Human evolution from the eyes of a programmer
From the first life that appeared on Earth, there have been so many species that came into existence. As Darwin showed, a species can evolve from a common ancestor into a specific species with unique properties and behaviors of its own. Each species may possess some abilities based on its properties and behaviors. The abilities of a species can be used to get an understanding of development and intelligence. For example, a simple microorganism would only show the capabilities of primitive life i.e. energy consumption, reproduction, growth, and development. However, a developed higher species may display abilities like building nests, homes, communication with sound patterns, etc.
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| Evolution of species as a class diagram |
Among, all the animals, humans are capable of quite peculiar and advanced abilities that come with the large brain and cognitive development. Humans have developed so advance with our capabilities we have complex languages to communicate, use advanced tools, complex social behaviors, sophisticated homes, and so on. Not only that humans are capable of probing nearby planets and beyond.
However, my question is are humans are so advanced and evolved as they claim to be?
Fact 1
If you pick some average animal from a species it would display the abilities and properties that would be common to all the individuals in that species. For example, if you take a bird it would definitely be able to build a nice nest as any other bird of that species. If you pick a woodpecker, it would know how to build in a tree. So it will be for most of the other animals.
If you pick a random human from the street and ask him/her how the electricity is generated? Would they be really able to answer that? Or how computers are built? or how to do taxes? If you do this as a social experiment, few would know how to do some stuff, but most wouldn't.
One can argue that humans have social behaviors and live in communities. So, each individual doesn't need to know or should have the ability to do everything. It does sound like a fair answer but not so perfect I would argue.
If you consider some social creatures like ants or bees, each individual is made for a designated purpose from their birth. Their whole population of a colony is genetically controlled by a single queen if you think that way. What about humans? doesn't sound like it.
Another argument would be humans do not have such a hive behavior but their social behavior is different than that. Unlike a hive, the genetic details are passed along to their children by each individual. Still, humans can be trained for specific tasks, therefore the above problem doesn't really matter.
Again, it is a fair answer still with few loopholes. It is true for some of the social animals and humans before a couple of centuries ago. If there is are some specific tasks in the society, some people would be trained for that purpose and will be experts. If for some reason, one or all of the individuals who are performing this specific task dies, it can be replaceable by some other individuals with some sort of training and effort. Yes, this has been true for centuries of human societies, but is it really true now?
Within the last couple of centuries of this writing (2021 AD), humans have made such discoveries where they are extremely complex. Let's say for some reason, all of the computer scientists/engineers/scholars related to computer technology seize to exist suddenly. What would happen? Would it be possible for other individuals to understand and develop computer technology from the scratch? Well, if they had the information on how to do that, yeah definitely somebody would be able to refer the information and follow the same. If the information is not there anymore about a specific field, then arguably it would take them maybe a century of research and development to come back. Well, it seems it is not a matter of abilities now but a matter of information we can store, access, and understand.
Information has become super easy to access with the world wide web access. However, there can be matters of understanding them. Might take some time and several people to understand something from the beginning where they are not familiar with before.
Fact 2
If a group of humans isolated with limited resources, would they still live like social and civilized human beings? Maybe for some time, but after some point, their ancestral instincts would kick in and will bring back the animal within. Eventually, they would display the primitive behavior where the strongest individual survive.
Well, we can develop an interesting counterargument on it. What if the survival of the strongest always has been there and still is in human society? The strong will beat up the weak and get the food and other amenities by force. For the Weak, they would have to be good at something where the Strong is not good at getting done alone. Maybe growing crops or herding animals. So, the Strong would need the support of these Weak individuals to survive. Then the Strong would stop beating them up for getting the services in return. This is still true for most parts of the world where the groups are being controlled by pirates, militia, and whatnot.
When the same concept evolved with years and made things different by the economy, trading and money.
Conclusion
Still, humans are not civilized enough to put behind animal instincts.
Still, the survival of the strong takes place in human societies.
Human society consists of heterogeneous individuals.
Humans totally depend on storing and accessing information and learning them fast. Apparently, they have been producing information faster and faster but humans are not capable of learning them fast enough. Therefore very few individuals are providing the new advances to the human population (could be technological or cultural) and the rest of the individuals are just using them without any understanding of it (eg: computers, software, economy).
Finally, Humans are still evolving and apparently not fast enough as a community.
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