Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Drop us in a Jungle…

So, it’s raining, and it rained a lot. I’m not going to speak about the rain and the damage it caused and the traffic caused by the damage. There are hundreds of blogs and articles where you can read about that. But the heavy rain did get me thinking about something I was discussing with some friends of mine over the weekend.

You see, if this rainfall happened a few million years ago, few hundred people would have died because they weren’t strong enough to get to the high ground, climb a tree, or hold on to something while the waters poured around them. You see where this is going.

Natural selection, survival of the fittest, evolution (in a way). While harsh and definitely strict, it was natures way of getting rid of the weak individuals of a species. Since only the strong ones, the fast ones, the fit ones would survive, that means that only they would procreate, thus strengthening the species as a whole.

Right, so human beings survived till now, so it’s assumed that we are the descendants of the strongest of our species. Well yes, technically, but, and here’s my point, we have cheated natural selection.

Evolution and natural selection has first let the fit, fast and strong people to survive, the big cats and animals with the sharp teeth and claws, and then man looked at his clawless hands and teeth that couldn’t really damage anything bigger than a mouse and figured that if he wanted to live a bit more freely, he’d have to make some changes. And tools and weapons were created. And for the first time a clawless, not so strong, not so big creature took down a tiger, and ‘Natural Selection’ went “hold on a second…”

And the rest is history.

For example: We invented cars to help us travel further than we physically could. And here’s the thin, everyone could travel the same distance, in the same amount of time if your car was fast enough. So all of a sudden, its not the strength you had, but on what car you could buy, what equipment you could use. So now the weaker people can still survive.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy we manage to live with our elders longer. I’m just pointing out that today we don’t bother with keeping fit, or training to be fast, because we don’t need to. We have stretched our race to every part of the world and there have pushed aside even the strongest animal in that region with the use of our weapons and tools.

Natural Selection looked at what we’re doing and throwing it’s hands in the air gave up and concentrated on the other creatures.

Drop us in a jungle today, and although we might like to think that we might manage to survive and get through, but let’s face it, there in the land where Natural Selection is ruler, we’d be something’s meal within a period of two days max.

Just to show my point: anyone who’s watched the PIXAR film “WALL-E” has seen the overweight, lazy, unable to move human beings of the future, and if we get to the point where we don’t even need to walk anymore, don’t need to turn our heads to speak to anyone, that is how we’d all become.

Well, I say we… I mean our ancestors… We, (and I mean me) will hopefully continue living, and come to the end of our lives still strong, still fast, still agile and still looking damn sexy.

4 comments:

van :) said...

haha love it :) the ending is the cherry ;)

Charlene said...

First, you would have to find a jungle to test your assumption. Jungles aren't as easy to find on most continents now.

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
*pRiN(e$$* nOt Me!!! said...

Liked the way you expressed your thoughts but the thing is even today natural selection does take place,but instead of nature it's people and their "worldly laws" that decide the survival.
Now the strongest are the people with power and money.They aren't necessarily the fittest.Their chances of surviving is much more compared to poor people,especially poor of the third world country.