He opened the visor and grabbed on to his newly acquired “Selfish Gene” by Richard Dawkins. Written in 1977. From that day his life changed. He was introduced to the principles of evolutionary biology. The mind, our thoughts have the tendency to create a logical structure to what we understand, to explain it. The problem is that many times we fall victim to this need and produce erroneous models. For example, the first impression we have of a man obviously plays a pivotal role. This is an attempt from the brain to save its finite resources because of the need for countless other findings in a complex social environment such as the human. This, like many other brain processes, not necessarily perceives our logic, at least not in their entirety for reasons explained below. And not that we can not resist to it. Having this in mind he was trying to be pretentious to the ideas he intended to accept and on which to shape his behaviour.

For the first time he felt excessively covered. Apparently neither had he discovered the Higgs Boson nor had he solved all existential speculations within a few months. But he had found a fairly constant defined “corridor” for answers to countless “whies” that slowly through knowledge and implementation would lead to new answers. Frequently he was observing and he was observing as if the observation was accompanied by a small tag that was the explanation. A label that in the past was too often lacking. Or possibly he was seeing situations he would not perceive. That’s just because he was taught where to focus. He had started creating a path.

Evolutionary Theory

The evolutionary theory starts from a seemingly simple basis. The characteristics of how a new organization will be “launched”, how it will be, are determined by the so-called genes. Genes also determine the production of some proteins. Each gene confers a particular attribute. There exist genes for blue eyes, genes for cunning, genes for long legs et c. The ultimate purpose of each gene is to continue to exist. To achieve this it simply needs the organism to reproduce and leave fertile offspring. The more often a gene occurs in a population, the better for it. In short, everything called alive by humans is biologically a reproductive machine.

The important thing in this whole affair is that in order for a feature to continue to exist it must confer those traits able to favour the organism to reproduce and apparently to exist. If not, then over time the feature will certainly disappear and will dominate the population the features that are most appropriate for the organisms to manage to reproduce. That’s simply because the owners will have better features so the genes will proliferate faster when the other will be decreasing. All these processes take place over tens of thousands of generations.

Suppose that one day mankind invents basketball. Initially players with all different features will participate. They would be tall, short, with long arms, short arms, with a slow thinking, quick thinking, et c. After some time the managers of the teams discover that taller players are obviously more productive than the short ones. The teams, therefore, start recruiting tall players and dismiss the shorter ones. So the percentage of tall players rises relative to that of the shorter ones. Then the authorities find that taller players with quick thinking are more productive than the tall players with slow thinking. So they begin to choose players with the first of these characteristics over the latter. As a consequence, the tall players with quick thinking are increasing compared to the tall ones with slow thinking. Then the authorities find that taller players with quick thinking and good shots are more productive than tall players with quick thinking and bad shots. So likewise there is a tendency displayed towards the players with the first features and the players with the second features will tend to extinguish. So we would gradually end up with players with specific characteristics appropriate for the current data of basketball. Note that in evolution, if there is no reason there will not be any change in the characteristics. There are fish in Antarctica that have not shown changes in their genetic characteristics for over one million years. At the same time, evolutionary theory should not be confused with evolution, as lay thinking. Evolutionary theory is the change over time tending to the more adaptive, not towards the better or towards the worse. In evolution the last two concepts do not exist.

The evolutionary theory, then, may seem understandable in the beginning, but this analysis and its applications play a significant role in our daily lives and in history, psychology, nutrition and in every aspect you can imagine. Basically I do not think that there is any scientific sector that must first of all not be called evolutionary.

To apply it to people we have to take into account a basic principle. By studying our past as a species over the last million years and the conditions under which we have evolved, we can see what features we have inherited from our ancestors. So what features should our ancestors have possessed in order to manage to reproduce successfully in those conditions. Everyone ought to be proud that we carry the genes of an uncut chain of million ancestors who managed under conditions more difficult than ours to survive and reproduce. That was the first lesson. The possibilities are demonstrably more, much more than we can imagine. Just no one ever explained this to us. The reasons why are not for the moment.

Evolutionary Mismatch

The interesting thing about the human race is that it operates in an environment unsuitable for its characteristics. It’s almost as if you enforce to a frog not to dive in the water. This is called Evolutionary Mismatch. As we know, people began to live in cities, not more than 12000 years ago in Mesopotamia. Until then, since about 4 million years ago, that we know that the first biped, Lucy had appeared, people were living in nomadic hunter gatherer societies in the jungle. As mentioned above, an evolutionary change takes place at a depth of tens of thousands of generations, so the time we have been living in cities is a dot if our evolutionary history could be paralleled with a line. So in order to recognize the tendencies we have as organisms we need to look back at the palaeontological findings and investigate the needs our ancestors had so as to survive and reproduce in the jungle and consequently which characteristics were favoured in that environment.

What first of all Evolution means to us

Evolution could be seen as a philosophy for him. He understood how important it is to be able to adapt to the circumstances. About 99% of the species that have been identified on earth has been extinct. Only the exceptions managed to survive. The reason is obvious: They were more adaptable. Anyone who does not follow the signs of the times will pay.

The most adaptable species is humans. This species has never had much power or speed or lots of other weapons of any kind. But he had developed something important. He had massive brain shape relative to his body. And this issue should be better specified. Whilst part of the brain that has to do with analytical thinking and logic (what is measured by IQ and since recently was thought to be the only criterion for the intelligence of a human being) may be very large and very useful, for example for invention of weapons, the “key point”, however, was another.

Mankind knew how to cooperate amazingly and create complex social networks. The increase of the size of the brain seems to be going in proportion to the increase in the number of members in an average tribe and is not related to the invention of more complex weapons. The social interconnectedness seems to have been the reason why the species survived. The action of an evolutionarily successful team results in higher outcomes for each individual than if the individual was acting alone.

Slowly he started to understand the power of collaboration. Of the pack. It belongs to our most primitive nature. Just simple as that.

Importance of Emotions

Evolution also says something important. That we are primates, such as bonobos, chimpanzees, gorillas and baboons. The findings show that we share 97% -99% of the same genes, and we have a very old and common evolutionary past. It has been only 4 million years as we diversified as species, at least from bonobos and chimpanzees. This also comes in conjunction with the neuroscientific discoveries of later decades showing that we are beings with not as strong and as flawless logic as we’ve been told. Through studying he learned that our decisions have been taken much earlier than the logical part of the brain had recognised the situation. From the part related to emotions and we could in extremely simple words call it subconscious. In fact we live our life hypnotized by acting on the basis of characteristics that we have from birth, but also habituary behaviours. Every time we make a decision the mind makes a fast “scan” in the memory searching for previous similar experiences and in relation with the emotions we feel at that moment we behave. This process is done subconsciously, our logic does not interfere. There fits the: “Why I behaved like this there, I was wrong, how hadn’t I thought to behave somehow else!”. We just had not developed that character that we would like to have. We were not what we thought we were.

(there is not enough space so the rest can be found at http://lifestylescience.eu/introduction-to-evolution-and-practice/)

Evolution, Personal Development and Life Tips through Science. Topics such as Social Dynamics, Nutrition, Sexuality and Gymnastics, all for a Lifestyle on Maximum! Have a look http://www.lifestylescience.eu

Evolution, Personal Development and Life Tips through Science. Topics such as Social Dynamics, Nutrition, Sexuality and Gymnastics, all for a Lifestyle on Maximum! Have a look http://www.lifestylescience.eu

Author Bio: Evolution, Personal Development and Life Tips through Science. Topics such as Social Dynamics, Nutrition, Sexuality and Gymnastics, all for a Lifestyle on Maximum! Have a look http://www.lifestylescience.eu

Category: Education
Keywords: cooperate, evolution, mankind, neural pathways, reproduce