pretend you’re some alien creature
stranded on Earth) and as you take your stroll along a beach to re-energize your
phlengrackle nodule (don’t ask) you find this strange device in the sand. It’s obviously
different from the sand and rocks you’ve examined, noticeably distinct in structure and
symmetry. The device is still working and, using one of your fifty multi-purpose appendages,
you’re able to push the correct icons and see various apps activate or images pop up (the
horrific selfie doesn’t deter you from your investigation).

Being a curious, sentient being, you then pry open the phone to examine its internal
mechanism, and the complexity of the engineering would lead you to the conclusion that
the phone must have a designer, a phonemaker, and the phone must have a purpose. A rock
seems pointless, but this thing seems to have a function. If you fiddle around with its insides,
and pluck out a wire here, or an electronic component there, the device stops to function
and you figure that every piece has a necessary role in the functioning of this complicated
machine.
The argument continues to the realm of living things, be it a plant, a snail, or the internal
structure of a human being. If you have never seen a human being before and you decide to open
one up to see how it ticks (please do not try this at home) then you will find a complexity of
engineering marvels in the function and interrelationship of different organs. Pluck out the
heart or yank out the brain, and this creature will stop working. These interdependent
mechanisms could not have formed randomly but must be the product of design; that is, a grand
designer or builder (God). The argument is extendable to the workings of the universe itself, a
cosmos perfectly fine-tuned like a giant clockwork mechanism so humanity can exist with the
perfect conditions for life.

The belief was that there was no other way to explain this complexity in living things except to
assume that someone, or some thing, had designed it, intentionally. To explain the design
scientifically seemed impossible. But Darwin showed that a scientific explanation for complexity
without a designer was possible, an explanation involving the natural world and not
supernatural intervention. As you recall from Unit 1’s science lesson, natural explanations are
the domain of science.

Evolution, or Descent with Modification as Darwin called it (a more appropriate name given how
the word ‘evolution’ has been misinterpreted and is still misused today), explained the
complexity of living things as building over a long time, structures and functions modifying over
generations, traits passed on from parent to offspring. We can have a complex, natural system of
living things arising naturally and, to a degree, randomly. This was the scientific
counterargument to the idea that complexity was impossible without purposeful design.

And, of course, the theory of evolution went to the essence of what makes us who we are and
tells us firly clearly where we came from. In the words of Charles Darwin [3]:

“Man still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin.”

Within Darwin’s quotation is arguably the greatest scientific revelation humanity has
experienced; present day human beings, whether in physical appearance, behaviour or the
development of our incredible brains, have emerged from earlier lifeforms that have been
evolving since the very beginnings of life on Earth, and we have struggled for existence just like
every other living thing around us.
Charles Darwin’s New Worldview
Charles Darwin was a naturalist, a geologist, and a student of theology, living at a time, in
England, when the fields of science, religion, and politics blurred into each other and the
establishment was resistant to the idea of change. As you know from this lesson and from
reading Hewitt’s article, the theory of evolution is all about change — so you can imagine the
conflict that Darwin knew he was heading into and you can appreciate his reluctance in
publishing his discoveries and his ideas.

Darwin, as a very young man in 1831, embarked on five-year expedition with the (cramped)
HMS Beagle, where he was the naturalist on board; his itinerary included the Canary Islands,
South America, the Galapagos Islands, Tahiti, New Zealand, Australia, and then back to England:

Voyage of the Beagle

Source: © Sémhur / Wikimedia Commons (/wiki/Main_Page), via Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.or
g/wiki/File%3AVoyage_of_the_Beagle-en.svg)

As you can guess from the Beagle’s trip around the planet, Darwin would have observed an
incredible diversity of wildlife, species of plants, as well as stark contrasts in geological
formations (for example, finding ancient marine fossils in mountains, far above sea level). Type
those names on the map into Google Images and look at the nature of these different
environments.

During his journey, Darwin discovered evidence that lay the groundwork for his theory of
evolution. He observed

new species, different from any known in Europe.

fossils of creatures that were no longer in existence but were physically similar to modern,
living species wandering around the local environment.
incredible biodiversity and different species with similarities to one another.
struggles for existence where invasive, nonindigenous species, overpowered local plants
or wildlife.
struggles for existence at the human level, between Europeans and the inhabitants of
conquered territories.
geological changes that required millions and millions of years, demonstrating evidence
for a very ancient Earth. This was an observation contrary to the beliefs of the time, where
Earth’s age ranged from a few thousand years to several million, not the 4.5 billion year old
age measured by science today. Human evolution needed a lot of time, and a young Earth
scenario was a possible falsification to Darwin.

Darwin’s ideas didn’t all pop up on his visit to the Galapagos Islands, but his visit to this natural
laboratory rich in biodiversity did solve a large part of the puzzle. Watch the following video
tour of these famous islands:

 Galápagos (http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/oceans-narrated-by-sylvia-
earle/oceans-galapagos)

Darwin noticed variations among the species of finch in the Galapagos, from island to island (by
the way, he didn’t know the different-looking birds were all species of finch until he took them
back to England and had them analyzed by an ornithologist, John Gould).

Each variation — particularly beak size and structure — seemed suited for a specific bird’s own
food sources or environment. In other words, each species had the correct tools necessary to
survive in its own particular environment, as seen in the following image:
Adaptive Radiation
Source: Allan, G. J. & Max, T. L. (2010) Molecular Genetic Techniques and Markers for Ecological Research. Nature
Education Knowledge 3(10):2. Retrieved from http://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/molecular-genetic-t
echniques-and-markers-for-ecological-15785936 (http://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/molecular-gene
tic-techniques-and-markers-for-ecological-15785936)

If the local food source was a tough seed, the bird had a tough, vice-like beak for breaking it. If
the local food source was an insect-source deep in a tree on buried in sand, then the bird had an
elongated beak for plucking out the food, and if the food available was a soft fruit, the bird had
the appropriate beak for tearing. Switch out these birds into different environments, and their
tools of survival were useless: they would probably die.

In scientific terms (remember the ideas of empiricism and induction from unit 1), Darwin
observed that each species had an ecological niche or role, and the thirteen finch species on the
Galapagos seemed more closely related to each other than to their cousins on the South
American mainland. Darwin hypothesized that this intriguing evidence implied that there
originally was one original species on the islands — a Common Ancestor — and after a few
million years there was a diversification into multiple species for different niches; this is
Adaptive Radiation or Speciation, also seen in the image above.

You can see the profound implications of this as we extend these ideas from what happened on
the Galapagos to what happened everywhere on Earth:

One original species transformed into multiple species for different niches after millions of
years.
Species are not stable in their form or behaviour!
A species can change into a new, different species.

It’s a small leap to apply the idea of a common ancestor to all life on Earth, without exception,
and that includes human beings.

The big question was how these changes happened.

Natural Selection
Darwin had some puzzles to explain in his hypothesis:

How do we get from a common ancestor to different species after a few million years?
What was the mechanism that caused variations? (How did an offspring arise that was
different from its parent(s)?)
How do such variations accumulate and eventually become a new species?

Darwin did not know the cause of the mutations in a species (today we know that it’s changes in
DNA), but he did work out the process of natural selection that allowed an accumulation of
changes in a species (Descent with Modification/Evolution) over time. A special feature
(mutation) of survival could be passed on because individuals could live long enough to
reproduce and pass on the same survival trait to the next generation. This was evolution
through natural selection as detailed on pages 489-494 of your reading (contrast this
mechanism with genetic drift, mutation pressure, and gene flow on p. 497-498).
Source: Alamy. Call of the wild: the grey wolf could help regulate deer numbers [Photograph], Retrieved from http://ww
w.theguardian.com/environment/2014/oct/26/why-bring-wolves-and-lynx-to-the-uk (http://www.theguardian.com/en
vironment/2014/oct/26/why-bring-wolves-and-lynx-to-the-uk) and © images courtesy of istockphoto.com

For comparison, you’re probably aware of artificial selection or selective breeding: cabbage and
broccoli share a common ancestor in wild mustard; human beings chose to cultivate the variants
that led to our cabbages and broccolis of today. Or if you have a particular breed of dog, for
example, your majestic German Shepard and your annoying yappy Chihuahua — both share a
Gray Wolf ancestor (apologies to annoying dog lovers). These are cases where humans
purposely bred animals or plants, selecting for desired features. Even Darwin did his own
artificial selection experiments with pigeons, and observed the accumulation of changes
generation to generation.

In natural selection, environmental change or environmental stress will result in some variations
being more successful than others, until new semi-stable species emerge over time. If a
particular plant or animal has the right mutation to survive a changing environment at the right
time and lives long enough to pass on that survivability trait, change can accumulate over
generations.

Thinking Critically

Let’s look at a scenario, not sophisticated or elegant, but let’s try it anyway to clarify some
of the key points of your reading. Imagine that a group of humanoid creatures (let’s call
them Darwins) are stranded on an island (the reason we’re using humanoids and not
humans is that we’re going to put aside, for now, ideas of altruism, intelligence, empathy,
social sharing, bonding, etc.; this can be addressed later).

Now, similarly to the Lamarck example from your article, but without the (falsified)
stretchy-necked giraffes, imagine that the food source is high up on a tree, or on the side of
a cliff; it doesn’t matter. In this scenario, all the Darwins with extra-long arms, which some
just happened to have by chance, will have the correct tools at the right time to get that
elevated food and survive. Remember, there is typically variation within a population (look
around your classroom or place of work, for example, and you’ll see that not all humans are
physically identical).

So what happens next in our cruel environment? The Darwins with the shortish arms will
not get food and they will die — sorry, nature is unforgiving. The Darwins with the longish
arms will continue to feed and live for another day, and have a higher probability of living
long enough to find their Darwinish soulmates, pair up, and have the next generation of
Darwins. What do we have now? The next generation will tend to have longish arms as they
inherited these traits from their parents. That’s not to say that short-armed Darwins won’t
be born; but if they are born, cute or not, they will die off and this trait may slowly disappear
from the species, generation to generation.

Imagine now that a Darwin-eating tiger enters into our complacent population of Darwins,
and this tiger is rather quick (you could substitute the tiger with fast-running, Danny Boyle-
inspired zombies, if you like). The natural (smart) reaction is for our hapless humanoids to
run for cover. Now a Darwin doesn’t have to be the fastest Darwin around, but he’d damned
better not be the slowest. Hungry kitty eats all the slow-running Darwins and then
mysteriously disappears after the culling. What do we have now? Darwins with long arms
and quick legs, who live long enough to find their respective soulmates, and create the next
generation with the tendency toward long arms and fast legs.

You can see that we can keep throwing in new environmental stresses into this exercise and
the structure of the species will change over time — over generations — depending on the
environmental circumstances. Throw in a virus that has a 90% kill-rate, meaning that ten
percent of the Darwins have a natural immunity — just by luck — and the next surviving
generation will have long arms, fast legs, and a resistance to a nasty bug. And so on,
generation after generation, until you have a species that doesn’t even resemble the
original species of stranded Darwins on the island (although DNA could tell you otherwise).
Complexity of bodily structure and interdependencies of internal organs can change as
well: a natural tweak here and there, or an acquired mutation now and then, could lead to
the complexity of an eye or a hand, and some body parts could vanish with time or become
useless as they have minimal survival value (become “vestigial,” like our now useless
appendix, for instance.).
At the beginning of this exercise, we could have also divided the Darwins into, let’s say, five
groups and separated them on five different islands. The different islands would have different
environments and would yield different changes throughout time. Play out diverse scenarios
and the five groups will diverge in appearance and behaviour, just like the Galapagos Islands
finches, giving us speciation, the existence of large populations of organisms that can breed with
one another (the usual scientific definition of a species).

A Matter of Perspective

Play with following interactive animation and notice what happens to a population as you
alter the environment and which trait is passed on in a population; compare this to the
Peppered Moth scenario on page 492 of your reading (you can find a more detailed
interactive presentation on natural selection in Additional Resources):

 Nowhere to Hide
(http://www.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/lsps07.sci.life.oate.nowherehide/nowhere-to-
hide/)

With this great insight, Darwin (the real one, not the humanoid) saw how a species can change or
evolve over very long periods of time, and how diverse species today have a common ancestor
and are all inter-related in a grand tree of life:
Source: By Phylogenic Tree.jpg: John D. Croftderivative work: Conquistador (This file was derived from: Phylogenic
Tree.jpg:) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons (https://common
s.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3APhylogenic_Tree-en.svg)

But why stop there, as the logic leads to implications for human beings as well: if finches, plants,
or tortoises can change with time, why should human beings be exempt from the effects of
nature?
Homo sapiens
If human beings are the result of natural selection and Descent with Modification, then humans
were not created fully formed as they are today, and the process of human evolution, which
needed the cumulative power of incremental changes, required a long, long time. Darwin
estimated that the evolution of man would have needed several hundred million years.

As a scientific theory, evolution was (and still is) subject to experimentation and falsification. As
mentioned earlier in our lesson, it has so far withstood 150 years of testing, which isn’t bad for a
scientific theory in these days of feverish scientific research. As Darwin said himself in Origin of
Species, "If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly
have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely
break down." [4]

Source: © istockphoto.com/ Beeldbewerking

Darwin’s theory made the following predictions that have so far been borne out by subsequent
science:
 Human origins are in Africa.
Earth must be very old (millions and millions of years) for there to have been enough time
for human beings to have evolved.
Transitional fossils or “missing links” should be found. (For examples, visit PBS: Fossil
Evidence (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/id/tran-nf.html). Missing whale transitional
fossils, mentioned on 506-507 of your reading, used to be a point of attack against the
theory of evolution until many were uncovered in the last few decades.)
There must be a mechanism of change or mutation.
All life on Earth shares a common ancestor.
For more predictions, visit: Darwin's Predictions 
(http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/evolution/darwins-predictions.html)

A Matter of Perspective

Hewitt (p. 503-508) documents some of the evidence supporting Darwin’s theory of
evolution. Why does the presence of “vestigial organs” in humans counter the Argument
from Design? Also, think about evolution as occurring right now, in real-time, not just as
some process that took place a long time ago and it’s now over. Does the emergence of new
diseases via natural selection (in the form of lethal superbugs) surprise you? We’re talking
about generations reproducing in seconds not years and survivability traits passed on to
subsequent generations, making tougher bugs to eradicate (view the following interactive
to see how fast these diseases change:

 Arms Race With a Superbug (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/evolution/arms-race-

superbug.html)

There is support for evolution from the measured age of the Earth (billions of years) and the
chemical re-creation of the basic building blocks of life (the Miller-Urey experiment simulated
how life could have formed billions of years ago in a primitive atmosphere). The theory of
evolution is a not an isolated model of reality that stands apart from other scientific fields. As
Nicholas Wade writes in his book, Before the Dawn: Recovering the Lost History of Our
Ancestors, there are eight key disciplines that allow us to examine human history and pre-
history and complement the theory of evolution: paleoanthropology, archaeology, population
genetics, historical linguistics, primatology, social anthropology, evolutionary psychology, and
evolutionary biology. When discussing the evolution and age of the earth itself, in terms of time
needed for evolutionary processes and vital chemical reactions, we can bring in analyses based
on radioactive decay measurement, erosion, continental drift, geomagnetic reversals,
sedimentary layering, and the list of support goes on, from the age of the universe to the
changing climates of Earth.

Thinking Critically

In the following interactive app, you can see milestones in human and pre-human history,
spanning eight million years and the correlation to changing environments. These aren’t
just physical changes, but also changes in many of the milestones that lay the groundwork
for human society. Environment can change humans, humans can change their environment
through cultural evolution, and society and cultural evolution can loop back and in turn
change human beings.

 Human Evolution Timeline Interactive (http://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/human-

evolution-timeline-interactive)

Our relationship to other species, and our relationship to our closest relatives on the planet is
clear and has been clarified by modern genetics; our DNA is most similar to chimpanzees and
bonobos and quite divergent from that of other animals such as reptiles or fish; yet, the
similarities that overlap because of common origins are there and they are observable within
the genetic coding used by all life on the planet.

Note the relationship between the different hominid groups, and do note the inaccuracy of the
statement often made in attack against evolution that “humans came from apes or monkeys.”
It’s important to understand that some of these hominid groups lived at the same time, although
we are the only surviving group and that may fool us into thinking we are unique. According to
Nicholas Wade, “At least three— the Neanderthals, Homo erectus, and Homo floresiensis—
survived until modern humans made their exit from Africa. Had these archaic peoples endured
till the present day, our own species would surely seem less special, being evidently just one of
many ways in which evolution could spin variations out of the basic ape lineage.” [5]

It’s not so much a cause for pride as humbling to know that this was a struggle for survival that
the ancestors of modern humans “won,” whether through ingenuity and adaptability, luck, or
relentless warfare.

 What does it mean to be human? (http://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/human-family-tree)

Genetics and the Human Genome Project
One reason evolutionary biology has received attention in both academic and nonacademic
circles recently is because of the ability to tell the story of human evolution through traces of
genetic evidence now available to us through the human genome. The human genome project 
(http://www.genome.gov/12011238) , a project that mapped out our genes, was an
international scientific project completed in 2003. The success of this project, once thought
impossible, has been compared to the moon landing. Just as Neil Armstrong, the first man on the
moon, famously said, “That’s one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind” as he took
his first step on the moon, the human genome is truly a giant leap forward for humankind.
Research on the human genome project continues to help with breakthroughs in medicine, but
more importantly, for our purpose in this lesson, it also has provided us with “a history book — a
narrative of the journey of our species through time,” as Francis Collins, director of the project,
stated.

Through studying the human genome, researchers can now trace human evolution in a way that
was previously unavailable to them, an incredible instrument that could have easily falsified the
tenets of evolution, but instead it has become one of its greatest scientific supports. Think about
all the ways researchers study history, in particular human history. Today’s historians are able to
study human history over the last 5,000 years through written records, but there are no written
records from earlier times. So, if one wants to know about the past, he or she must focus on
archaeological remains. Archeologists can study human history between 5,000 — 15,000 years
ago through the unearthed remains of settlements. However, before 15,000 years ago, humans
were travelling nomads and left little to no archaeological evidence. At this point in human
history it becomes increasingly more difficult, but not yet impossible, to study our ancient
history. Researchers can still study human history up until 50,000 years ago, around the time
many claim the first signs of modern human behaviour appear, through cave paintings. Between
50,000 years ago to around 5 million years ago (the timeline varies), when the human lineage
broke away from the shared common ancestor with apes, little could be known about human
evolution outside of scarce fossils of hominids and archaeological remains such as the hand axe.
However, thanks to the human genome project—our genetic history book, if you will—more
information on human evolution is now available.

Source: © istockphoto.com / nobeastsofierce
development, along with many other fascinating discoveries.
Here are a few of the many fascinating
findings one can learn from genes. The
human genome consists 21,000 genes
and 2.85 billion units of DNA. Each
strand of DNA contains a total of 46
chromosomes, 23 of those inherited
from one’s biological mother and the
other 23 inherited from one’s biological
father. In terms of human evolution, it is
now possible to show that 1-4% of your
DNA is shared with Neanderthals, that
the genome of humans and
chimpanzees is 99% identical, and that
a gene called FOXP2 may be one of the
many factors involved in our language

Want an example of evolution that affects your everyday life? If so, then think of how evolution
affects your mornings in front of the mirror. Why do we need to cut our hair while chimps do
not? According to Nicholas Wade in his book Before the Dawn: Recovering the Lost History of
our Ancestors, geneticists have isolated the human and ape genes for hair (phi-hHaA) and are
able to study through a gene mutation that occurred around 200,000 years ago that mutations
to this gene seem to be the most likely reason why you, and not the chimpanzee, will have to set
aside some time in the next few weeks to cut the hair on your head that never stops growing
(unless you are bald, of course!). So make sure to blame nature, not the hairdresser, the next
time you get a haircut you are not impressed with!
Evolution, You and Me
Just as geneticists study human nature by examining gene mutation, other researchers, such as
primatologists and moral psychologists, study the moral code of primates and babies as a way to
better understand why rudimentary innate moral tendencies appear to be universal in human
beings. To be clear, this is not evidence that our highly complex social behaviour can be
explained by and reduced to gene mutation, but it is likely that natural selection has equipped us
with an evolved morality, along with other evolved social traits. Primates, along with other
mammals, are highly intelligent social creatures that display abilities for empathy, fairness and
reciprocity—all abilities needed to support a moral code.

Biologist and primatologist Dr. Frans B. M. de Waal studies the behavior and social intelligence
of primates. He has authored several books and articles on the parallels between primate and
human behavior. In the following TED video lecture from 2011, he challenges our assumption
that only human beings are capable of complex moral behaviors. Could primates also possess
empathy and be concerned with justice, fairness, and reciprocity?

 Frans de Waal: Moral behavior in animals (https://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=GcJxRqTs5nk)

Thinking Critically

Consider the idea that in order for a society to function, the ability to trust others needs to
exist. Scientists are now looking at how levels of the hormone oxytocin influence social
factors such as bonding with and trusting others. This is just one of many new interesting
biological approaches to our social behaviour.

Whatever your opinions on the question of how much genes and biology determine our
social and moral world — and they may range from disbelief to indifference to deep
appreciation of the possibility — it is important to recognize that from the point of view of
the theory of natural selection, human beings are not more evolved or less evolved than
other animals. Every living species on the planet today has taken exactly as long to evolve
 to its present state of efficiency. We just evolved differently. The assumption that Homo
sapiens are the most advanced animals can lead to a view that incorrectly attributes value
to other animals insofar as these animals resemble us. This anthropomorphic assumption
erroneously reduces the value of animals merely to things to be used for our entertainment,
pleasure or profit.

Even as Darwin’s theory gained support from religious and scientific circles, the perception still
floated around that humans were the pinnacle of evolution on Earth; evolution’s path on Earth
was in the direction of bringing forth increasingly “superior” creatures and the highest life forms
were human beings. You can see that viewpoint in the following illustration:

Perspective 1

“…the different species have been evolved from a few common, simple ancestral forms,
and in that case man is the highest fruit of the tree of evolution.” [5]
Haeckel’s Pedigree of Man [6]
Source: Ernst Haeckel [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ATree_o
f_life_by_Haeckel.jpg)

Oddly enough, even today, if you glance through some science textbooks, you will see a similar
diagram implying a pre-Darwinian hierarchy of life which has been falsified by modern genetics.

Here is another image you’re probably familiar with implying that humanity is evolution’s final,
perfectly polished product:

Perspective 2:

Human beings as the 'final perfectly finished product'.

The March of Progress depicting human evolution from apelike ancestors to sapiens.
Source: © istockphoto.com / RossellaApostoli

And here is a more accurate description of human evolution, a description that situates human
beings within the larger evolution of all life:

Perspective 3:

Human beings (Homo sapiens) interwoven within the natural world.

Phylogenetic tree (evolutionary tree).
Source: Source: David M. Hillis, Derrick Zwickl, and Robin Gutell, University of Texas. Retrieved from http://www.zo.ute
xas.edu/faculty/antisense/downloadfilestol.html (http://www.zo.utexas.edu/faculty/antisense/downloadfilestol.html)

Human beings do not stand over and above nature. Humans, as the last image reinforces, are
closely interwoven within the natural world. Likewise, we can no longer separate our culture
from our nature. Recent research on epigenetics, for example, has shown that these categories
are not independent, mutually exclusive spheres. Culture shapes our biology much in the same
way that biology shapes our culture.

A Matter of Perspective

You can learn more about epigenetics by reading “How Poverty Influences a Child’s Brain
Development” by Ivan Sememiuk of the Globe and Mail.

 How poverty influences a child's brain development

(http://www.theglobeandmail.com/technology/science/brain/how-poverty-influences-a-
childs-brain-development/article7882957/?page=all)

Evolution has shaped and continues to shape who we are. Charles Darwin revolutionized the
way in which we think about human nature and changed our perceptions, our paradigm, about
where we came from, what our relationship is to every other living thing on Earth, and where we
are going as a species.
Superbugs

Source: © istockphoto.com/ Yuri_Arcurs

Watch the following video on superbug outbreaks:

 Superbug outbreaks (http://www.cbc.ca/player/News/Health/ID/2433961129/)

Using your knowledge of natural selection, and the examples given in your reading, how do you
explain the emergence of this type of antibiotic-resistant bacteria? Before reading this article,
what were your reactions when you heard such stories? Did you think them unrelated to the
mechanisms of evolutionary theory?
Now visit the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) 
(http://www.cdc.gov/drugresistance/about.html) and scroll down to the Brief History of
Antibiotics near the bottom of the page and look over the timeline image of the introduction of a
drug and the quickness with which resistance develops (Antibiotic Resistance Identified versus
Antibiotic Introduced).

A Matter of Perspective

Applying what you know of evolution, do you think we can keep up with each new strain of
bug and eradicate it? What do you think will probably happen (if we continue the
widespread use of antibiotics) and what do you think must happen (individual,
governmental) for us to have a fighting chance in suppressing outbreaks?
Summary
As should be clear by now, the question of human nature is a complex one. Answering the
question what makes us who we are is not simple. The answer is no longer explained by either
nature or nurture, but a complex interaction between both. Furthermore, evolutionary
psychology, biology, and primatology have produced enough evidence to suggest that we revisit
our understanding of what makes us who we are.

The Human Genome Project was one of the key developments that unlocked the explanatory
power of the evolutionary perspective. Charles Darwin’s simple, yet elegant, explanation of
species change might have been threatened by genetics research in the twentieth century, a
field of science developed years after Darwin’s publications. Ultimately, it confirmed what
Darwin originally observed and would set the stage for the way we think about the natural
world and ourselves for the next century. The theory of evolution is a showcase example of the
scientific method at work, through observations, hypotheses, testing, and extensible theory. The
attacks dismissing evolution on the grounds that “it’s just a theory” not only fail to understand
what theory means within the context of the scientific method, but also fail to address the
intricate, overlapping, multi-level support that the theory gets from other scientific fields.

The theme of this unit is what makes us who we are, a topic that looks at our identity in the
plural, assuming a shared human nature. We undoubtedly have different life experiences as
individuals, but as human beings (Homo sapiens) we do share some common traits. Most social
science and humanities disciplines in the twentieth century, however, once firmly believed that
each person was born a “blank slate.” This commonly shared assumption about human nature
across the disciplines argued that individuals had the ability to choose freely what they wanted
and that our biology never limited these choices. According to this position, it was commonly
held that we were all born morally neutral and society eventually corrupted us. It was also held
that none of us were born with any naturally-evolved innate traits.

This description of human nature as a “blank slate” is no longer widely supported. Both
environmental and natural forces, many argue now, shape human nature. The nature/nurture
debate is over; both our environment and our biology, not just one or the other, shape who we

are.
Evolution has demonstrated that we do not have an independence from our biological
background, we do not have an independence from genetic linkage to every other species on the
planet, and we did not — and do not — have an invulnerability to environmental stress — a force
of change that helped shape who we are through natural selection. The elements of mutations
and variations within a species played large in the survival of a species and the extinction of
others — a fundamental reminder of the role of chance that led us to the point of becoming the
dominant species on the planet.

The theory of evolution highlights the precarious nature of life on Earth, and the perspective
that we are “not more evolved” than any other creature should remind us of the stark fact that
most species that have crawled, swum or walked on this planet are gone — they’ve gone extinct
in a natural, commonplace process of life and death. Before humanity’s domination of Earth,
there is evidence of five separate natural mass extinction events, each of which at the time
wiped out the majority of all living things, essentially giving life a “planetary reboot.” Under our
dominion, arguments can be made that we have started the sixth mass extinction event — a
human-made cataclysm on the horizon.

Modern humans have not been around that long — 200,000 years is a blink of geological time,
where the average “lifespan” of a species is several million years. In contrast, the dinosaurs ruled
the Earth for over 200 million years before they met their end.

There is a cautionary tale here, a lesson we should keep in mind: does evolutionary history single
out humanity as exceptional? Can we truly shape our future through artificial selection and
culture and bypass the natural norm, or are we, despite seemingly able to alter environments at
will, just another species destined for extinction?
The Noble Dodo, Member of the 99%
Source: By Jebulon (Own work) [CC0 (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/deed.en)], via Wikimedia Co
mmons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ADronte_dodo_Raphus_cucullatus.jpg)

Additional Resources

Optional material:

 The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online (http://darwin-online.org.uk/)

 Track Chart of the Voyage of the Beagle (http://darwin-

online.org.uk/content/frameset?itemID=F1571&viewtype=image&pageseq=302)

 Natural Selection (http://phet.colorado.edu/en/simulation/natural-selection)

 Tree of Life (http://www.wellcometreeoflife.org/interactive/)

 Interactive Tree of Life (http://itol.embl.de/index.shtml)

 An Origin of Species
 (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/darwin/origin/index.html)

 Evolution (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/)

 Genomic insights into Darwin's finch

(http://blogs.biomedcentral.com/bmcseriesblog/2013/02/12/genomic-insights-into-
darwins-finch/)

 You Share 98.7 Percent of Your DNA With This Sex-Obsessed Ape
(http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/02/evolution-creationism-bonobos-
neanderthals-denisovans-chromosome-two)

 A Family Tree for Humanity

(https://www.ted.com/talks/spencer_wells_is_building_a_family_tree_for_all_humanit
y)

Some Darwin-Era Books:

 Wallace, Alfred R. (1889). DARWINISM: AN EXPOSITION OF THE THEORY OF

NATURAL SELECTION WITH SOME OF ITS APPLICATIONS. Retrieved from
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/14558
(https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/14558)
(While Darwin hesitated in publishing, Wallace came up with the same ideas as
Darwin).

 Chambers, Robert (1844). Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation. Retrieved

from https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7116
(https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7116)
(Chambers wrote this popular, but controversial book before Darwin published
Origin of Species in 1859 — without the idea of Natural Selection).

 Lyell, Charles (1832-1853). Principles of Geology. Retrieved from

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/33224
(https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/33224)
(Charles Lyell’s work in geology observed the changes of fossils in different strata or
layers of rocks; he believed changes were smooth and uniform, not catastrophic. He
 used the word ‘evolution’ in 1832 for geology. Also, he demonstrated the idea of Deep
Time or a very old Earth).

 Malthus, Thomas (1798). An Essay on the Principle of Population. Retrieved from

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4239
(https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4239)

References

[1] Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. (n.d.). History of Evolution. Retrieved from

http://www.iep.utm.edu/evolutio/ (http://www.iep.utm.edu/evolutio/)

[2] Paley, William (1879). Natural Theology, or Evidence of the Existence and Attributes of
the Deity Collected from the Appearances of Nature. Retrieved from
https://archive.org/details/naturaltheologyo00pale)
(https://archive.org/details/naturaltheologyo00pale))

[3] Darwin, Charles (1874). The Decent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex; Retrieved
from http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2300 (http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2300)

[4] Darwin, Charles (1874). On the Origin of Species; Retrieved from

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1228 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1228)

[5] Wade, Nicholas (2007-03-27). Before the Dawn: Recovering the Lost History of Our
Ancestors (p. 266). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

[6] Haeckel, Ernst (1912). The Evolution of Man — Volume 1. Retrieved from
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6430 (http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6430)